Chapter 15:
Dr. Samuel Platt threw down his pen ferociously onto the desk. He groaned as he glanced at the clock, which was trying to tell him it was well past midnight. He rubbed at his eyes in a futile effort to refocus them. This just didn't make sense. There were whispers of a malfunction coming down the line, of some sort of design flaw, but that just couldn't be true. He'd worked on it himself— he hadn't noticed a flaw at the time. But staring at the pages before him, it was clearly something there. He'd been so sure, so positive that his original designs were going to work. He hadn't anticipated an engine blockage in the final stages of testing, so close to the scheduled launch too. He sighed. Oh well. That's what science was, he supposed. Trial and error.
A loud clanging noise outside grabbed his attention suddenly, followed closely by some hushed whispers. Dr. Platt felt his heart skip a beat and he decided to cautiously investigate.
He poked his head out the door nervously. He didn't see anything suspicious. But there was a noise again, and he followed the sounds of it along the wall.
It was two in the morning. No one was supposed to be here. Not even him.
His stomach fluttered when he finally saw the people responsible for the sounds. There were about five of them, dressed in black, moving around in the restricted area surrounding the spacecraft. Dr. Platt watched, riveted, as he edged forward towards the balcony overlooking the entire area.
"You think the Boss knows what he's doing on this one? This is pretty above the radar for him."
"Man, keep your mouth shut."
"I'm just saying, there's a big difference between pulling some low level jobs and being asked to bomb government property—"
Dr. Platt's heart skipped a beat. A bomb?! What?
"You two would do yourselves a favor if you'd shut up about it. You should know better than to question anything the Boss says."
The husky, strong female voice rang out loudly in the large space, and Samuel Platt felt his stomach drop. He knew that voice. He craned his neck around, leaning over the balcony to try and get a glimpse of the woman in question. So far all he could make out was a bit of her dyed blonde hair. But what would Dr. Baines be doing there? Instructing these strange men to put a bomb on board?
The railing creaked, giving him away. Platt felt his heart speed up as the woman's head snapped around to find the source of the noise. He ducked for cover, but knew he'd been made. So he did the only thing he could think to do.
He ran to his office, grabbed as many files as he could and took off.
*****LnC*****
Lois chewed her thumbnail nervously, trying to keep focused on her assignment while simultaneously keeping an eye on Clark Kent out of her peripheral. He had been lurking around the office more and more often, drifting closer to her almost unknowingly ever since they had spoken on the roof a few weeks ago. She didn't know why he was here today— sure, he'd given some b.s. reason about going over the books with Perry, increasing their ad sales and revenue and blah blah blah. That was all fine, but there was still something off about him. He wasn't simply focused on generating more income for the company. Besides, if that was all there was to it, he didn't need to come into the office to get the okay. He could have done it from anywhere, without even consulting Perry. But instead, he was here. And his attention was doing weird things to her stomach.
His eyes cut over to hers randomly, and she quickly looked away. She didn't miss his grin at her, but she steadfastly ignored it, burying her nose into her notes instead. Focus, Lane. Don't look up until you've read this entire page.
Which was why, when the commotion started, she'd barely taken notice. That is, until she heard her name being called.
"Lois? Lois Lane? Can anybody point me towards Lois Lane?"
She frowned, noticing Perry and Clark entering the bullpen to watch the chaos, and turned to look around for the source of the voice herself. It wasn't someone she recognized. He was a crazy, wild-eyed sort of man, in a long, dirty trenchcoat, and he was being closely followed by security trying to detain him. Curiosity piqued, Lois stood and started to make her way over to him.
"Miss Lane!" he shouted upon seeing her, practically flying down the ramp into the bullpen to meet her. Security scrambled after him. "It's going to explode! Here—"
Those words were like a bomb themselves. People heard the word 'explode' and ducked for cover, anxious that the unhinged man had something to do with it. He thrust a package into her hands and Lois found herself frozen with fear. The guards immediately came up and restrained the man, trying to drag him away fruitlessly.
"It's just my credentials!" he exclaimed out of frustration, pulling against his captors. "You don't understand— the space station has been sabotaged, the Messenger is going to explode! Miss Lane— you have to tell my story—"
"We're so sorry, Mr. White. Mr. Kent," the security guard nods to them as his partner cuffed the man. "He ran right past reception. We've had trouble with this one before."
"Please!" the cuffed man begged. "You have to believe me! The space program is doomed!"
"Get him out of here," Kent's voice rang out over all the others. "This guy's a box short of a variety pack."
"Yes sir, Mr. Kent." The two security officers complied, dragging the deranged man off and into the elevator.
"Wait a minute," Lois lamented suddenly. "What did you do that for?"
He frowned at her. "What for? A maniac came into the office screaming about a bomb. You think he should be allowed to hang around for a pot of coffee?"
"I'm just saying, the man was in distress. This obviously isn't a bomb." She hefted the packet up and peered at it.
"Even so," Clark conceded with a frown. "You never know. Do you have no concern for safety?"
Lois shifted her weight and crossed her arms tightly across her chest in a defensive gesture. The package remained clutched tightly in her grip. "In spite of what you may or may not believe, Mr. Kent, I am capable of taking care of myself."
He tossed his hands up in the air in frustration, not bothering to respond. Instead, he simply turned and stalked back into Perry's office. Lois grinned, taking it as a small victory. Perry frowned at her though, and she deflated a bit. So it was a bit needlessly reckless. Even she had been put on edge when he'd started shouting about a bomb. But still. She had a point to make.
She collapsed into her desk chair and flopped the bundle of papers down on her desk to examine it. There was nothing spectacular about it, just a plain ol' manilla envelope. Not even a signature or a drop of writing on it. It was quite crumpled— she guessed as much from herself as it was from the crazed man himself.
Completely unremarkable.
Lois sighed, opening it up to see what was inside that he had deemed so important. She frowned as she sifted through the pages, poring over each page in detail as the hours went by.
There were credentials all right. Loads of them. Passes to get him into laboratories, some of his pay stubs from his checks from EPRAD. And most of all, schematics. Loads of schematics and blueprints, each showing varying parts and equations. A lot of the math went straight over her head, but the results were clearly delineated. There seemed to be two different sets of information— one in which the launch of the Messenger went off smoothly, and the other where some sort of malfunction happened, causing the shuttle to indeed explode.
Her heart pounded at the realization. The Messenger was going to explode. Lois shot to her feet, chair rolling several feet away at the sudden action. Her heels clacked at a furious pace as she stormed over to Perry's office, nearly barrelling over several people in the process.
"Hey!"
"Can it, Jimmy!"
She pressed a firm hand against her boss' office door and it swung open with a bang. "Chief, I think there's a story here and we should check this guy out. The crazy guy from this morning? His name is Samuel Platt and he was an engineer at EPRAD for ten years—"
"Lois, are you nuts? You want to chase down every crazy that storms into the bullpen? You ain't gonna live too long if you do that, darlin'."
"Perry, I'm serious. He has all of the paperwork on the Messenger plans, and it doesn't make any sense. They seem to all say the same thing, but in one set of plans it takes off effortlessly and the other it explodes. It seems suspicious. Plus then there was all that nonsense about a bomb..."
"Lois," he growled out at her. She took no heed.
"I mean, Perry, what if it's not malfunction, but sabotage? What if someone deliberately wants the launch to fail?"
"Who would want that? It's a scientific expedition. You're not thinking very logically, Lois. Hard facts, Lois. That's what we need," Perry tried to emphasize, but she was leaps and bounds ahead of him in her whirling mind.
Lois opened her mouth to speak again when a knock on Perry's door frame tore their attention away. Clark stood there with a smile on his face. "Sorry to bother you again, Perry. I forgot to give you these earlier. You mentioned you liked football the other day, so I thought I'd give 'em to you."
He waltzed in and placed two tickets on Perry White's desk. He picked them up with great interest, gasping when he realized what they were. "Metropolis Tigers' tickets? On the fifty yard line? No, that's too much."
He brushed his concern out of the air. "I have season tickets. Don't worry about it. Besides, they're playing the Chiefs this weekend, and I'd have been sitting on the wrong side."
"Chiefs fan, huh?"
"Born and bred."
"Speaking of chiefs..." Lois finally spoke up, giving her boss a pointed look.
"Lois, my answer is no. You're gonna get yourself hurt or worse."
"I'm sorry, was I interrupting something?" Clark glanced between the two, Lois staunchly refusing to make eye contact with him.
"Lois here was just telling me how she wants to pursue the crazy man's story."
Clark’s eyebrows jumped to the ceiling. "The lunatic screaming about a bomb? I don't think so."
Lois turned up her nose at the words. "You don't get to have an opinion on the matter, you're not my boss, thank you very much."
"Uh, as a matter of fact, I do. I pay the insurance premiums on this company, its employees and the building. I say that gives me a right to weigh in when an employee decides to partake in reckless endangerment."
Her eyes did a nearly complete 360 in their sockets, rolling as they so often do. "Fine. I won't investigate it. Whatever."
"Lois darlin', you aren't just saying that are you? You won't investigate?"
Instead of responding, she simply spun on her heel to leave, ignoring her boss' nagging. It didn't matter what Perry told her, and he knew that. Lois Lane did anything she damn well pleased.
Perry sighed, worrying a hand around the thinning hair at the top of his head. "I tell you, if that woman wasn't one of the best damn investigative reporters I've ever seen, I'd... well, I don't know what I'd do. But luckily I don't think I'll ever have to find out."
Clark chuckled in response, eyes tracking her path across the bullpen with admiration. "I certainly hope you're right."
