Fallout (Lois Lane)
Page 23
I climbed in the passenger side. The others piled into the back.
Security goons were pouring out the front door, and even the CEO’s mother-slash-assistant and the front desk receptionist were with them. I pressed the button to roll down the window.
“Your CEO can email me any statement of response,” I called out to them. “He’s got my address.” Then I told the cab driver, “Earn your money. Get us out of here.”
He floored it away from the curb with his typical screech, and asked, “Where to?”
“The Daily Planet Building,” I said, “and make it fast.”
My phone buzzed in my bag, and I bit back another grin. The message was a question mark.
Fill you in later, I tapped out, right now I’ve got a story to write.
CHAPTER 26
I already had the story half-composed in my head by the time we got to the Morgue. I banged it out as quickly as I could, while James pumped Devin and Anavi for details, and Maddy helped Devin design the graphics to go along with it.
James also edited his video to embed within the text. This time, he did want an also-contributed credit. He was going over my copy now.
We’d turned off our phones and taken the receivers for the office’s dinosaur landlines off the hook, not wanting to risk any cease-and-desist calls. I had to admit I was a little surprised Perry hadn’t been by to check in on us yet. But I could be thankful for small favors. This would be a coup for the Daily Planet—and an even bigger one for the Scoop.
The story it told was of a principal in bed with industry. Of students privileged above others because they were taking part in a secret experiment started without their consent, one that shouldn’t have taken place on living subjects, or at all. Anavi hadn’t yet turned in the permission form they’d sent home for her parents to sign, which only gave approval for her to leave school property and gave no details on the experiment itself, so in the story it went. Exhibit A.
The story also said that the company in question had been days away from demonstrating the entire thing to the military-industrial complex, an ethical breach its shareholders should not reward unless they supported the idea of black ops projects that violated international law and used children.
So what if my rhetoric was heated? They’d almost stolen the selves of two of my friends.
Friends.
I had friends, plural, friends who knew more about me than I’d ever let anyone see. Except for SmallvilleGuy.
I still couldn’t believe he’d come through by finding a way to send Daisy into the sandbox in his place. He didn’t break the rules and take the risk himself, but he had been there for me like he’d said he wanted to be. Maybe I should make hoping for things a habit.
“It’s good,” James said, when he finished going over the story. “I just cleaned up your spelling. Sending your way, Devin.” He turned to me. “Really good, actually. And you can keep my holoset. I’m not much into gaming.”
“Why, thank you, on both counts,” I said, surprised—and at the same time, not—by the gesture.
Maddy was practically bouncing again. “Did you see the looks on their faces when they ran out of that building?” She giggled. And it wasn’t even the first time she’d said it.
“You should have seen the head of security’s face when Lois ‘accidentally’ smashed her toy,” Devin said.
“I wish,” Maddy said. “You do it for me. A historical reenactment.”
To my surprise, Devin made an affronted gasp, his eyes going wide and his hand clasping at his chest.
We were laughing together, then. James rolled his chair over to watch as Devin formatted the story to send it live. Maddy came and sat on the corner of my desk. Anavi was in a chair beside it, where she’d been quietly observing the flurry of activity. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go home.
“Headline request?” Devin asked. “‘Queen of the Elves Clears Out Commandos.’”
“Hilarious,” I said. “I don’t care what it says as long as it starts with the word ‘Exclusive’.”
“Done,” he said.
Anavi tapped her fingers on the top of the desk.
“Spit it out, Anavi. You’re making me nervous,” I said as gently as I could.
“I feel I must . . . Lois, I don’t know how I could ever repay you. There’s no adequate compensation.”
“I can think of a couple ways,” I said. “And I should never have let them get you in the first place.”
“Is there any other crazy mad science going on that you haven’t told us about?” Maddy asked.
“Way number one,” I said, leaving Maddy’s question aside for a second, “if you could put in writing that your retraction request was garbage—or however you’d say it—”
“Spurious,” Anavi said. “My greatest pleasure. May I use your computer?”
I got up and took Maddy’s arm. “You should be in a band, you know. If you want to.”
Maddy’s smile was shy. “And leave all this? Maybe someday. Mostly, I like daydreaming about it. Is that weird?”
I smiled back at her. “Yes, but only in the good way.”
Maddy’s gaze found its way back to James, like it always did.
I didn’t tell Maddy that he wasn’t worthy of her, though I still felt like he was an idiot for not noticing that she was into him. It wasn’t my place to butt in, not between them. So I said, “Boys,” low so only Maddy heard. “Sometimes they are so clueless.”
“I know, right?” Maddy agreed enthusiastically.
Even if he was clueless, the truth was James wasn’t that bad.
“We’re live,” Devin said, spinning his chair so he and James could high-five.
I reached over and set the receiver back on the antique phone on my desk. Which immediately vibrated, then sounded an uber-loud ring.
We all exchanged a look, and the others pointed at me.
“You answer,” Devin said. So I did.
“Get up here right now. All of you,” Perry barked into my ear.
*
All Perry had said was “Newsroom,” with another bark that he assumed I could find it. We piled off the elevator onto a bustling upper floor.
A floor that was overcome by a rolling hush as we made our way along the open area packed with desks.
“Perry White?” I asked.
“Second office from the corner,” a man in a brown suit said. “You must be the prodigies.”
We kept walking.
“Prodigy’s a good thing, right?” I asked Anavi, who’d insisted on tagging along in case the retraction came up.
“Usually,” Anavi agreed.
“Is that them? Get in here!” Perry, from somewhere nearby. We followed the shout to an open office door.
He had an open bottle. “It’s sparkling apple juice, not champagne, because A, this is a newspaper and we don’t have money for that and B, contributing to the delinquency of minors is not on today’s agenda. Now, I have one question for you to answer, Lane.”
He called me Lane. That was a promising sign.
“Did you give the company a chance to respond?”
I lifted my chin. “I told the CEO’s assistant personally that he could email me if he wanted to go on the record.”
Perry burst out laughing. The rest of us exchanged looks of the “has he gone insane?” variety.
“Was that before or after you filmed the stand-off in the lobby and broadcast it live on our streaming channel?” He shook his head, picked up the bottle, and started to pour. “Don’t tell me. I don’t really want to know. I’m proud of you guys. You might turn into real newshounds yet.”
We accepted the praise and the sweet, fizzy drinks, and I went over to have a look out Perry’s window.
The view wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined, but in some ways it wa
s better. That was the real city of tomorrow out there.
And it was my city now.
“You heard from your dad?” Perry asked from behind me.
“I turned off my phone,” I said, “so not yet. But I should get going.”
“Good luck,” he said. “I knew you’d whip these guys into shape. They just needed someone with a nose for it.”
“I can smell news,” I said.
“Nah,” Perry said with a grin, “anybody can scratch up news. I meant for the truth.”
*
My parents were not waiting with sparkling drinks when I got home. They were at the kitchen table, though. “Lois, get in here,” Dad called when the door closed.
Lucy was sitting halfway up the stairs, and waved at me before grimacing and making a slicing motion across her neck with her hand.
CUTE, I mouthed to her, and marched in to greet the firing squad.
“You want to tell me what you were thinking writing a story like this?” Dad asked, and the coolness of his tone was troubling.
I decided to be relieved that he hadn’t asked about the distraction I’d used for the disruption at the lab. Hopefully that meant the prism flare could be discreetly replaced, with him none the wiser.
“That it was my job,” I said, not showing him a moment’s weakness. I knew what I was doing. I had a place where I belonged. Finally.
He said, “I’m not so sure—”
“I saw your name on the sign-in book at the lab,” I said, “but I do hope that our paths won’t cross that often. I know you’re probably grateful to me for uncovering what I did, because I also know you wouldn’t want to support a company that would do something like that. Would you?”
“Lois, of course not, but this isn’t about me—”
“I’m good at this. It’s what I want to do. Any help you can give me with Butler would be welcome.”
I didn’t think the story would make the principal lose his job. He had plausible deniability about the nature of the research, and if I was honest, I doubted he had known the details. But that was one unfortunate thing about how quickly I’d had to write the story. Not enough time to find out whether he would have defended it the same way he did the Warheads when Anavi was their victim.
There was always next time. I was curious about the rest of the companies who’d made charitable donations or become research partners with the school.
“I have to go catch up with . . . my schoolwork.” I walked over and planted a kiss on my mother’s cheek, then on Dad’s.
I’d almost slipped up and said I needed to catch up with a friend.
Somehow, when I got upstairs, I knew not to bother logging into chat, even if it did mean potentially missing a new baby cow picture.
After a day this long, I wanted to see him. I figured he would want the same thing, impossible as it was.
The CEO of Advanced Research Laboratories was the bad guy. There was a risk that the people running Worlds War Three weren’t that great either, as a baddie subsidiary, but one of the workers had helped us in the end. It was a risk I was willing to take, since this was the only way we had to see each other.
That was how I justified going back inside Worlds War Three as I slipped on James’s holoset. Well, mine now. I settled on the bed and turned on the holoset.
The game sprang into view around me and for once, the world wasn’t on fire or in the midst of an attack.
Two suns were setting with a downright poetic mix of dark, unnatural hues tinged violet and red. In the near distance, I could see Devin’s castle, rising from the rubble like a phoenix made of stone. His army was at work rebuilding it and as I went closer, I saw two figures directing them. One was King Devin, back in his full chainmail and armor regalia. The other was a familiar female form, whose grenades were emblazoned with words.
I was about to go talk to them when a voice behind me said, “Hey.”
I turned and smiled at the green-skinned alien boy—friendly—who was smiling back at me.
“We did it,” I said. “Pretty nice teamwork. Did you come up with the idea?”
“I knew I couldn’t stand by and not do anything,” he said. “So after I told him we were trying to stop the experiment, I asked if there was any way to send fiery backup. Once I explained the plan to disrupt the signals, he wanted nothing more than to help. I’m not sure he really thought we’d manage it though.”
“Well, sending Daisy, that was . . .”
Oh, god, I was blushing again. Already.
“. . . genius,” I finished awkwardly.
His smile evaporated. A seriousness took over his features and I so wished I could see it in the real world. See if that expression was real.
It felt real.
“Lois,” he said, “I wish I could have been there. I hate that I wasn’t.”
“But you were, in the way that counts. I know it’s complicated.”
“You have no idea,” he said.
And my elf face must have looked stung, because he said, “My fault, not yours.”
He waved for me to come with him, in the opposite direction of Anavi and Devin. I did.
“I told my parents about you,” he said.
My heart pounded and thumped and thudded and made a general nuisance of itself.
“You did? What—what did you say?”
“I told them you were my friend, and that I wanted to tell you the truth about me. That I wanted to tell you what I’ve been keeping secret, who I am in real life.”
“And?” I was breathless.
“And they said that I can’t. That it’s too dangerous.”
He sighed and turned to me. His eyes were a striking blue. I wanted, more than ever, to know if that was their actual color.
“I knew they’d say no, but I wanted to try. I owed it to you to make sure. I want to tell you everything . . . I needed them to remind me why I can’t. Not yet.”
“Oh, okay,” I said, knowing I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding my disappointment.
“But, Lois, I promise you that someday I will. You’ll be the first person I tell.”
I kicked at the ground with my bare foot, and then started to move forward again. “It seems like you’re making an awful lot of assumptions.”
He caught up with me. “You mean that you’ll still be here, waiting to find out. I shouldn’t assume that. But . . . we are friends, aren’t we, Lois?”
“Yes, we are.” I faced him again. “I meant you’re assuming I won’t figure your secret out on my own first.”
He smiled at me. “Want to go help your friends rebuild?”
“Sure,” I said, and offered him my hand. He took it.
And we walked into the violently beautiful sunset together.
Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Girl on a Wire, Blackwood, and The Woken Gods. She has also written for Publishers Weekly and the Los Angeles Times, among other publications, and just might have been inspired to get a journalism degree by her childhood love of Lois Lane. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie.
Visit her online at gwendabond.com or @gwenda on Twitter.
Lois Lane: Fallout is published by Switch Press
A Capstone Imprint
1710 Roe Crest Drive
North Mankato, Minnesota 56003
www.switchpress.com
Copyright © 2015 DC Comics.
SUPERMAN and all related characters and elements are trademarks of and © DC Comics.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on the Library of Congress website.
ISBN: 978-1-63079-005-9 (jacketed hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-63079-031-8 (e-book)
Summary:
Lois Lane is starting a new life in Metropolis. A group known as the Warheads is making life miserable for another girl at school. They’re messing with her mind, somehow, via the high-tech immersive videogame they all play. Armed with her wit and her new snazzy job as a reporter, Lois has her sights set on solving this mystery. But sometimes it’s all a bit much. Thank goodness for her maybe-more-than-a friend, a guy she knows only by his screenname, SmallvilleGuy . . .
Jacket and book design by Bob Lentz