by Gwenda Bond
CHAPTER 29
When we reached the press building address, I jumped out of Dad’s car to find my three Scoop colleagues waiting for me on an otherwise deserted sidewalk.
Maddy looked like she’d gotten dressed in a hurry. I was pretty sure the shirt under her jacket was a pajama top—its marching elephants were the first thing I’d ever seen that wasn’t a band name on something she was wearing.
The soldier pulled away. Dad had sent a text that everyone was in custody. So at least I’d have a replacement story for Perry. I’d put it together on the way over.
“What’s going on?” James asked. “Why the sudden change of plan?”
“Devin, did you get the story pulled from online copy?” I asked.
“Obviously,” he said. “Though we do want to know why.”
“Because we can’t run that version of it. Where’s the door?” I asked.
Maddy strode over and opened the one farthest right in a bank of glass doors. A cacophonous roar met us.
“This guy called ahead to verify our credentials,” she said, speaking up and pointing to a security desk. A man with a beard in a blue uniform sat there.
“Lois Lane?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You guys can go on in,” he said. “No one answered, so they must’ve been on the floor.”
Once we were past the desk and out of earshot of the guard, I looked at the others. “Why are they letting us in here?”
“We told them we needed to look at the press room,” James said, stopping. “So now tell us why?”
I would have to explain. And I had to shout, given the roar ahead. “We’re going to say it was a hoax, and the military is handling the arrest of the three people who orchestrated a fake attack on Metropolis. I have a quote from Dad.”
“But why?” James asked, frowning.
“To protect someone,” I said. “To make sure those teenagers end up with a home base, their lives not ruined.” Asking them was almost as scary as asking Reya and company had been, but I needed to know… “Do you guys trust me?”
All three of them nodded immediately. “Yes,” they said, at the same time.
“Good, then let’s go,” I said, a sentimental lump in my throat, and we started moving again, crossing into the area that housed the source of the cacophony.
“Stop the presses!” I shouted as we raced past the printing behemoths in the cavernous warehouse.
Copies of the fresh hot Daily Planet front page I was desperate to stop kept rolling off the enormous, roaring machines.
I struggled to be louder, the smell of hot ink and paper assaulting my nose. “Stop! The! Presses!”
The ruinous racket continued without pause. It completely swallowed the clatter of our feet as we sprinted across the concrete flooring.
“Where are the people?” I shouted to them.
“This way!” James turned and mouthed to me, pointing toward a back corner with an elevated office.
It did in fact look like there were people up there—at least two standing at the windows watching us approach. I grabbed one of the finished, folded newspapers off the end of the next row of presses as we blew by and then put on a fresh burst of speed.
I had to make them understand.
The presses had to be stopped. I’d take whatever punishment Perry meted out to me. Nothing was worth this story running. Not my pride, not my job. Nothing.
James stopped and waved for me to take the lead at the stairs. I pounded up them and bolted straight through the office door without knocking. The people we’d seen from below were a man and a younger woman, standing above a bank of computers and control panels that looked like they dated to approximately the middle of the last century.
“Stop… the… presses!” I panted after I got the words out. I held up the newspaper at their frowns. “This story can’t go out. I said stop the presses.”
“Who are you?” the man asked. He was maybe the same age as my dad, silver-haired with a kind but currently bewildered face.
“Lois Lane from the Daily Scoop. I wrote this story,” I said. “And it can’t run.”
The headline shouted out at me from the front page I held. It was the worst possible headline, making my point for me. I stabbed at it:
Flying Man Spotted Over Metropolis Explained
“Ooh, sounds like a good one,” the woman said. She was younger than the man by a decade, and pixie small. She reached as if to take the page and skim it.
“Can you stop them or not?” I said. “I’ll take the heat. This story can’t go out on the stands. We’ve already pulled it off the website.”
The man gave me another frown, and then shrugged. “That call has to come from upstairs. And you’re not upstairs.”
“We can’t just call up there?” I asked hopefully.
“They put the policy in place because a reporter did what you’re trying to do. Ten years back. You could have someone stationed up there. The order has to come from editorial directly to us. There’s a code word. Sorry.”
There was no way I’d convince Perry over the phone.
Crap. Thanks, ten-years-ago stranger. Who was probably fired.
I looked at the headline again. And I sucked in a lungful of ink-scented air, then whirled, motioning for the others to let me pass. I ran as if my life depended on it, though it wasn’t my life I was most worried about.
I dashed back out the way we’d come. I had to find Perry and make the presses stop, one way or another.
*
We made it back to the main entrance and up to the newsroom floor in record time. I barreled out of the elevator, shouting, “Perry! Perry White, get out here!”
I heard my friends make tortured sounds, and we drew confused glances from the handful of reporters still at their cubicles this late. I knew they were envisioning my immediate dismissal. I might as well make this good, since that’s exactly what I was risking.
Perry stalked out of his office and then pointed a finger at its door. “Get in here. What is wrong with you? I just got back, and now you’re caterwauling in the newsroom.”
“We have to stop the presses,” I said, panting, out of breath. I was not caterwauling.
Perry handed me a glass of water off his desk as soon as I followed him inside. “Drink this.”
Devin, Maddy, and James appeared in the doorway.
Perry waved them into his office as well. I didn’t even have a chance to enjoy his view of the city at night. I sucked down some water and then said, “Let me explain.”
“Go right ahead,” Perry said, sinking into his chair. “This should be good.”
“You have to pull my story off the front page,” I said. “Pull it, period.”
“Why?”
I took a breath, marshalling my strength. “It was a trick. We’ve been duped. All the things people saw—that we saw—were elaborate pranks using tech and optical illusions.”
“Keep talking,” he said.
“The same guys are behind it—they wanted to make us look stupid.”
He shook his head. “I saw some things tonight. Before I came back… I fell for it too. But what do we run if not this?”
“The military are taking the teenagers who were used into temporary custody. Those are the people you saw. They’re also seeing to the arrests of Jenkins, Donovan, and Portenza—they wanted to make us look bad. It was all Moxie’s suggestion, just like the story said.” That much was true. “I have a statement from my dad, but you can also call him to confirm.”
I scribbled his number down on a post-it and handed it to Perry.
“I will,” he said. “You’re more certain of this than last night’s story?”
“Yes. Can you, um, please stop the presses? We can do the part where you fire me afterward.”
Perry picked up his phone and punched in a number. “Eagle eyes,” he said to whoever answered. He paused, then, “Yes. Stop it. Trash the old ones. A new front page is coming.”
He set down the receiver.
“The password will be changed,” he said, sweeping his eyes across all four of us. “So don’t get any ideas about using it.”
“But they’re stopped?” I asked. “Destroyed?”
He nodded. “Now, let me ask you a question, Ms. Lane or any of the rest of you. Do you have any idea how much of an expense doing that was? What it costs the paper to halt a print run in progress? Not just in terms of the confidence of our subscribers who will get their papers late, but monetarily?”
“I know it’s a lot,” I said, before James could chime in with an exact figure or something. “And it’s my fault. I’ll devote my next fifty years of paychecks to cover it… as long as I’m not fired.”
Perry gave me a long, hard, considering look.
“No,” he said, finally. “The Daily Planet’s reputation is worth more than a single day of printing expenses. You did the right thing. Do you know why we have a policy that requires an editor’s call with a password to shut down the presses?” he asked.
I shook my head. I’m not fired. I’m not fired.
“I did something similar. But in my case it worked. They stopped them because I asked.”
“You! Ten years ago!” I couldn’t believe it.
Maddy and Devin laughed. James said, “You’ve changed, Mr. White.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I said.
“You’re both right,” Perry said. “Now go, get me the story we can run. We can’t have an empty front page.”
And so I did just that.
*
I was finally headed home, exhausted, having typed up the new story and sent it upstairs. The four of us shared a taxi, too quiet to even talk on the way home.
The cab pulled up to drop me at my front door. I was the last passenger. Except my car door opened as soon as we stopped and Clark peered in. “We have a problem.”
“We do?” I asked.
“Alex,” he said. “He gave me his dad’s address in Metropolis. We’ll have to go there. You won’t believe him otherwise.”
“Get in,” I said. “Tell this nice man where we’re going. And tell me why.”
Uptown. The fanciest part. Of course.
“What’d he do?” I asked.
Clark reached out and took my hand. “He posted his own account of the evening on Loose Lips.”
My jaw dropped open. I banged my head gently against Clark’s shoulder. “He did not.”
“He did.”
“And here I was shouting ‘Stop the presses!’”
“Really?” he asked.
“It was very exciting. I thought I’d be fired. Turns out Perry did the same thing once.”
His hand tightened on mine, but he didn’t say anything. I still wasn’t used to having him close enough to really touch. Compared to this, I didn’t understand how I’d ever thought that inside the game felt real. Real was far more intense.
“You’re probably going to have to keep me from killing Alex,” I said to hide the ridiculous detour my thoughts had made.
“You’re secretly a sap and you feel sorry for him, admit it.” He nudged me with his shoulder.
“Fine. I feel sorry for him.” I sighed. “I still don’t trust him, though, not completely. He was way too interested in what those guys were up to.”
The car pulled up at the nicest building I’d visited in Metropolis so far, which was saying something. ARLabs headquarters and James’s parents’ place had been no slouches. This one stretched seemingly all the way up to the sky, and I could hardly imagine the views from the top.
A doorman in a pristine uniform didn’t bat an eyelash at the two of us straggling in at the late hour.
“We’re here for Alex Luthor,” I said.
“One moment.” He picked up the handset of a red telephone to make a call, presumably upstairs to the Luthors.
A red telephone was a bit much, even for this neighborhood. It wasn’t like the president lived here.
The doorman set down the receiver and then crossed the opulent lobby and hit the button to summon a golden elevator. The doors slid open immediately. “The elevator will take you up to the penthouse,” he said.
“The penthouse?” I echoed.
“Where the Luthors are in residence,” the man said.
We got on the elevator, a gold tube.
“I guess Alex really is a zillionaire,” I said.
Clark looked as disconcerted by all the trappings of extreme wealth as I was.
The doors slid open after a zooming trip to the top of the building and we were suddenly in a ludicrously luxurious apartment, with Alex grinning at us both. He had on pajamas that looked as designer as his clothes had, striped with matching tops and bottoms.
“I need you to delete your post from Loose Lips. While I watch,” I said. “And never speak of it again.”
“You could’ve texted,” he said.
“Somehow I knew she’d want to see proof,” Clark said, smiling easily, defusing any tension.
We walked farther into the apartment. An enormous white couch divided into sections with settees on either side dominated the middle of the room. The giant window had a view of Metropolis that rivaled the one from Perry’s office.
I still preferred his to this one, I decided.
“So,” Alex said, “what you are informing me is that officially the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me did not happen.” He flopped onto the couch, where a laptop sat open. “Figures,” he said, typing into it. “That seems to be my lot in life. So unfair.”
I gave a wry glance at our surroundings, but he didn’t notice, absorbed in his screen.
“You’ll find the strength to carry on somehow,” I said. “You have time.”
Then I sat down beside him and watched as he pulled up the thread—which had only a few responses so far, thank you, universe—and deleted it with one push of a button.
“Anyone hungry?” he asked. “I can call out for pizza.”
Clark and I looked at each other. I probably had time. At this point, curfew was so far gone that it didn’t matter.
“I am starving,” I said.
The penthouse elevator doors opened once more and admitted a man in a suit carrying a briefcase. Though he had a full head of brown hair, his resemblance to Alex made clear who he was.
“Alexander, why are all the lights on?” he asked, then frowned when he saw us.
Alex said, “I’m having friends over.”
“As long as you keep it down,” his dad said. He didn’t even ask who we were. Or why we were over so late.
Alex got up and went into the giant, spacious, granite- counter-filled kitchen, presumably to get a menu for our order.
Clark eased down beside me. He turned to face me and took my hand. “Lois? Can I ask you something?”
Like that, my stupid heart went into overdrive. “Um, sure. What is it?”
“Do you want to go on a date?” he asked. “Something boring?”
Alex appeared over us. “Pepperoni okay?” he asked.
“Yes, although it won’t be boring,” I said, keeping my eyes on Clark. “In fact, leave it to me. You just show up at my house at seven sharp tomorrow night and wear a suit. And you know my preferred toppings.”
“You’re on. And I do.” Clark smiled at me, the best smile I’d seen in a while, maybe ever, and got up to look at the menu.
Alexander Luthor, Alex’s dad, was depositing the briefcase by a sliding door that presumably went to his bedroom. I scurried over before he could escape.
“Hi there, sir,” I said, offering him my hand.
H
e looked at it. You’d think I’m bleeding out my eyeballs or something.
“Nice to meet you,” I said, lowering it. “I’m Lois. Alex is an interesting guy. I guess he inherited your tech savvy.”
He frowned at me, eyebrows drawing together. They really did look alike, father and son, the same jawline. “I hire people for that,” he said.
That made me wonder whether Alex had been straight with us about his father having been the one in touch with the military. I couldn’t follow up with more questions, though, because Alexander Luthor disappeared.
Clark called over, “We’re getting pepperoni, green olive, and spinach.”
“Spinach, blech!” I said, putting my concern aside for now.
“You need vegetables to live, Lo,” Clark said.
“He is right about that,” Alex said. “Humans require balanced nutrition or terrible…”
I tuned him out and caught Clark’s eye. Tomorrow. Finally, a date. In real life.
And I knew just the place for us to go.
CHAPTER 30
The next night I finally understood what people meant when they said they had butterflies in their stomachs. Only I was pretty sure I had dragons and pterodactyls and other flying beasties straight out of Worlds War Three in mine.
I was in a dress. It wasn’t anything too fancy or frilly, just a short black silk one with the smallest ruffle at the top of each shoulder. I tugged down the hem and squinted in the mirror.
My bedroom door opened. It was Maddy, my mom, and Lucy. Mom put her hand over her mouth. “Honey, you’re gorgeous.”
Lucy added to the compliment by making kissy noises.
I’d had to get Mom to take me shopping right after school, where I had tried on approximately a jillion dresses in half an hour and went with the simplest. Meanwhile Maddy had on a pink tulle skirt with a cool stretchy black top emblazoned with the words Spoiler Queens. She’d doubtless made the shirt herself.
“You’re smoking hot,” I said to Maddy. “Truly the queen of coolness.”
“Why, thank you,” Maddy said with a little curtsey.
I had texted my friends the night before and proposed we go to the spring formal en masse. I’d never really contemplated going to a school dance before, but somehow it felt like just the special occasion to mark our victory.