Thank you all for sticking with me on this rather slow posting schedule. Hopefully, I can post twice a week for the next few parts.
Also - thank you, in particular, to those of you who answered my question about computer code.
From part 9:
But then he was collecting the empty coffee containers, walking into her kitchen and placing them into the trash, and as she followed him slowly, he glanced at his watch. “Well, I guess I’d better get going,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” And once again, he was leaving with a quiet “Good night, Lois.” while she stood there trying not to wonder where he was going.-----
The Girl Next Door, part 10:
Lois didn’t get to work until nearly one o’clock the next afternoon, and when she did arrive, her mood was so volatile that it made mere Mad Dog Lane seem mild enough to soothe a baby to sleep. She stormed in like a small fury, and the day went downhill from there.
Jimmy, approaching with a stack of printouts Clark had asked him for, stopped abruptly half the newsroom away from her, flashed a rather sickly, apologetic smile at him, and fled down the hall toward the research rooms. Planet employees in the immediate vicinity kept their heads down, apparently intensely focused on their work. More people than usual donned headphones or earbuds; there was little talk between desks as most of them apparently discovered the joys of music.
She stopped at her desk, dumped the two bundles of Dr. Platt’s notes she had brought in with her into the center of her work area, and sat down. She stared down at her copy of the morning edition for a moment, unmoving, then bent and stuffed her purse into the bottom drawer.
“Are you alright, Lois?” Kent foolishly chose to ask her.
She straightened up and glared at him, but said nothing.
Most people would have stopped there, but he tried again. “Where were you this morning? Did something happen?”
“What are you, my keeper?” she snapped at him, ignoring his surprise.
After a few moments, he asked cautiously, “Should we get started on Dr. Platt’s notes?”
“Get this straight,” she snarled at him. “There is no *we*. There is *you* and there is *me*, but *there* *is* *no* *we*. You think I’m going to carry you in my back pocket through this investigation? Think again, buddy!”
Rising to her feet, she grabbed the two bundles of Dr. Platt’s notes, the morning edition, a notebook and a handful of pencils, and charged across the newsroom to the closer of the two conference rooms. Entering on a tide of anger, she tossed everything onto the table, slammed the door, and sat down to work, her back to the newsroom.
As the afternoon wore on, her cantankerous mood deteriorated to one of deep gloom. She deliberately shut down her hearing, blocking out by sheer determination the whispered mutters and comments she knew were making their way around the newsroom. As the day wound down, she made less and less effort to read Dr. Platt’s notes, and finally she just sat and stared at the table.
Three months ago, she’d written a series of hard-hitting investigative reports on one of the city’s most notorious slumlords. She’d researched her information thoroughly, and had exposed some of his dirty dealings and the deplorable conditions of the buildings he owned.
Her work had helped get him a day in court, and she’d hoped the resultant charges would force him to clean up his buildings and bring them up to code. Unfortunately, he’d gotten off with a few fines and a slap on the wrist, and had gone back to managing the various properties – with only a few cosmetic changes.
She’d been working on a follow-up article when the Space Station Prometheus investigation had begun to heat up, and the slumlord’s activities – or lack of – had been pushed aside for later.
This morning, getting ready for work, she’d gotten a call from Bobby Bigmouth that one of the shabby apartment buildings on the edge of Suicide Slum had caught on fire. It was one that was particularly unsafe. It had only one stairwell, the elevators were almost always inoperable, and there were no fire escapes.
By the time she got there, the fire was under control. It had been relatively minor and easily confined - but the few tenants remaining in the building had been trapped on an upper floor. The fire had not reached them, but they had succumbed to the thick smoke before the firemen could reach them.
She had heard the final, gasping cries of one of the victims. She’d been unable to help any of them. Rationally, she knew that even if she could use her powers openly, she would probably have been too late. But while this sort of thing was rare, it had happened before.
She’d learned to block out a lot of the sounds she heard, concentrating on only her immediate surroundings. But sometimes she couldn’t help but hear them – people in need of help. On several occasions, she’d been able to help unobtrusively, but more often than not, she couldn’t help without exposing her secret.
Now she opened the morning edition, paging through it until she found the small article about the fire. It listed the victims – six people who might have lived if she’d heard about the fire earlier, if she’d been there soon enough to find a way to get them out of the building, or extinguish the fire, or clear the smoke…
The door opening behind her brought her attention back to her immediate surroundings. The newsroom outside the conference room was darkened; it was past quitting time for the day staff and the lights had gone to night-shift settings. Her partner entered the room and pulled out a chair beside her, sitting down and sliding a covered foam cup in front of her. “Hot chocolate,” he said softly. “I thought you could use it.”
She took the cup, not looking at him, and sipped.
“Are you okay?” he asked her just as softly.
Her anger had burned itself out. She sat for a moment, staring at the article, then slapped her hand down on it and looked up at him. “Look at this,” she burst out. “This fire – it shouldn’t have happened! I shouldn’t have *let* it happen! I could have stopped it, Clark!”
He didn’t – couldn’t – know that her words had more than one meaning. There was the meaning she intended him to get – she should have done more to expose the slumlord, the unsafe building. But there was also the meaning only she knew: she should have found a way to get in there and help those people.
But her fear of exposure was so strong; all her life, she’d had to keep her special abilities hidden. Usually she could deal with that; she’d found that being an investigative reporter was the best non-special-abilities way to fight dragons. But this sort of thing was the worst - when things like this happened, where she *could* have helped but didn’t.
“Lois, you did try to stop it. I read that series of articles – they were compelling and they launched a full-scale police investigation into the man’s activities.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered miserably. “I *could* have helped those people…”
He reached gently over and placed his long fingers against her chin, turning her face so that she was looking at him. “Lois, I covered that fire this morning,” he said. “I spoke to the fire chief. The poor quality of the construction produced massive quantities of poisonous smoke, and those poor people were unlucky enough to walk into a pocket of it. The fire chief said that even if his men had been on the same floor in full fire gear at the start of the fire, they would have been unable to save them all. It wasn’t the smoke itself, but the toxins in it. There was nothing anyone could have done to help.”
“But I should have found a way…” she said.
“Sometimes you just… can’t,” he said. “You can’t protect everyone, no matter who you are – policeman, fireman, rescue personnel, doctor – or investigative reporter. What you *can* do is not let their deaths be in vain. You can expose this guy further, Lois – now, in addition to poorly maintained buildings, shortcuts in construction, and code violations, he has the deaths of six people to explain. You can fix it so that he pays for those shortcuts, and that those buildings are emptied and either fixed or condemned.”
“If you’d like,” he continued somewhat diffidently, “I can help you with that right now. We can put Dr. Platt’s notes aside for one evening and concentrate on this. Maybe get the legal ball rolling on this guy as soon as tomorrow, or at least the end of the week.”
She drank some more of the hot chocolate and thought briefly about that. It would ease her mind to jump on this guy, figuratively, and maybe get some closure on the whole thing. And Clark was right – Dr. Platt’s notes could wait until tomorrow. She looked up at him, to find him watching her with an expression she couldn’t interpret on his face. He smiled encouragingly at her, the expression gone, and she nodded slowly.
“Yes. Let’s do that. We may even be able to get it into tomorrow’s morning edition.
“Let’s write a quick follow-up reiterating what the fire chief told me,” Clark suggested, “and get that submitted right away. Then we can take all the time we need to properly expose this guy, and make tomorrow’s evening edition with it. How about that?”
It took them several hours to craft a story they were both happy with. It was close to midnight when they finished, and if she’d been alone, Lois would have simply flown home.
Clark, however, had suggested that he see her home safely, and after a brief consideration, she had agreed. It seemed easier than the machinations she would have had to go through to avoid going down to the lobby with him, or to stop him from hailing her a cab.
Even Mad Dog Lane wouldn’t have worked. She was learning that Clark Kent was chivalrous to a fault; he would have accompanied her down to the lobby and seen her safely on her way regardless of how ill-tempered she was. In the end, they shared a cab, since her apartment was apparently on his way home.
He had offered to stop by in the morning and help her carry the box of Dr. Platt’s notes, and again, it was easier to agree than to find a believable excuse to refuse his help.
---
As soon as they arrived at the Planet the next morning, Lois commandeered one of the conference rooms. There was no morning meeting today; Perry was closeted with the ‘suits’ for the monthly business meeting. After setting down the box of Dr. Platt’s research notes, Clark excused himself without further explanation, saying only that he would be back shortly.
After the amicable cab ride this morning, Lois wasn’t sure what to make of that. Well, she wasn’t his keeper. Deliberately pushing it to the back of her mind, she emptied the box and set it on the floor, then sat down and pulled the first bundle of notes toward her. She looked up as the door opened, to see Clark coming into the room with a smile and two Metropolis Coffee cups.
“Surprise,” he said, still grinning, and set one of the cups in front of her. “Your usual; ready to get to work?”
“If you’re done gallivanting around, Kent,” she replied snootily, then spoiled it by smiling back and taking a long, appreciative sip.
They read steadily, doggedly through the morning, occasionally calling Jimmy when they needed more information. Finally, Lois sighed and leaned back, and Clark glanced over at her with a sympathetic smile. “It sure would be easier to read this stuff if it was in more of a… conventional format, wouldn’t it?” he asked.
“Or even if the man’s handwriting didn’t look like a spider dipped in ink had crawled across the page…” Lois said, recalling the phrase from an essay she’d read in college. She’d found it particularly evocative, but even the mental picture she’d formed at the time hadn’t been as bad as some of Dr. Platt’s sentences were.
“I need a break from this,” she said. Flying would be perfect – except that she couldn’t do that in the middle of the day. She’d have to wait for the cover of night. She sighed again. Fine. In the meantime, though –
Jimmy rapped on the door and stuck his head in. “Hey, guys. Lunchtime. The Chief sent me out for Chinese – c’mon and grab some before it’s all gone.”
As they rose and prepared to follow him, Lois asked, “Have you made any progress on that code?”
He paused in the doorway. “No – but…” he looked around and lowered his voice. “I finally… uh… *found* the program for the countdown launch. I was going to work through that today- see if Dr. Platt’s code is in there. I’ll need to go through it line by line – that’ll take awhile, you know. But if I do find ‘em in there, it would confirm what we were thinking.”
“Well, get started on it right after lunch,” she said.
“Uh, well… I have some other stuff to do, too. A couple of the City News Desk reporters have some –“
“This is more important,” Lois cut in decisively. “Grab what you need and get in here, Jimmy. Bring your lunch.” She gestured to the conference room’s computer. “Clark and I don’t need that computer right now, so you can get started on it right there.”
“But what about the City News –“ Jimmy started.
“If you’re in here, they’ll leave you alone,” she answered matter-of-factly.
Jimmy glanced at Clark, who shrugged and said with a laugh, “You heard her, Jim. I’m not going to stop her when she’s on a roll. Besides, I agree with her.”
“Well… okay. I was going to get the drudge research out of the way first, then work on this computer code… But instead… It’s like getting to eat dessert first, before dinner,” Jimmy told them happily as they made their way over to where the food was laid out in the break area.
They filled plates and headed back to the conference room. Jimmy immediately settled in at the computer, donned the headphones of his music player, and was instantly oblivious to everything except the lines of code on the screen in front of him.
Despite his presence, though, the room seemed more intimate than it had in the morning. Maybe it was the intimacy of eating together - or maybe she was just getting too comfortable with Clark. Lois realized suddenly that she’d forgotten to be Mad Dog Lane with him.
Abruptly, she pushed her plate away. She *had* to remember to keep him at arm’s length!
“Would you like anything else?” the man in question asked. She looked up and caught his eye; he was leaning back in his chair and watching her, and she could see clearly the admiration in his eyes.
She almost panicked. Caught in his gaze, for a moment she couldn’t look away, and the room seemed to narrow down to just the two of them. Heart pounding, she looked down, shuffling Dr. Platt’s notes around and no doubt disarranging the carefully ordered pages. Right now, she didn’t care about that.
“Lois?”
“No!” she cried. To her disgust, she even sounded panicky. With an effort, she dredged up a little bit of Mad Dog Lane. “I’m fine. Let’s get back to work,” she said flatly.
Clark – no, *Kent* - looked at her, one eyebrow raised in inquiry.
She looked challengingly back at him. Her grasp on Mad Dog Lane felt much firmer. “Look, we’ve got a lot to go through,” she said crisply. “We need to get on it right away.”
She turned away from him deliberately, and went back to reading Dr. Platt’s notes. After a moment, she heard the rustle of movement that indicated that he, too, had gone back to reading.
Okay. Mad Dog was back. Things ought to go much more smoothly now.
---
Around four o’clock, Jimmy let out a sudden whoop, startling both reporters. “Woo-hoo! Guys, I’ve got it! We were right! See, here –“ He tapped the monitor as they rose and came over to him. “These lines –“ He pointed to a spot halfway down a screen filled with lines of closely spaced gibberish that meant nothing to them. “Someone inserted this - this is all nonsense. It’s not a loop or a command – it’s basically just a break in the code. It doesn’t mean anything and it doesn’t tell the system to *do* anything…”
“And that would cause the whole system to…?” Lois broke in.
“Yes! Exactly! The launch would just shut down. This is so… so *devious* - the shut-down would seem inexplicable - there’d be no obvious reason for it.”
“Wouldn’t they think to look for it?” Kent asked.
“Well, no. Not right away, anyway. First they’d assume it was an external system fault like… you know, a faulty component - electronics, or wiring, or… conduits. That kind of thing. They’d go over the whole shuttle, practically with a magnifying glass. ‘Cause, you know, especially if this sabotage code was inserted *after* the whole program was certified and test-run, why would they even consider it was a programming issue?”
“It would have to be someone who works for the program,” Kent said thoughtfully.
“Oh, yeah – the only way to insert these lines is to have access to them. And believe me, guys, the only way to have access is to work there. I mean, it took me a couple of days to crack their security codes enough to get a copy of this…” Jimmy was practically bouncing in the chair.
“Not just *anyone* who works there…” Lois said. “Someone –“
“Do you think Dr. Platt *did* do this?” Jimmy interrupted her.
She rolled her eyes at him. “Get real, Jimmy. Why would he call our attention to it if he was the culprit?”
“Well… you know, if he was sorry for doing it, or something…” Jimmy trailed off as she shook her head. She thought she heard the tiniest, smothered snort of laughter from Kent, but she ignored it.
“Jimmy, you are *so* naïve. If that were the case, he’d have just told us about it - not left us to figure it out from his notes. As a matter of fact, he doesn’t know who it is, either. I bet he suspects someone, though. That’s why he told me – us – about this. He wants us to figure out who it is and stop them.”
“Jim,” Kent broke in. “Can you print that out and mark the lines for us?
“Sure – but it’ll take a lot of paper. This is probably… Oh, I don’t know… Maybe a couple hundred pages? Around there… Why can’t I just put it on a floppy?”
“We’re going to need it on paper so we can highlight the nonsense lines, Jim,” Kent explained. “And then take it to the authorities. It’ll be harder to find if we just transfer the entire body of code to a floppy.”
“Oh. Uh… You know, I didn’t exactly obtain that program *legally*,” Jimmy pointed out worriedly.
“Don’t worry – we won’t name you, Jim,” Kent assured him. “Right now, let’s just say you’re one of our ‘confidential sources’.
“Hey, CK – I like that!” Jimmy said. “A ‘confidential source’... Wow! Okay, guys, gimme, like… twenty minutes, okay? I’ll have it printed and highlighted and ready to go.”
“Go to it, Jimmy,” Lois said.
“Good job, Jim. Thank you,” Kent added.
And Lois was willing to admit, albeit grudgingly, that he had a point. Jimmy *had* done a good job. Without him, they’d probably still be struggling over those few lines of code.
Catching the young man’s eye, she flashed him a genuine smile. “Yes, thanks, Jimmy. You’ve done an excellent job. And wasn’t it more fun than doing… whatever… for the City Desk guys?” Her smile widened as he blushed and stammered a semi-coherent agreement.
She glanced at Kent, who grinned and shook his head at her mock-reprovingly, and she found herself fighting a smile. Honestly, the man just wasn’t intimidated by Mad Dog Lane at all. She couldn’t decide for sure if that made him very foolish or very brave.
Well, she’d worry about that later.
“I think it’s time we went and talked to Dr. Platt,” she told him briskly. “We’ve gone through most of his research notes, and we know that code was inserted into the shuttle’s program – “
He nodded. “And if we can find out who he suspects… Here, I’ll get his research refastened into bundles and stash the box… Where? Under one of our desks for now?“ When she nodded, he continued, “…While you collect whatever we need to interview Dr. Platt –“
“Our notes. Notepads for both of us… Pens, of course… Oh, my tape recorder…” she began to itemize what they would need.
“…And hopefully, by the time we’re ready, Jimmy will have that code printed,” he continued.
By five o’clock, armed with the paraphernalia of reporting, they hailed a cab and headed for the place Samuel Platt had told Lois he was staying.
---
To be continued
