I've hit another snag, but hopefully it's a small one <g>. In the meantime, here's what happened next:
From part 4:
She began to research flight, looking for an effective way to keep her bearings, and soon focused on the ancient sailors’ methods of steering by the stars. She studied star charts and brushed up on her geometry, and tested herself by choosing and correctly finding several destinations.
Flying quickly became a way for her to relieve the stress of daily life complicated by incredible abilities she had to keep hidden.
-----
The Girl Next Door, part 5:
Lois spent the summer after her third year – her last year of college - at the Daily Planet.
By dint of taking all of her electives during her summers, she’d managed to finish both her core classes and the required number of electives by the end of her junior year. Once she finished the summer internship program, she would have enough credits to graduate.
The two-week junior internship at the Planet that she’d won in high school had been primarily an observational one. She’d been given a tour of the entire building, and had then spent her days in the newsroom, shadowing a researcher, a reporter, and an editor.
This internship was a college course, for credits needed to graduate. As an intern, she was a very junior member of the staff – but she was staff nonetheless. She spent time in almost all of the Planet’s departments, learning the entire process from rough first-draft editing of news items, to collating and printing, to advertising and revenue.
She even spent some time in delivery. While working in delivery wasn’t very appealing, she did see the humor in coming home with hands blackened by fresh newsprint - exactly as Ellen had feared.
And after a month of rotating through departments, she was given a desk and assigned some actual stories.
A dog show. A ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new corner drugstore. A church festival. They certainly weren’t the cutting-edge investigative journalism pieces she longed to do, but she understood that she had to work her way up to the more interesting areas.
She didn’t like it, but she understood it.
And ever curious, she managed to stumble onto a pretty big scandal, involving rigged games and kickbacks, at a prestigious suburban high school while she was covering a junior varsity basketball game. Her special hearing helped tremendously, but her developing sense for news and her excellent observation skills were what clued her in to the story in the first place.
She carefully and meticulously documented everything she discovered, presenting the information to the Daily Planet’s legendary editor, Perry White, when she had ample proof to back up her story. She’d already learned, in the short time she’d been there, that he expected his reporters to deliver ‘hard facts, not supposition’.
Mr. White - he preferred Perry or Chief – commended her initiative at the morning staff meeting, and he put her story on the front page. It was allotted only a small corner, with most of the article continued inside, but it was still the front page.
Lois was absolutely thrilled to see her byline, ‘by Lois Lane’, on the *front page* of the Daily Planet.
Mr. White began to assign her stories with a little more grit to them. And Lois thrived on the work. Finally, she was beginning to achieve her dream – beginning to fight those dragons.
-----
There was only one thing that was unpleasant about her entire internship experience.
It began when she unknowingly attracted the attention of a reporter named Claude Rochert. He was a handsome man in his early thirties, with a suave and sophisticated, almost courtly manner. He spoke with a French accent and was somewhat of a flirt. He seemed quite friendly, had a keen sense of humor, and appeared to be well liked. Many of the women at the Planet gushed over him.
Lois wasn’t interested in him at all. Not only had she decided long ago that it was too dangerous for her to have any relationship, but Claude in particular she found just a little bit too… oily. There was something about his bantering that didn’t ring completely true, and her natural shyness and the caution she’d cultivated all her life kept her from responding to his overtures.
Instead of leaving her alone, however, he began to seek her out, paying her extravagant compliments and hinting that he was interested in a relationship with her.
Lois had no experience with this sort of thing. In high school and college, she’d been very much a loner. She had acquaintances, and would sometimes study with a loosely knit group of both male and female fellow students. But she had established a reputation for being somewhat standoffish early on. The few young men who had expressed any personal or romantic interest in her were firmly rebuffed.
Claude, however, didn’t seem to take the hint.
Her resolve to avoid him was strengthened when she overheard him one afternoon. He was speaking to Ralph, a sleazy reporter who had already been reprimanded several times, so the office gossip went, for incorrect behavior toward female members of the staff.
Her attention was caught when she heard her name.
“…Lane. You know, that hot little intern?” Claude was asking. The two men were sitting at Ralph’s desk at the back of the bullpen, far enough away that no one could hear them. No one with normal hearing, anyway.
Unfortunately, Lois’s hearing certainly wasn’t normal.
“Her?” Ralph replied. “Man, you’re not *really* considering - “
“But of course I am!” Claude interrupted him with a laugh. “Have you looked at her lately?”
“Buddy, she may be stacked, but she is *cold*,” Ralph said with a snort. “I bet even you can’t get her in the sack.” Lois, head bent over an article she was editing, fought a shudder.
“…It is just a matter of time, my friend,” Claude replied expansively.
“What, did you get a date with her?” Ralph asked, his voice tinged with something that made Lois’s skin crawl.
“Not yet, mon ami,” Claude said, “but I will. She will not be able to resist my… shall we say, my charm?” He laughed nastily. “She has been giving me a cold shoulder… but I believe I shall be able to… *persuade* her to… see things my way.”
“You better watch that if you mean what I think you mean,” Ralph said. “I almost got canned for trying something like that.”
“You, my friend, went about it without my flair,” Claude replied with a laugh.
“Yeah, but what if the broad tells?” Ralph asked sourly. “All I did was… let the kid know I appreciated her… assets. And the little b- “
“You should not use force. Not in the beginning,” Claude interrupted him. “No,” he continued with a laugh, “first you… seduce them. With words, with charm. With alcohol. Once you get them softened up, once you are alone with them, you can… *override*… any objections they might have. Women often say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’, I have found.”
Lois was unable to prevent a shudder at his words. Was he saying -?
“Well, what if they *do* mean it, and they tell?’ Ralph persisted. “I think you’re playing with fire, no matter how much fun it must be.”
“Who would Perry White believe?” Claude asked with an ugly laugh. “I – I am beloved of all of the Planet’s matrons. I am polite – something which might net *you* more… positive results, my friend. Again, I ask you – whom would he believe? Who *did* he believe? The word of an unknown, an immature college girl who dressed in tight jeans and obviously must have had a crush on his established reporter? Or the reporter, who has had no breath of scandal linked to him in all these years? One who sorrowfully admitted that he had perhaps not been vigilant enough to avert the girl’s misguided interest? A girl who obviously had no staying power if she could quit in the middle of her internship…”
Lois felt ill. Who were they talking about? Had Claude done this before? To an intern?
“And there are… ways to discourage complaints,” Claude continued. “If this one isn’t cooperative… there is the alcohol, for instance. And threats to a reporting future with the Planet. Unprofessional conduct, you know,” he said as Ralph laughed. “A few well-chosen words will knock the confidence right out of her.”
“She’s the original ice maiden, buddy,” Ralph said. “I don’t think it’s gonna happen.”
“Ah, but this one has an extra… how shall I describe it? A flair for news. She is only an intern and Perry has already put her on the front page. This one – I can… become a mentor, if you will. Offer advice…”
“Huh. Sleep with her and steal her story, you mean,” Ralph commented.
“I prefer to think of it as more of a… collaboration. I am the reporter. I present Perry with a superb story. And I magnanimously offer to put this intern under my byline, for her help. Again, who will he believe?”
“She’s already got a front-pager,” Ralph said. “Why wouldn’t she have another one all on her own?”
“A disappointed and distressed assertion that she has… borrowed my story… should do the trick,” Claude said with a laugh.
Lois had to force herself to stay calm. To carefully loosen her grip on the computer mouse before she crushed it.
It wasn’t going to happen. It was *not* going to happen. To her, or to anyone else, either, if she had anything to do with it.
This creep had *no* idea who he was dealing with.
He couldn’t hurt her – physically – and now that she was warned, he couldn’t hurt her emotionally either.
And alcohol didn’t affect her. She’d learned that on the very few occasions she’d joined a crowd of students at one of the campus haunts. It was another reason young men found her somewhat intimidating - she could apparently drink them under the table. She never deliberately drank large amounts of alcohol on purpose, but there had been a few times when a group of students would share several bottles of wine after an exam. Lois never got tipsy when the others did. Nobody ever questioned it – they just teased her about her excellent metabolism.
When Mr. White stepped out of his office and called the first warning to start wrapping up stories for the day, Claude stood and began heading back to his own desk. As he passed Lois’s desk, he gave her a wink and what appeared to be a friendly smile.
She looked down quickly to hide the revulsion she wasn’t sure she could conceal. Claude would probably interpret it as shyness on her part.
That was fine with her, if it meant she didn’t have to speak to him.
The first thing she was going to do tonight when she left the Daily Planet was buy a miniature tape recorder. And it was going to reside in her pocket at all times. She’d get the jerk on tape and expose his true nature to Perry.
---
Over the next few days, Lois contemplated how to bring this particular dragon down.
She didn’t think she could accept any sort of date with Claude. She wasn’t that good an actress. However, given what she’d heard, she suspected that even if she continued to remain unmoved by his advances, he would become bolder. Especially if she appeared to have a story he wanted.
He was already beginning to show an increased interest in the stories she was working on. And chillingly, he was very convincing. If she hadn’t heard him talking to Ralph, she might very well have taken his comments and questions as a genuine desire to help her.
So what should she do?
Patience wasn’t really Lois’s strong suit; used to fending for herself, she’d developed a tendency to make decisions quickly.
But when it came to investigative journalism, she was already learning that thoroughness and patience were her greatest allies. Other than her special… advantages, of course.
She had worried, when she’d started her internship, that she would somehow be cheating if she used her abilities to help her get a story. She was learning quickly, however, that a lot of investigative journalism involved slogging through large amounts of information or research, or waiting for something to happen.
Waiting for your quarry to show during a stakeout.
Waiting for your source to confirm or deny something.
Waiting while your editor went over your story.
Any extra advantages she had – her enhanced senses, her speed, her strength – were perfectly acceptable as long as she followed the rules. As long as she only used her abilities to help her fight the dragons.
To expose corruption.
To do the right thing.
To report truthfully and fight for justice.
So… she would continue to work on her assigned stories, while she waited for Claude to act.
If – when – that happened, she would be ready for him.
-----
By the end of the week, Lois was ready to scream.
She’d finished researching one of the two stories Mr. White had assigned her. She had written it, proofread it, and submitted it for editing.
The other story was giving her some trouble. It was supposed to be a straightforward story about a local nursing home’s amenities and programs for its residents. But she had encountered some strange undercurrents of… something when she’d attempted to augment her interview with the director by talking to some of the nursing staff.
She couldn’t ignore her instincts, even though the deadline Mr. White had given her was looming. What she’d overheard whispered among some of the staff seemed to indicate that there might be something illegal going on, although she hadn’t figured out what it was yet. She was planning to go back to the facility again at least once more. If she couldn’t get anyone to talk to her, she would have to resort to a stakeout with assistance from her special vision and hearing.
And on top of the increased amount of time the investigation was causing her, she had to deal with Claude, who was practically in her pocket these last few days. Every time she turned around, it seemed, he was there watching, or asking if she needed help or advice.
She had to keep playing dumb about his true nature. She had to be pleasant in order to catch him, but she was finding it harder to conceal both her revulsion and her irritation. Was irritation enough of an excuse to just deck the creep and get it over with?
She sighed. Not if she wanted to bring him down.
Claude leaned against the edge of her desk. “You look frustrated, cherie,” he said, his voice soft with what she knew was false concern. “A story that is not turning out so well? Perhaps you can talk it over, hmmm? I would be happy to assist you, if you wish.”
Lois forced herself to loosen her grip on her pen. It wouldn’t do to break it in half in front of him.
Decision time. Politely rebuff him, as she had been doing regularly? Or offer him bait in the form of a possible story?
“Um…” she said, stalling for time. She shot a quick glance at him, using her increased speed. He was staring at her chest, and the expression on his face was purely predatory. As she brought her head up again at normal speed, he raised his eyes to her face and smoothed his expression in a manner so practiced that had she really been the naïve college student he supposed her to be, she would have missed the moment entirely.
Okay. That did it.
“Well, there’s this story Mr. White gave me,” she began. She heard his pulse rate quicken. “It’s supposed to be an informational article on this nursing home, but I think there might be something going on there. I was going to go back and talk to the staff again…”
He sat on the edge of her desk and leaned in, reaching for her notes. “May I?” he asked with smiling charm, “I may be able to find something you have overlooked.”
She fought the twin urges to lean back well away from him, and to knock him into next Tuesday.
“Well, I might have to do a stakeout,” she continued. “I thought I might wait for the shift change, you know? And ask a few questions.”
“Would you like me to accompany you?” he asked, all solicitude and apparent sincerity. “I am concerned for your safety, cherie.”
Lois looked down quickly. She couldn’t do this. In a moment, he was going to realize it wasn’t shyness he was dealing with. She clenched her hand under her desk, and felt the pen she still held give way. Rats. Now she’d also have to deal with spilled ink.
“Claude!” Mr. White bellowed. To Lois, his gruff voice sounded better than a chorus of angels. “Take Eduardo and get over to Tenth Street. There’s a bakery on fire. News, people! I want news!”
Lois exhaled softly in relief as Claude stood smoothly. “Duty calls, cherie,” he said, already moving away. “You must take extra care tonight, and return safely. Perhaps I shall see you here tonight, once you have the information you seek? I can assist you in laying out your facts?”
He was so sure of his impending conquest that he didn’t wait to hear her assent. Which was just as well, since she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to speak just then.
Carefully, she stood and dropped the mangled pen into her trashcan, then turned toward the ladies’ room. She needed a moment alone, and glancing ruefully at her hand, she noted that she also needed some soap and water.
---
It turned out to be a protection racket.
She was lucky enough to find two staff members leaving at the end of their shifts who were willing to talk to her. Once she knew what she was looking for, she was able to hover – literally – and listen in on the director’s activities.
The director had a gambling problem and had borrowed money from some unsavory sources. Money that he was unable to pay back. Now he was being threatened, and he had resorted to taking funds from the nursing home to pay the debt. He’d also begun to steal medications intended for the patients – specifically, narcotics – to sell.
The voice-activated recorder she’d bought came in handy, when around midnight the director met with a couple of burly and threatening-looking men at the side door of the nursing home, an area sheltered from prying eyes by a dumpster and a row of tall bushes. Lois silently drifted down far enough to set the recorder on a windowsill above the men’s heads, then sat on the roof and listened in. After the clandestine meeting, when the thugs had left and the director had retreated into the building, Lois retrieved her recorder.
Her luck held. On a hunch, she quietly explored two closed cardboard boxes near the top of the almost-full dumpster. They were full of pages entitled ‘Medication Administration Record’, for scores of different patients. The two staff members she’d spoken to earlier had said that there were falsified records in some of the charts. These, then, were probably the originals. Lois didn’t know why the director hadn’t shredded them, but now they’d be evidence.
---
As an intern, Lois was supposed to let Mr. White know where she was, if she was out of the office on Planet business. Normally, interns didn’t do stakeouts, either. Lois, however, wasn’t an ordinary intern.
She’d suspected that he would either try to stop her stakeout plans, or send a seasoned reporter with her. She didn’t want to share her story with someone else, especially if they hadn’t done an equal share of the work. And of course, going alone meant she could fly to the nursing home, and hover over it if necessary while listening and looking.
So when she stopped at her apartment to change clothes before starting her stakeout, she’d sent a quick email to him:
Mr. White,
This is about the second story you assigned me, which was supposed to be a City Life feature article about the amenities offered by Lifecare Nursing and Rehab. It’s due tomorrow afternoon, but I’ve discovered some possibly illegal activities going on over there. Tonight I’m going to try to talk to some of the staff at shift change, and I’ll send you more information as soon as I finish there.
Lois Lane
Mr. White couldn’t stop her from going on the stakeout if he didn’t know about it until it was too late, she had reasoned. And she was sure – pretty sure – that she wouldn’t get into too much trouble with him, if she was able to deliver a good story.
She wouldn’t normally send the editor a rough draft of her story while it was in progress, either. But the date of transmission of both emails would prove the story was hers, especially since her stakeout occurred while Claude was covering the downtown fire.
At speed, she wrote the rough outline of the story when she returned to her apartment, and emailed it to Mr. White.
Then she returned to the Daily Planet to properly finish the story.
---
It was very late – or very early, depending on one’s point of view - when she arrived at the Planet.
The morning edition had gone to print several hours ago, but there were still a few people in the newsroom. As sometimes happened, there were still one or two of the day staff finishing up stories for the following day. And there was always a night crew, of course, although they didn’t always stay in the bullpen. There was a smaller ‘command center’ adjoining the research room that worked better for a skeleton crew, with computers, a printer, scanner, and fax machine, a police-band scanner, and other equipment closer at hand than in the main newsroom.
Lois began by diagramming her story on paper, as she’d been taught.
Mr. White preferred that his reporters begin their stories with diagrams or outlines on paper, the way it had been done for years. He didn’t object to the computers for the final drafts - most stories were submitted to him via computer. If a story required corrections, he usually printed it out and wrote on it with his blue pencil – again, just the way it had been done for years. He subscribed to the theory that seeing their errors in color, on paper, made the corrections more likely to stick in his reporters’ minds.
So Lois created a diagram for her story, just as she always did. But this time, she did it much faster than humanly possible.
She wanted to have the story written and safely submitted to Mr. White before Claude showed up.
Next, she retrieved the rough outline of her story, which she’d copied to her Planet email address when she’d sent it to Mr. White. After a quick look around to make sure she was unobserved, she again used her special speed to swiftly but thoroughly go over it, crafting it into a readable story. Then she sent it to the editor’s story submission drop box.
Once the story was safely filed, she returned to her story diagram and her rough draft. She needed to appear to be working on the story, just in case...
And sure enough, she’d been sitting there for only a short while before Claude showed up.
“Hello, cherie,” he said, hovering over her like a predatory bird. “I’ve been watching for you.” Lois repressed a shudder. “How was your stakeout?” he continued in his best concerned mentor voice. “Do you need some help?”
“No, thanks,” her mouth said before her brain engaged.
It didn’t matter. Claude pulled up a chair and sat beside her – too close – and demanded, “Show me what you have so far.”
He leaned in even further and began to read her rough draft over her shoulder.
It was a good thing she was invulnerable. She bit the inside of her mouth so hard, in an effort to restrain herself, that she would have drawn blood otherwise. She dropped her left hand – out of sight since Claude was sitting on her right – into her jacket pocket and pressed the power button on the concealed recorder. It was voice activated, so she wouldn’t have long stretches of silence when she listened to it later.
“This is very good for a first outline,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder as he leaned forward to pick it up. It had the same information she’d already sent Mr. White, but Claude wouldn’t know that. “But I can help you polish it. Perhaps we can go someplace quiet?”
“No, thank you,” she managed to say politely, and glanced at him swiftly, catching the thinned lips and flash of annoyance he quickly concealed. He was being very pushy, and probably wouldn’t have backed off if they were not at the Planet. Even though there were very few people around at this time of night to witness anything.
She was not going to go *anywhere* with him. Still, she needed to set her first trap for him – to give him the opportunity to help himself to her story. She hadn’t really worked out how she would get the rest of it – his refusal to accept that ‘no’ meant ‘no’ – yet, anyway.
Deliberately, she moved away from him, closing the folder containing her story and notes, and then tucked it into her top desk drawer.
“I think I’ve got everything I need,” she continued, pushing her chair back far enough to stand up. Claude rose with her as she said, “I’m going to go home. I’ll give the story to Mr. White in the morning.”
Claude took her hand and raised it to his lips. She fought another shudder. “Sleep well, cherie,” he said caressingly as he stepped back. “I would like to see you home, but unfortunately, I still have some work to do,” he added.
<Yeah – like help yourself to my story> she thought, but forced herself to smile at him. She slipped her hand into her jacket pocket and deactivated the tape recorder. She didn’t have anything incriminating but their conversation might help establish that the story belonged to her.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, and moved toward the elevator. Glancing back at him, she saw he was watching her. She stepped into the elevator and saw him turn away. At top speed, she pressed the ‘close door’ button, waited for the door to close at least halfway, then zipped out of the elevator. Moving too fast to be seen, she sped into the stairwell, opening the stairway door just far enough to slip through and immediately pushing it closed again.
Scanning through the door, she watched him glance around, then boldly open her desk drawer and remove the folder.
“Gotcha, you creep,” she whispered, and sped up the stairwell to the roof.
-----
To be continued
