by Gwenda Bond
“Focus. Can you?”
“Probably,” he said. “But how much time to do we have?”
“Not enough, if you’re asking me that question.” I cast another panicked look at the door. “We have one more option. So, computer genius, tell me if there’s a computer in here that would have a strong magnet in it. Preferably a rare earth metal one. That would also work.” According to my extracurricular reading, anyway…
He scanned the terminals, then pointed to the nearest computer. “That one should.”
“And where will it be exactly?” I asked.
“Around the drive and the fan.” Yes, I’d known that from my reading too. But I’d never actually experimented and so had only a faint idea what I’d be looking for. I squinted at the machine, then him. “Show me where,” I commanded. “We don’t have much time.”
“Okay, okay,” he said, and joined me in hurrying over to the workstation. “Bossy.”
“I prefer to think of it not as bossy, but as saving us both from certain doom.”
He scooted the computer around so I could see the back of it. “In there,” he said, giving the back plate a tap. Tiny screws held it in place.
“Good.” Grappling a pen out of my bag, I used the top of the cap to pry out the screws with deliberate twists.
“What are you doing?” Alex asked, interested.
“Haven’t you heard? The pen is mightier than the sword.” The plate came loose. “Can you, um, find the magnet and get it out for me?”
I moved aside as he bent and fished inside the opening. “I used a different method to get into the building,” Alex said, but he came out with the magnet.
“That was a different type of door, too. And you haven’t volunteered any bright ideas for an escape plan.” I re-stashed my pen and held my hand out for the magnet. Alex pressed the disc into my palm. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny either. Here was praying it would work. “Now we use this to temporarily disable the magnetic lock on the door. It’s a thing I read.”
“Yes,” he said, puzzling it out. “That should work.”
While he considered the merits of my plan, I crossed to the door and slid the magnet into place against the lock, adjusting to find the right spot on the door’s magnet that powered the lock. I wish I’d memorized the manual on this stuff I’d been reading.
“Come on, come on, come on,” I chanted. “Work. Please work.”
The door clicked open.
I flashed Alex a triumphant grin and tossed the magnet to the floor. “Time to sneak out of this place.”
He grinned back at me. “This is all so exciting.”
My sense of triumph evaporated when an alarm began to sound. The timing had to just be coincidence. Didn’t it? Donovan was paranoid, but they wouldn’t have every interior door keyed to an alarm, would they?
Which meant something else might have set off the alarm. Someone else. Maybe even plural someones.
“I think that might be reinforcements,” I said, praying I was right.
“Who?” Alex asked.
“Clark and my friends from the Scoop.”
I looked at him. It was my fault for not trusting my friends. It’s what had gotten us trapped here and almost gotten both our brains scrambled. “Unlike you, I have a lot of them. Is that why you were talking to Donovan, Jenkins, and company and being nice to them? Because they were friendly?”
“You’re lucky,” Alex said, ignoring the question. “We’d better get going. Oh, hello!” he said distractedly, to someone up the hall.
I turned to find Reya and Todd advancing on us. “They sent us to secure you two down here. Someone breached the perimeter,” Todd said.
“Crap.”
I ran through my options. I had self-defense training. If I had to ditch Alex temporarily, I could come back for him.
Reya came closer and said, “I’m sorry we have to do this.” She extended her hands to literally strong-arm me.
“No, don’t be sorry,” I said, and dodged below her fingers. I shoved Alex in Todd’s direction and bolted up the hall. “Be too slow to catch me.”
Speedy Todd would give chase, obviously, but I collided with someone else first. Someone who pulled me toward him with strong hands, and who I knew immediately, through sheer instinct, not to fight.
“Lois,” Clark said. “Thank god. This way.”
Relief flooded through me. When I looked back, Todd was frowning at the two of us, like he knew he’d be no match for us both. Not even with Reya at his side. “You won’t get out of here,” he said.
“We will,” I assured him. “You could too.”
Todd shook his head like I still didn’t understand their position.
“I can’t believe you did this,” Clark said, leading me toward a hallway that was filled with smoke or some sort of fog—there was no fire smell to go with it. “And alone.”
“Not alone. Didn’t you see Alex back there?”
“Oh,” he said. “I was distracted. And I’m getting you out first. I’ll go back for him.”
I didn’t argue. I wanted out of here, and the faster, the better. Clark opened a door and there was a stairwell, filled with more fake smoke. Before I realized what was happening, Clark scooped me into his arms and started up the steps.
“This is dangerous,” I said. “You can’t see! Put me down!”
“Oh, now you’re worried about what’s dangerous.” He made no move to release me, and I decided not to protest again. Arguing would only make our journey to the outside more precarious.
“Alex came here,” I said. “I couldn’t just leave him on his own… although he seems to like these guys.”
“You know what’s going on, then?” Clark asked, and I detected curiosity.
I nodded and let myself relax against him, soaking in the scent of him. Steve Jenkins had intended for Dabney Donovan to break my brain and armor up my ear, make me so smart I didn’t know right from wrong anymore. He wanted to take me away from my friends and make me part of the twisted team he’d created.
All so he and his mysterious benefactor could seduce my father into business with the three of them. I never saw this revelation coming, but now that I had the truth I was more eager to bust the three of them than ever.
“I know enough,” I said. “Enough to write a story.”
CHAPTER 27
When we reached the back door, it hung open in an off-kilter way that made me think Clark must have removed the hinges or something. Clark sat me down gently on the concrete at the bottom of the steps, kissed my forehead, and said, “I have to go back for our other friend.”
No one else had showed up to try to stop us. But I worried. “Are you sure it’s safe for you to go back in alone?” I asked. “What if they trap you in there?”
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Your friends are waiting around front. Go let them know you’re all right.”
“Be careful,” I said, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He headed back inside to the hallway. I called after him, “If you’re not out in ten minutes, I’m coming back in!”
Then I pounded my way up the steps and to the alley. Three welcome faces waited at the far end of it, huddled together on the sidewalk: Maddy, Devin, and James.
They saw me and let out a cheer.
A few random passersby gave odd looks, but this was Metropolis. They went on their ways as Maddy rushed forward to meet me. Devin and James were close on her heels.
“How are you, besides insane for coming here by yourself?” Maddy asked. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “But should we go back for Clark? He has to get someone else out.”
“Are you kidding? He wouldn’t even let us go around back,” James groused. “Said he’d be better off going in alone than us taking the risk of getting captured too. Something about nav
igating through heavy fog on the farm. Which was Maddy’s idea. The fog, I mean.”
“What was your idea?” I asked, my words coming a little shaky now that I was no longer inside that lair. That had been closer than would ever be comfortable.
I had the story, but thinking of Reya, Sunny, Jamie, and even jerky Todd still left me with a sympathetic pang of guilt. I didn’t know any way to help them, besides getting them free of Donovan, Jenkins, and the Contessa. It didn’t feel like enough.
“One that would make you proud,” Maddy said. “You know those Halloween vapor balls? Your influence rubbed off, because I bought a bunch on sale last fall.”
“Aha,” I said. “The smoke that wasn’t smoke. Smart.”
“We were debating whether to go in after Clark,” Devin said. “But you came out before we made a decision. Who’d he go back in for anyway?”
“Alex Luthor—I’ll explain later,” I said. “Well, no, I’ll explain now. He’s TheInventor and it turned out he was a friend.”
“What’s TheInventor?” James asked.
Maddy said, “My thought exactly.”
“Someone Lois knows online,” Devin said, explaining for me. “Who she wasn’t sure about.”
I still wasn’t one hundred percent on Alex. I hesitated, torn between waiting here and tearing back in there. What if Clark and Alex encountered the entire group, determined to keep them there?
But sprinting back into danger for a rescue proved unnecessary. Clark appeared at the end of the alley, supporting Alex with his arm as they walked quickly toward us. We hurried to meet them.
“Let’s get out of here,” Clark said.
We were back on the sidewalk in broad daylight in seconds flat, where none of the people passing by us would know anything strange was even happening right under their noses.
Not until they read my story, anyway.
“Where to?” Maddy asked. She pointed at a familiar cab waiting just up the street. “We called Taxi Jack. He confirmed that you’d come here. He’s ticked at you, by the way.”
“The Daily Planet Building,” I said. “We are taking these guys down. They are never going to hurt another soul.”
“Should we go back in for those weird kids?” James asked, his moral compass pointing true as always.
“What did their parents say when you called them?” I held my breath. Maybe the families would surprise us all. Maybe the four of them did have a place and purpose without the bad guys.
“We only managed to call three before we had to rush here,” Devin said. “But they weren’t receptive.”
“Poor guys,” Maddy said. “I can’t even imagine.”
“Parents shouldn’t be so horrible,” Clark said, unmistakable anger in his tone.
“Ha!” Alex put in. “Never meet my father.”
I hesitated, thinking of the group’s reaction when I told them we had their parents’ contact info. They’d obviously been right. “We leave for now,” I said. “If we can get rid of their new ‘parents’ by sending them to jail where they belong, I think then we’ll have a shot at reaching them. At helping them. They want a place.”
And there was still the fourth set of parents. I’d call them myself.
But… that wouldn’t take away the kids’ new abilities. Still, we could deal with that problem once we’d gotten rid of the first one. My guilt twinged again.
We piled into the taxi, Alex squeezing in up front with Devin. I sat next to Clark in back, my legs tucked over his, with Maddy and James wedged in beside us. Taxi Jack gave me a stony glance in the rearview, but he said nothing. He put the car in drive as soon as we were all in.
“Are you okay?” Clark whispered to me once we were moving. “I was so worried I wouldn’t get there in time. I didn’t know what to do.”
He had taken a risk coming after me. I knew that much. His overprotective parents wouldn’t approve. “No,” I said. And I raised my voice to talk to all of them. “I barreled right in there, right into their plan. I told myself I was doing it to protect you guys, but I was just trying to protect myself. I thought I could handle this on my own.”
“You more or less did,” Alex said.
“That doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “It could have gone another way.”
“Yes,” Taxi Jack said, finally deigning to speak to me, “it could have. Not that I know what you’re talking about, except you’ve got to stop worrying us like this, Lois.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “I’ll try.”
Maddy raised her brows at me. “Does this mean no more secrets?”
“It means no more secrets to protect me,” I said.
Clark tightened his arms around me. I could feel his breath against my neck, and it was… distracting. “I’m just glad you’re okay,” he said.
“Yeah, I almost wasn’t. They were going to make me part of the experiment so Dad would let them back into the military research game—that was Jenkins’s plan all along.”
“They were going to increase her neural function,” Alex said. “And give her super-hearing. I tried to volunteer instead.”
“P.S.” I reached up and touched Alex’s shoulder. “Donovan planned to do a mind wipe on you.”
That—finally—made Alex go quiet.
There was still something about him that didn’t seem right to me. On the other hand, if his dad was as bad as he said, maybe that was understandable.
“Everyone, this is Alex, by the way,” I said, feeling a little guilty.
My friends introduced themselves and Alex gave them big, goofy grins, whirling around in the seat to face James and Maddy when it was their turn, much to Devin’s squirmy discomfort. This kid needed to get out more.
Once everyone had officially met, Devin had another question. “What about the Contessa?” he asked. “What was her story?”
“I still don’t know,” I said. “She kept claiming she really is the Contessa, the very old real deal from the 1600s. She’s a strange one, even compared to those two.”
“Do you think they’ll run?” Clark asked.
“No,” I said, thinking of the fortress-like building, with its workspaces hidden below ground, and about how none of them were scared to blackmail my dad. “I think they’ll wait to see what my next move is. Which is why it’s going to be on the front page of the paper. Can you go faster, Taxi Jack?”
“Your wish is my command, milady,” he said, and sped up.
*
A scant ten minutes later, Taxi Jack screeched up to the curb in front of the Daily Planet Building. Devin, Maddy, James, and I piled out. But I poked my head back in to see what Clark was doing.
“You coming?”
Alex stayed in the front seat.
“Unless you need me, I’d better get back to the hotel,” Clark said. “Mom already texted.”
“We can drop you on my way,” Alex said. “Though I’d love to go see the Daily Planet Building from the inside.”
“Not today,” I blurted. “Another time.”
Alex shrugged. “I am exhausted. And exhilarated, but mostly exhausted.”
Clark caught my eye and almost laughed. I crouched down to hug him and at the last moment aimed my mouth for the side of his lips.
Gah.
He smiled at me and said, “We’ll talk later?”
I nodded. The door shut and they pulled away into traffic. My friends and I started for the front door and our place in the world.
“I have so many questions,” Maddy said.
“Me too,” Devin said. “The first one is… Luthor as in Alexander Luthor? The zillionaire?”
“His son,” I said. “Is zillion really a thing?”
Devin shrugged. “Might as well be when you’re that loaded.”
“Doesn’t sound like he cares much for his dad,” James
observed.
“True story,” I said.
But I was distracted, already putting the lead for this story together in my head. By the time we navigated through security to the elevator and down to the office, I was ready to type. I sat at my desk immediately and powered up my computer.
When reports of teenagers with unheard-of abilities and metallic armor began to surface, the Daily Planet immediately launched a thorough investigation. The shocking findings include names that will be familiar to the business community of Metropolis, and in one case, to legal authorities…
I went ahead, outing Dabney Donovan as Steve Jenkins’s new business partner. To keep things factual, I only called the Contessa an investor and used Arcana Imperii—her company’s name. I explained that Jenkins had decided to restart his unethical research on four homeless minors estranged from their families—names withheld for protection, but their newfound abilities detailed—and launched a scheme intending to force one of the Daily Scoop’s reporters into the experiment in order to get back into the world of military contracts.
The others were gathered around, reading over my shoulder as I typed, with gratifying gasps every so often. The loudest came when I typed in the words “possible connection to jailed mobster Moxie Mannheim. The scheme appears to be motivated in part by reports on his criminal activities run by this newspaper.”
“Really?” James asked. “It was Moxie.”
“Yes,” I tossed over my shoulder. “He was the one who got the ball rolling on this.”
“Which is why he was so quick to let you visit him,” Devin said. “So we weren’t wrong to tease you.”
“Not completely anyway,” Maddy added, beating me to it.
I grunted and went back to typing. Once I was finished, I asked James, “Spellcheck and send upstairs?” I directed my next query to all of them. “Is it too editorial?”
“No,” Devin said. “It’s what happened. You were involved.”
Maddy was scowling. “You were a lot nicer than I’d be.”
James finished his pass and sent the story off to Perry. We waited, quiet and tense, to see if he had any feedback. It was getting later by the second.