Confluent

by Jack-El49

Clark and Lois are the rock-steady power couple of the comic book universe. But both traveled very different paths that shaped them, helped define their hopes and dreams of finding love, and brought them into each other's arms. In three parts, Confluent tells their stories from a different perspective before and after they met, beginning with their teenage years.

18. Part Two, Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Metropolis – 2017

"Hey, I just got a tip from a source at MPD," John Corben told Lois. "There was a break-in over the holidays at a warehouse on Hobb's River. A whole warehouse full of stuff was cleaned out and it has the brass at MPD on edge but they're being very tight-lipped about it. Do you know where that is?"

"Yep," Lois replied without looking up from her monitor.

Corben continued. "According to my source, it was a pretty sophisticated burglary and the stuff that was in there was allegedly priceless."

"Sounds like your source was heavy into the spirits over the holidays and I don't mean just Christmas spirit. When it comes to the warehouses along the riverfront, 'worthless' may be more accurate to describe what they contain than 'priceless'," Lois quipped.

"I guess you can't put a price tag on worthless crap either," Corben chuckled, "but then why would you bother storing worthless shit in a secured warehouse? The only thing left was some piece of equipment that was damaged or inoperable, probably too big to haul out. And why would someone hire a professional team to steal whatever was in there if it was worthless?"

Lois rolled her eyes. "If only there was a publicly funded organization that was trained to find answers to questions like that?"

"So, you don't think it's worth following up on?" He waited but then added, "In my experience, it's weird cases like this that often turn into big stories. Since I'm still learning how you function here, would you run with something like this or talk to Perry first?"

"I'd run with it," Lois began, and then added, "I run to the nearest rookie I could find and dump it on them to waste their time and not mine." She looked up from her computer screen. "But if you think it's worth your time and you don't have a deadline approaching, go ahead and check it if you want. And around here, if it's something big or something that involves someone big, then you got to get Perry's blessing first. Otherwise, snoop around, turn some rocks over, and see if it's newsworthy. If you think it is, brief Perry in the morning or when you get back if you're worried about the Star scooping us."

He thought about it. "I think I'll go talk to my source at MPD. Once I'm done, would you meet for lunch so I could get your take on it if I think it's something worth looking into? That is unless you have something pressing that you're working on."

There was something she was working on, but it had nothing to do with her job.

Lois had spent the better part of the holiday season alone and lonely. After her evening with Jose Delgado on the 23rd of December, she went home glad that she had invited him and even more glad that he had found a diversion that pulled him away before the evening was out.

To be fair, Jose was a gentleman, and he was handsome and, to use Cat's analogy, built like a brick house. But there was something about the guy that bored and even annoyed her. He seemed a little self-righteous and a little too humble to be authentic. She knew heroes who were humble from her life around military men. These were actual heroes, guys and gals who faced an enemy with weapons designed to kill them and they performed their jobs without regard for their own lives in pursuit of a larger ideal. Now maybe Jose did that but to her, his humility seemed a bit self-serving. To Lois, Jose seemed like a powerful man who self-deprecates in public but in private, believes he's far superior to others and uses his power to assert his sense of superiority. She developed that opinion when he first interacted with the guy at the check-in desk, Clark Kent. He bordered on rude, and she was a bit embarrassed by it. Later on, his interaction with Cat Grant helped further cement her opinion of him.

It was not that he was a bad guy, but up close, he just was not the man he appeared to be to everyone else. Her father had a saying that she thought fit Jose perfectly. It was "he looks good on the outside but cut him open and he doesn't smell so good on the inside". That was her take on Jose Delgado.

The only regret she had from that evening was not finding out more about Clark Kent, the Met U quarterback that she had shared a moment with. It was a peculiar moment, something that had never before happened in her life. Just making eye contact with him when they were checking in and then later when he appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, to intervene on her behalf, she felt something and could not explain it. The moments were vexing her. It was not love, not lust, not infatuation, and when she examined it, the only word she could find to describe the feeling she experienced was a powerful sense of need.

Need for what, she had no idea. Was the need to be close to him or to steer clear of him? Was the need to protect him somehow or to be protected by him? Was the need to help him in some way or for him to help her, although unless it was a Farmer's Almanac interpretation or a signed football, she had no idea what he could help her with. Nonetheless, the universe was telling Lois something about Clark Kent and she was listening but could not understand what it was saying.

If anything, that was the story she wanted to pursue on her own time. It gnawed at her, particularly over the holidays when she sat alone in her apartment and only got a text from her dad wishing her a Merry Christmas. She replayed the two scenes in her mind at least a hundred times and each time, she felt a sense of destiny that involved him in some way.

Lois asked Steve Lombard about him. Normally, Lombard would have wanted to know why she was interested in him. Inevitably, there would have been 'the Lombard quid pro quo' to contend with but Steve was ashamed of the way he had acted at the party, and he was anxious to make amends.

Steve had interviewed Clark Kent after the Outback Bowl, an exciting game that Met U lost by one point but beat the Vegas spread by four and a half points. All he could tell Lois was that Kent seemed to be a genuinely decent guy who showed great sportsmanship and humility, even in the face of defeat. Unfortunately, he turned up no more information than she had amassed over the entire holiday season. Lois had his Met U football stats, some write ups from the Smallville Ledger, action photos taken during high school and college football games, and some thumbnail photos of him from the high school yearbook at Smallville High School in Smallville, Kansas. The name of the town made her snort, but there was something about him that had gotten under her skin and all it took was eye contact. She was almost certain that, judging by his immediate reaction, he felt it as well.

Corben leaned over from his desk. "What are you working on? Anything I can help with?"

"Nope," she replied and snapped off her computer monitor. She swiveled in her chair. "So, before I agree to meet you for lunch, tell me more about this tip you got. When did this big burglary occur and why haven't we heard about it before now?"

"That's the thing. The police are sure it was a professional job and since no one had been to the warehouse for almost a month, the date range is sometime between December 19th and January 14th."

"And there's no word on what was taken or who owned it?"

Corben nodded. "I got a few names. One's a company and some of the company hierarchy but among them is one you'll recognize, Lex Luthor."

"Lex?"

"Yeah, well according to my source," John began, "Lex Luthor is somehow connected with the stuff that was stolen or with the warehouse or something. He's on the periphery of the issue but connected." Corben leafed through his notes. "Yeah, here it is. The company who had the items stored in the warehouse is a subsidiary of LexCorp." He looked at Lois. "That's how he's connected."

She rolled her eyes. "About everything in Metropolis is a subsidiary of LexCorp. Probably the warehouse is owned by a subsidiary of LexCorp too," Lois remarked. "That's not much of a connection."

"And I didn't think so either," Corben said. "But if it was stuff that directly or indirectly belonged to Lex Luthor, he's probably pretty pissed off about it."

The angle with Lex Luthor being connected made the story a little more appealing to Lois. "Maybe I'll tag along with you on this after all. I can get a quote directly from Luthor if we need it."

"A quote from Luthor? I've always heard that Luthor didn't give interviews or quotes to reporters."

"He'll give one to me," she replied. "Lex and I have an understanding. I know that he's better insulated than a Yeti cooler when it comes to illegal activities. He knows it too, so he has little to fear in that regard. He also knows that I will be fair and not try to tilt an article against him without a good reason. Because of that, he'll work with me."

Corben smiled and said nothing, begging Lois to ask him.

"What are you smiling at? That Lex Luthor's name is connected here?"

"No. I think it's amusing that you think so highly of Lex Luthor. The rest of the Daily Planet's coverage of him would seem to imply you're alone in your opinion."

"Look, Lex is a businessman, first and foremost. Some people despise him because his success dwarfs their accomplishments or highlights their failures, some don't like his methods, and some just don't think any one man should possess the wealth that he does."

She leaned forward in her chair. "I've talked to him. Lex is focused on his businesses and how to improve upon them for his shareholders and his own bottom line. I don't begrudge him that. Every other billionaire does the same thing. He does donate large sums of money to Metropolis and other charities so it's not like he's hoarding his wealth.

"At least he's not like most of those Davos creeps, running around ordering people to take vaccines, or limit the size of their families, or eat bugs instead of beef because of climate change while they dine on filet, or anoint themselves a world leader and begin acting like a master of the universe, lecturing others on subjects they have no practical experience or scientific background in.

"So yeah, I think highly of him for those reasons. But do I think he's the squeaky-clean philanthropist that has Metropolis and its welfare first and foremost in every decision he makes? Of course not. But that's not his role. He's a businessman, not the mayor of Metropolis." She took a breath and realized she was on a rant, so she concluded. "More people in this building need to figure that out."

Corben said nothing and Lois thought for a moment. "If the stuff was indeed priceless, why would there be no word on the street that sources would be begging to get paid for? It's almost as if whoever the victim was doesn't want the word out." Corben agreed with her.

She shrugged. "We'll get Perry's approval since the story had a Lex Luthor angle," she concluded.

It had been a slow week for news and when John and Lois briefed Perry on the story, he greenlit their pursuit of it. The fact it was a slow news week helped. They both knew that it could take lots of time and effort to find out what was stored in the ramshackle warehouse district along the riverfront and why it was stored there.

"So, shall we investigate together as a team or separately and compare notes?" John asked.

"As a team, on this one at least." She mulled the consequences of John Corben meeting her sources at MPD and figured her most valuable one, Maggie Sawyer, was not someone Corben could influence or lure away from her behind her back. Corben was not her type. "I have some connections at MPD as well. We can check what my source might know about this after talking to yours. On the way back, we'll swing by the riverfront so you can see the area," she added.

After a few phone calls to confirm their availability, Lois and John headed out to MPD headquarters.

"So tell me again," John began, "how do you take a report on stolen property that is listed as 'priceless articles' yet there are no physical descriptions, photos, or nomenclature for the property? Don't you list stolen property of ultra-high value on NCIC messages or something? 'Items of cultural significance' is a rather imprecise description, don't you think? Unless you employ a team of anthropologists here, I don't know how this is going to help you solve this case."

"Or does anyone even care if it is solved?" Lois questioned. "Is this just an insurance scam or something?"

"The stolen goods were certified authentic by some respected professor of anthropology. Their value was never established through an appraisal though. So, although they were authentic relics of some sort, they were not appraised and no legitimate insurance company would ever cover a loss without one," Detective Nat Sellers told John and Lois.

"No surveillance video?" John asked.

"Yeah. There were six cameras going twenty-four, seven but none of them captured a thing."

"Nothing?" Lois exclaimed. "What period of time do the recordings cover?"

"Thirty days," Sellers replied, "On the 31st day, it records over top of the oldest day." He looked at John. "But the warehouse was inventoried by a man named Alvin Mickler on December 19th. He said everything was there and I believe him since he's on the hook for warehouse operations. He's the last guy who would want to this stuff to disappear and has no incentive to lie."

"Does Mickler live around here?" Lois asked.

"He does," Sellers replied and showed John the sheet with Mickler's address and phone number on it. "He's the one who made the original complaint. He discovered it on January 14th and reported it on the 16th." The officer paused and added, "He waited to confirm that there was no pickup he was unaware of before he reported the burglary."

"Did he say who he confirmed it with?" John asked.

"ASC Salvage and Recovery, Inc. They apparently stored the items in the warehouse and Mickler managed them."

"Is that the company that is a subsidiary of LexCorp?" Lois asked and Sellers nodded. She looked at John. "We need to pay them a visit. I'm kind of intrigued by the lack of specificity in the stolen cultural items."

"Me too. We're not stepping on toes nosing around this one, are we?" John asked.

Nat shrugged. "I don't think so. You can see that the complaint lacks specificity on the lost items, so we don't have much to go on. These types of reports are usually made to satisfy insurance requirements anyway. But because there's a connection to Luthor, the brass is jumpy."

Corben thanked Nat Sellers and motioned Lois into the hallway. "If the cops aren't interested in this, why should we bother?"

She shrugged. "I had the same thought. But, since there is a Lex Luthor angle, even a vague one, let's talk to my source before we pull the plug on this one." Corben consented and they headed to Maggie Sawyer's office. Lois knocked on the door and Maggie invited them in. "Hi, Lois. Happy New Year…belated."

"You too," Lois replied. "Maggie, this is John Corben. He's recently been hired at Planet and I'm showing him around." Maggie and John shook hands. "I was wondering if you had any insights on the burglary at the riverfront warehouse over the Christmas holiday. Do you know anything about it?"

Maggie looked around and closed her door. "Have a seat." Her clandestine response immediately piqued Lois's interest. "There is something very wrong about all of it and there's more to the story than is being told." She sat behind her desk and opened a drawer, extracted a file folder, and opened it. "On the surface, this is just an innocuous burglary of a rundown warehouse. Reportedly, priceless articles were stolen but no one wants to say what those articles were, officially." She spread a few grainy photos out on the desk. "These are antiquities from somewhere and the salvage company that 'found them'," she said, using air quotes, "we believe purposely plundered a cultural heritage site, 'by accident'," again using air quotes. "Now this would have been a steep fine, and perhaps a loss of their operating license, if they had not begun selling the artifacts to wealthy collectors on the deep web."

"You don't know where the artifacts are from?" Corben asked.

"Not yet. No cultural group has reported the loss." Maggie saw Lois frowning. "Think of it as an early American graveyard that someone stumbles on in the woods somewhere. Perhaps all the descendants are dead or untraceable but that doesn't give anyone free license to plunder the graves. This is the same thing only it's not graves but antiquities connected to a specific culture."

"Salvage company," Lois began. "Does that lead you to believe that these are from some underwater culture or civilization, like the stories about Atlantis?"

"Believe it or not, we're leaning in that direction."

"Does any of this have anything to do with Lex Luthor?" Corben asked.

Maggie shifted uncomfortably. "Luthor ordered the salvage job. We don't know what he ordered it for because we need to get our shit together before we talk to him. But we're doing a discreet investigation that won't be public at all."

"Is there any problem with us poking around for a story?" Lois asked

Maggie winced. "Well, if you find there's a story, don't publish until we talk, okay? You don't want to compromise our investigation."

She nodded. "No problem. I'll pass along to you any information we collect as well," Lois replied. "Any other concerns?"

Maggie looked grave. "Only that there might be a connection between the guy who was overseeing the warehouse and someone in the MPD. We aren't sure but there seems to be a line of communication with the guy and one or two MPD officers." She hesitated but added, "We're not convinced that there is any criminality involved but whenever a connection with the police is present, it makes the whole investigation even more touchy."

"The guy that did the monitoring?" Corben asked.

"His name is Alvin Mickler. He had live camera and alarm feeds to his home from the security company and monitored them himself. He's an independent contractor for the salvage company."

"That's weird," Lois replied. "The salvage company hired a guy to watch security cameras and respond to any intrusion alarms? If that's a LexCorp company, why didn't they use LexCorp security to monitor them?"

"Yeah," Maggie said. "Your guess is as good as mine why the salvage company elected not to use LexCorp's internal security. The security company itself doesn't monitor their cameras. They host a site that clients can have their own security people do the monitoring."

"So do you think Mickler is involved?" John asked. "I mean, he could have just ignored the alarms or movement on the cameras."

"Anything is possible but if the stolen stuff was priceless and it was his job to monitor it, why report it? Why not just disappear with whoever emptied the warehouse? Why hang around and be at the center of this shitshow?" Corben and Lane said nothing. "That's my take but, as I said, anything is possible."

They thanked Maggie and left. After they exited the station, Corben said, "Let's pay Mickler a visit. He might help figure out whether there's anything worth spending our time on in this whole thing, you know?"

"I was thinking the same thing," Lois said.

Within a half hour of leaving MPD, Lane and Corben were knocking on Alvin Mickler's front door. They waited, knocked again and heard nothing. Lois caught movement of a drape at the corner of the window nearest the door. "Mr. Mickler, this is Lois Lane from the Daily Planet. We'd like to talk to you about your complaint."

A few seconds passed and the deadbolt was disengaged, and the door cracked open until the door chain stopped it. Half the face of a heavy set, balding man could be seen in the cracked open door. "Do you have identification?" he asked.

"Of course," Lois replied, and John dug out his Daily Planet credentials as Lois dug hers out. "We just want to talk to you about the burglary you reported if you have a few minutes."

Satisfied, the door closed, and the sound of a chain lock being slid was heard. Mickler opened the door. "Come in, please," he said and ushered them in. He shut the door, engaged the deadbolt and the chain. "Come sit down," he said and motioned them to a couch in a small living room-dining room space. The room was dark due to the drawn drapes but enough light filtered through to augment the dim overhead light he had on.

"You're Alvin Mickler?" John confirmed.

"Yes," Mickler replied. "I'm the one who made the report on the burglary at the riverfront warehouse." He looked nervously back and forth at each of them.

"We had a few questions that we thought you could help us with to understand why the burglary was never made public by MPD and if there was something we can find that might be helpful to them," Lois began. "Let's start at the beginning, if you don't mind." She smiled disarmingly. "Tell us everything you think might be helpful, starting with when you began managing the contents of the warehouse."

Alvin Mickler told them he had been under contract with ASC Salvage and Recovery for over six months. He managed access to the warehouse by monitoring the intrusion alarms and the security cameras. In the six months he was managing it, there had been no breaches of security at all. Occasionally, some of the 'druggies' tried to get in out of the rain or cold but the security systems were top notch and when there was any significant rattling of the doors, motion sensors alerted him and he would call the police. He said he was last in the warehouse on December 19th and everything was in order. Then, on the 14th of January, he went to do a normal monthly visit and the warehouse was empty.

"What was in the warehouse? The police said you reported the items as being priceless. Is that correct?" Lois asked.

"That's what I reported but I have no idea what was in there. There were 116 sealed and numbered crates. There were also some unsealed wooden boxes containing old carved stone figures and things like that." Mickler's eyes shifted nervously between Lois and John.

"So how do you know they were valuable…priceless," John pressed.

"ASC Salvage told me that they were. In the seven months I've been managing the warehouse access, the only things I've ever seen were a few of the items in the open boxes that I told you about, stone figures, old objects like ancient Greek pitchers and urns."

"And you never saw anyone try to get in?" Corben pressed harder and Lois put her hand on his forearm.

"What Mr. Corben is asking is you've said druggies try to get in. Is there anyone else you've ever seen trying to get in?" Lois gave Corben a glance to imply he needed to lighten up.

Mickler shook his head. "Not really. People occasionally test doors. It's like a habit or trait of some people, I guess. But you can tell, they aren't trying to break in. They simply are testing to see if doors to warehouses are locked up. Sometimes they see the cameras and that triggers that response. You'd be surprised how often that happens."

"And you've watched the video for the last thirty days, right?" Lois asked.

"Yes," Mickler replied, "and there's nothing. Like I said, a couple of druggies and dealers, hookers at night, maybe some other slimy things going on but no one trying to get in."

"No gaps or missing footage in the video feed?" Corben asked.

"No," Alvin replied. "The MPD supposedly went to the security company to get a copy of the security footage after they came to take the report. But believe me, if anyone had tried breaking in, alarms would have gone off in the house and on my phone," he said, holding up his cellular phone. "I would have called the police immediately."

Lois glanced around the small home. "You live here alone, Mr. Mickler?" Alvin nodded that he did. "So, no one else would have been here if an alarm sounded and then silenced it, right?"

"That's right. No one else lives here. No one even visits." That declaration did not surprise Lois. Mickler looked and sounded like a man who had reached the end of his usefulness and yet she doubted he was even in his 50's yet.

"Why are you so nervous, Mr. Mickler?" John asked.

Mickler almost hyperventilated. "Wouldn't you be if you were responsible for protecting priceless property that was stolen?"

"Not unless I was connected to the burglars in some way," Corben replied, glowering.

"What are you implying? Maybe you need to leave!" Mickler grew defensive and angry. "Please leave," he said.

"Mr. Mickler," Lois began, "before we leave, can you show me the surveillance monitor you have? I'd just like to understand how it is set up. Would that be okay?"

Mickler calmed down a bit. "I'll show you. Mr. Corben can remain here in the living room." He escorted Lois to a spare bedroom that had a large screen monitor mounted on the wall, a recliner, a table and chair, a computer sitting on the floor, and a square black electronic cube sitting next to the computer.

"Wow! This is impressive," she said, attempting to smooth over his irritation with Corben. "What's that?" Lois asked, pointing at the cube.

"It's a network attached storage device, Miss Lane. It records the video stream."

"That's the thing that records it for 30 days, right?"

"No," Mickler replied. "The 30-day recordings are made and kept by Superior Security Services. On day 31, it records over the 1st day." He paused and looked at the device. "The MPD doesn't need what's on there. The recording at Superior Security is all they need. It covers before and after the break in occurred."

Lois looked at Mickler with a serious look. "Is there anything on the recording you have that you wouldn't want the police to see, Alvin? Is that why you didn't give police these recordings?"

Mickler was taken aback by the abruptness of Lois's demeanor change. "No!" He grew red in the face. "I have been accused of being a part of this burglary by the police and even by some at ASC. These are my only protection against being treated like a criminal in all of this. Do you think I'd want to trust them with the MPD and suddenly, they come up missing? Would you, Miss Lane?"

"That's a good point, Alvin," Lois said. "I just had to ask the question. So, if they are stored on that storage thingy, it is probably on a hard drive, right?"

"Multiple hard drives, Miss Lane," Alvin replied, calmer now.

"Could you make a digital copy of like, I don't know, the last couple months? I would like to look at them. You know, a fresh set of eyes? Maybe I can help back you up by doing so," she offered.

"You would do that?" Mickler asked.

"Of course. The truth is all I'm interested in. If others begin to spin this story in a way that accuses you of wrong-doing and I know differently, then I'm your backup."

"Okay," he said, warily. "The recordings are time-lapsed so I can put a lot on the thumb drive that you can view by plugging it into a USB port on your computer." Lois smiled, mildly happy he explained that. "Wait. It will only take about 6 minutes," he added. Lois waited as Alvin filled up a 128 gigabyte USB drive with a digital recording of security footage stretching back to the week before Halloween. He gave it to Lois, and she stuck it in her purse. "Your protection," she said, patting her purse and smiling.

After leaving Mickler's home, Lois chided Corben over his approach. "Why were you badgering the guy? You almost screwed the pooch in there, John. Lighten up a bit."

"Listen," he started, "I appreciate you guiding me through the Daily Planet routines, but I've been doing this for a long time, Lois. I know when someone is feeding me half-truths. That fat-ass was being evasive, and I am not going to waste time getting the runaround from that doughboy.

"Respectfully, I don't need your advice on dealing with lying witnesses. Pressing witnesses is my technique and I've been pretty successful over the last 16 years doing it my way." He was silent for a moment and then added, "So, where are we going to go for lunch?"

"The Metro Deli," she replied flatly. "I'll grab a sandwich and walk back to the office."

"You don't want to sit and just eat there? I thought we could talk about our story."

"Our story? No, your story," Lois replied. "I'll tag along if you like but this is your story and I'll leave it to you to decide if or when you want me to accompany you. In the meantime, I've got other things I should start looking into."

"Okay," Corben said, clearly getting the message.

Lois grabbed her hot roast beef and cheddar sandwich and walked the two and a half blocks to the Daily Planet and down to the City Desk bullpen, pulled out her sandwich and ate. She slipped the USB drive out of her purse and plugged it in and began watching the videotapes. She played it at 4x speed, stopping only when she saw activity around the warehouse. After half an hour of watching the video feeds, she realized that she had only seen less than six time-lapsed hours of one day of video. "This is ridiculous," she said to herself. How am I ever going to watch all of this?

She took out a notepad and began making notes. It began when Mickler stated he found the warehouse emptied of the valuable items, January 14th. She then added the next day of significance, December 19th. About four weeks, she thought. Every 4 weeks or so was his schedule. She pushed the cursor along the video program to the very end, the 16th of January, then began to back it up manually until she reached the 14th of January. She played it at regular speed dragging the cursor ahead in time until she found Mickler at the warehouse at roughly 9 AM on the time stamp. Lois drew the cursor back until she hit on the 19th of December. She played it until she saw Mickler visit the warehouse. Again, roughly 9 AM on the 19th. A creature of habit, she thought and noted it on her notepad.

Lois manually moved the cursor, watching the date stamp. She concluded that whoever broke in did so at night. Beginning the night of December 19th, she sped through segments of the video, realizing that whoever broke in and unloaded the warehouse took a few hours to do it. So, she stopped intermittently to look at the video for two minutes at 4x speed every two hours during the hours of darkness. She would then race ahead to the next two-hour segment and watch for two minutes. She repeated that process until it was light and then she would advance the recording to the hours of darkness again.

So each day took roughly ten minutes to review, six two-hour segments for watched for two minutes. On the sixth day she viewed, she caught an anomaly in the time stamp. It began on the 23rd at 7 PM, then at 9 PM, then at 11 PM, the date stamp showed the 22nd. She adjusted the cursor and checked to make sure she had not moved the cursor incorrectly. But again, the picture did not alter drastically but the date jumped from the 23rd back to the 22nd. She moved it to past midnight, and it reflected the 23rd. Moving it to past 2 AM, it reflected the 24th. She jotted the anomaly down and then took a break to think the puzzle through.

It did not take long for Lois to figure out that a prerecorded segment of time had been inserted into the security feed. She fiddled with the cursor to determine exactly when on December 23rd the security feed was altered. She manually moved the cursor to 9 PM and then played the video at 4x speed and at 9:07 PM, the feed jumped to reflect the 22nd of December. She jotted the time down. She found that the pre-recorded patch lasted five hours and was removed at 2:07 AM on the 24th. Bingo! she thought. Between 9:07 on the 23rd and 2:07 on the 24th, that's when it happened.

She pulled the USB out and stuffed it back in her purse. Picking up her phone, she dialed Maggie Sawyer's number. "Hey, this is Lois," she said when Maggie answered. "We talked to Mickler and he gave me a copy of the video feed. I think I found the time period when the place was robbed."

"Burgled or burglarized, you mean?" Sawyer teased.

"Huh?"

"Never mind. When, Lois?"

"It's a five-hour window between about 9:07 PM on the 23rd and 2:07 AM on the 24th. It's subtle but there's a pre-recorded patch on the feeds from the night before. Watch the date stamp and you'll see the change."

"Does it show anything?"

"No, but I'll bet if there are other security cameras around, they picked something up. If there are cameras mounted on other warehouses, will they let you watch them or make copies of that time period?" Lois felt validated by the discovery.

"They should. I'll have one of my knuckleheads go check it out and let you know what they come up with. Good work, Lane," Maggie said. "You'll make a good detective one of these days!"

Corben returned. He seemed a bit aloof, and Lois attributed that to her subtle rebuke of his interviewing methods. It did not surprise her, but it did annoy her. If the man was that thin-skinned, did he not realize how his aggressiveness was being received? "How'd it go?" Lois asked, wondering if he'd even give her a response.

"Not great. They had lawyered up when the police started asking questions about the contents of the warehouse and won't talk to the media."

"So, what's next? Going for it on fourth down or are you going to punt?"

John smiled. "There's a story here but I'm beginning to think it has less to do with the burglary and more to do with what was stolen and where it came from. They are being so tight-lipped." He paused and looked at Lois. "It was Mickler, not the salvage company, that reported the burglary. They are the victims and yet they aren't cooperating. Why? That's the question that is plaguing me."

"Isn't pretty clear that they don't want the police to know what was stolen? And because they don't want that, it's also pretty clear that they got the stuff illegally."

Corben nodded. "That was pretty evident when I visited them." He paused. "Hey, is that offer to talk to Luthor still on the table?"

"Of course," Lois replied. "If you want me to talk to Lex, I'll give him a call. Just tell me what you want to know. I assume it's what he had the salvage company doing, right?"

"Right," John replied. "And where were they doing it? I don't know if that will make anything clearer or not but who knows?"

The next morning, Lois waited until John Corben arrived before she called LexCorp. "Good morning. LexCorp Industries. This is Michelle speaking. How can I help you today?"

"Good morning, Michelle. This is Lois Lane from the Daily Planet. Would Lex be available today to speak with me? I just have a couple of quick questions for him."

"One moment, Miss Lane. I'll find out for you." The phone began playing some Claude Debussy while Lois was on hold. Michelle came back on the line. "If you can hold for a few moments, Mr. Luthor will take your call."

"That's great. I'll hold. But I have to tell you, Michelle, that is really snoozer music you've got there! I can suggest some great 80's power ballads you should consider. They won't put your callers to sleep."

There was a slight chuckle. "Perhaps that would be something to suggest to Mr. Luthor when you speak to him. I am just a secretary here."

"Will do, Michelle. And hey, you're more than just a secretary. Most of these types couldn't find their way out of the building without people like you. In fact, when I…"

"Miss Lane…Lois, this is Lex," Luthor broke in. "To what do I owe the pleasure of speaking with you today?"

"Hi Lex, a belated Happy New Year to you. I have just a couple of quick questions that maybe you could help me with."

Lois learned from Lex that a LexCorp exploration sub had sunk in the Gulf of Mexico just north of the waters between Key West and the Dry Tortugas towards the end of last summer. The sub was an unmanned vehicle that inspected and recorded the condition of undersea communication and power cables. LexCorp had lost track of its exact location before realizing it had malfunctioned and sunk. The salvage company had to search for it, and then recovered it and returned to Metropolis. At some point, his engineers were going to make repairs and replace malfunctioning parts, but they had not gotten around to it due to higher priority tasks.

"So, when will you have dinner with me, Lois?" Lex asked. "I plan to be in town for the next couple of months. Perhaps we could dine at the Luthor mansion, and I can show you around."

Lois thought about it. "I'd like that Lex. Let me look at what's on my plate and I'll give Michelle a couple of dates, if that would be okay?"

"Perfect!" Lex replied, with an uncharacteristic tone of excitement in his reply. "We'll take the corporate helicopter there. It will be nice, and Lois, it will just be dinner."

She smiled. "That sounds really nice, Lex. I look forward to it. I'll get with Michelle sometime today and give her some dates. We'll talk soon." She hung up and Corben just stared at her. "What?"

"Did you just make plans with Lex Luthor?"

"Yes," Lois replied and stared back.

"Lex Luthor, the billionaire?" he confirmed.

"You know another Lex Luthor?" she replied.

"Like social plans?" Lois nodded nonchalantly. "Just like that? Holy shit!" he exclaimed, slack jawed.

"And that surprises you, why? Everyone knows Lois Lane is amazing and Lex knows that time spent with Lois Lane is time well spent," she said, wagging her head, then smirking.

She then continued by filling him in on what Lex had said and John Corben concluded that the salvage company had found the antiquities during their search and recovery operation. He surmised they had plundered the site without notifying the federal government. What they were doing with the plundered treasure was unclear but there was no other plausible explanation. "Why else keep the details on the stolen property so vague? Maybe they staged the burglary to throw off others who might have known about the things they retrieved."

"That all sounds very plausible," Lois agreed. "So, what's your next move?"

"I've kind of hit the wall," John replied. "I can't get any more out of the MPD, I can't get any more out of Mickler, and I can't get any more out of ASC Salvage. Hell, I can't even accurately describe what was taken or even when it happened."

Lois turned back to her computer. "Which is why MPD hasn't done anything. Mickler seems like an uncooperative complainant since he won't give details. They suspect it might all be for insurance purposes and don't want to waste resources on it. I can't say that I blame them." She paused and Corben seemed frustrated by the whole issue. "Look," she said, "I'll go see Maggie Sawyer before I head home tonight. Maybe she was holding back because you were there. If there's anything else, I'll let you know in the morning."

After lunch, she told Perry she was going to MPD to see if anything good came in that she could build a story around. "What about that warehouse burglary you and John were working on?"

"John is working on it; it was never my story to begin with. He dug it up. I just offered to help him out since Lex's name was connected to it."

Perry looked at her unconvinced. "You backed off? What happened, did you two hit a wall because I know if there was still a story there, you'd want your name attached to it?" Lois looked exasperated. "And don't tell my you were just being a good team player," her editor warned. "I know better than that."

She huffed. "Yes. The story he's after is a nothingburger, an insurance scam at best." Perry frowned and Lois held her hand up. "I've tried to tell him from the start it was a dud but he's the veteran reporter. He doesn't need my advice and he's made that clear."

Perry growled an undistinguishable comment and Lois headed for the door. "I'll see you in the morning, Chief."

Twenty minutes later, she was entering the MPD station. Lois had called Maggie to make sure she was around and to grease the wheel to let her past the irascible sergeant at the desk. When she arrived, the cranky sergeant was not on duty and the desk sergeant was a 30-something man with a pleasant demeanor. "Can I help you, Miss?"

"Lois Lane, Daily Planet, to see Detective Sawyer," Lois said.

"Ah yes. You know the way, right? When you hear the door buzz, go through," the younger sergeant told her.

"What about a name badge?"

"We mostly know who you are and only those few who don't will shoot you on sight." He grinned. "So, just stay close to Detective Sawyer while you're back there."

Lois smiled. She liked this guy. "You got it, Sarge," she replied and moved to the door, waiting for it to buzz. She walked down the short hall, into the small bullpen, and to Maggie's office. She knocked on the door frame.

"Come in, Lois," Maggie said. "Got anything more for me?"

"I talked with Lex Luthor this morning. He said the salvage company was retrieving an unmanned submarine that went missing north for the Florida Keys in the Gulf of Mexico. The salvage company wouldn't comment on the operation and in fact, hit my counterpart with the lawyer card."

"Jesus!" Maggie groaned. "I hate that."

"You find out anything else?" Lois asked.

"In fact I did. My knuckleheads went out and got copies of three security videos taken that night." She shoved a USB drive into her computer and pulled up the video player. "You were so spot on about the time it occurred, I should put you on a polygraph. Look."

The videos showed the warehouse from three different angles but all of the angles were front facing, none captured any useful footage on the river side of the warehouse. However, from the three videos, you could see the lights come on in the warehouse and then go off approximately two hours later. One video caught the glimpse of a grainy image of a fairly large boat exiting the riverfront warehouse dock area and heading toward Metropolis Bay. Two of the videos, however, caught the image of a young lady wearing a fancy dress and heavy jacket coming from behind the river side of the row of warehouses and standing for about ten minutes until a car picked her up. The lighting was dim and the image was not great because of it but it was enough to match a known identity. Maggie indicated they had no known mug shots she matched.

"A hooker?" Lois asked.

"Probably," Maggie replied. "We checked her as best we could against previous mug shots. If she's a hooker, she's new. If she isn't, she's an idiot hanging around there at night. Particularly that night."

"Why that night?"

"There was a lot of gang activity that night. In fact, it started near the warehouses and spilled over to Centennial Park." Maggie looked at Lois. "That night was FUBAR. The oncoming shift was tied up for hours with gangbangers and thugs."

"Almost as if it was a diversion, right?" Lois posed and Maggie nodded.

"This was more professional and organized than we originally suspected. Once we realized that the whole night was orchestrated the way it was, we knew that the antiquities stored in that warehouse were extremely valuable."

Lois looked back at the woman in the video. "How long are the lights on?"

"One hour, fifty-two minutes," Sawyer replied. "In that time, the burglars stole everything the salvage company put in there, minus the small inoperable submarine. They turned out the lights and even put padlocks back on the two rear rollup doors before they left to conceal the fact they had been in there." She paused. "These guys were good."

"Any efforts planned to identify the hooker?" Lois asked. "She probably saw the thieves since she came out from the waterfront side."

"Not unless we get something to point us to a someone. Like I said before, she doesn't match up with anyone on our mug shots and we ran her through the state driver's license database too, looking for matches. We didn't turn up anything."

"Well, thanks," Lois said. "I thought I'd check. Do you mind making me a copy of those videos?"

"Sure," Maggie replied. "They aren't evidence of anything so you're more than welcome to them." She copied the videos onto the computer desktop and then back onto a fresh USB drive and handed it to Lois. "Here."

"Thanks Maggie," Lois said. "Maybe we can grab lunch sometime this week."

"I'd like that," Sawyer replied and followed Lois to the exit. "I'll look forward to talking to you later. Take it easy, Lois."

When Lois got home, she first popped the USB from Maggie into her laptop. She stared at the image, enlarging it to the point where the clearest picture of the woman was visible without pixelating the image. She took a screenshot and removed the USB drive and inserted the one from Mickler. Before playing it, she pasted the screenshot of the young woman onto a paint program that she kept collapsed.

Beginning at the earliest date, Lois watched ten seconds of video for every five minutes, using the rationale that people walking along the riverfront would come into view and remain there for at least five minutes as they walked. After that, they were beyond the range of the cameras. So, Lois could watch one half hour of video every minute, meaning she could watch all daytime video captures in a little more than twenty minutes.

Before the hour was out, Lois had found the video footage of the woman pulling herself up on window ledges and peering into the warehouse. She had footage of her testing the rollup doors. The video footage from Mickler included an intervention by the police as they left in a vehicle. And she saw one more interesting part that truly excited her. She saw Clark Kent accompanying the woman in the footage and suddenly, Lois was fairly sure it was the woman sitting next to Clark and checking Perry and Alice White in at Met U Christmas party. It also meant that she was not the woman seen on the video the night of the burglary. But she looked similar enough to warrant the police checking into it.

She replayed the segment of video over and over. After weighing options, Lois decided that giving the lead to Maggie would be the best way to approach it. She would not let on that she knew who the woman or the man in the video were, but the fact that the cops had stopped them meant there was a record of it somewhere. Maggie would be able to identify them in short order and her people could rule her out, since she was at the Planet Christmas party that night, not at the warehouse that night.

Word of that would come back to Lois and that would provide her the justification for approaching the two of them for an interview. She would finally get the chance to talk to Clark Kent and see if the spark she felt a month ago was real or imagined.

"Maggie, this is Lois," she began early the next day. "I have something you may want to see that will help identify the woman in the video. Will you be available to meet at your office in the next hour before I go in to work?"

Before she went the bed the night before, Lois had copied the video from the thumb drive to the desktop of her laptop. She then transferred it to a 256 GB USB thumb drive. She took that drive to Maggie Sawyer the next morning.

"Where did you get this?" Detective Sawyer asked, somewhat annoyed that Lois had video she did not have. Learning that she got it directly from Mickler did not lessen her annoyance.

"Fast forward it," Lois said and the detective dragged the cursor forward. "There! Stop here and watch." The video showed Lori pulling herself up and looking into the windows, then testing the rollup doors. "Isn't that the same woman in the video from the night of the burglary?" Lois asked.

Maggie stared at the image. "Very similar." She repeated the segment twice and then let it run. She saw the police arrive and froze the image. "Okay, that is something we can easily track down," she said absently, watching the footage of the patrol taking identifications from the vehicle occupants. "Somewhere this information should exist on who these two are." She looked up at Lois. "This might also help with the internal we're doing on the connection between Mickler and the cops. These cops may be involved." She looked back at the video. "I can keep this video, right?" she asked without looking up.

"Of course. I would have brought it to you yesterday afternoon when I got it but I wanted to watch some of it last night. I watched for about an hour and found this segment and thought it would be a good place to start." Lois tried to sound contrite sensing Maggie's annoyance.

"Thanks, Lois. I'll give this to my knuckleheads out there and let them watch it all the way through. We'll see if there's any more persons of interest on it and I'll let you know what we find out." Maggie's disposition immediately improved. "Let's catch some lunch today if you have time. Maybe I'll have something on those two by then."

"Great. Call me when you're free," Lois replied. She looked at the clock in the office. "I gotta go, I'm going to be late as it is." She hurried out the door and headed back to her car. "See ya later," she called.

On her way to the office, Lois wondered whether to let Corben know what she had found and decided against saying anything to him right now. She would wait and see what assignments she and John might receive from Perry before reading him in on the people of interest.

Detective Sawyer chose a small deli located between the Planet and MPD to meet Lois. "I found out who the two were in the video," she said after they ordered and sat with their food. "They're a couple of college students at Met U. I'm pretty sure that they aren't involved in this." She took a bite of her sandwich.

"What the hell were they doing then?" Lois asked.

"Who knows? Maybe just being nosey." She took another bite of her sandwich.

Lois swallowed her bite. "Can we go talk to them?"

"Not right now. I want my guys to finish up reviewing the rest of the video to see if there are any other persons of interest on there. I want to pull in those two cops that stopped those two students. There will be some investigating involved and it might be a minute before you can talk to them, Lois. I don't want them spooked before our guys get a chance with them." Maggie sipped on her coffee.

"There's concern from my boss that if Mickler was involved in any insurance fraud scheme or some other criminal activity, he might have been getting help from some bad apples at MPD. We have to get that sorted out first." She paused. "Mickler wasn't exactly what we'd call cooperative when the patrol responded to take his complaint. We tried to follow up with him, but he was very evasive in his answers for a guy with his head on the chopping block."

"Understood. We got that impression too," Lois replied, nodding. "He was very skittish answering our questions." She then added, "I was surprised that he offered to give me those recordings. He said he was afraid the MPD was going to seize his little cube of hard drives that had months of video on it, and they would disappear along with his proof that he had nothing to do with the burglary."

"Nothing to do with it? We'll see about that," Maggie said. "In the meantime, steer clear of this because more and more, it looks like there's some MPD involvement that needs to be cleaned up first. I'll let you know when it's okay to go talk to those two and anyone else we come up with."