LabRat, after much thought
, I went back to a certain paragraph you made a certain comment about, and... altered it slightly. You'll see what I mean
; you'll have to let me know what you think.
From part 11:
It *had* to be a girlfriend, she thought glumly, and then pulled herself up sharply. It was nothing to do with her. They were *friends*. He’d said that – “I think we’re becoming friends, Lois?” And she’d agreed. It was… nice to have a friend. She didn’t need anything more.-----
The Girl Next Door, part 12:
Monday found them back in the newsroom, poring through the first set of documents Jimmy had ready for them.
Tuesday and Wednesday also found them looking through still more information Jimmy had dredged up from who knew where. It was slow, tedious work because there were an astoundingly large number companies which were in some way associated with Luthor Industries. And they had to go through the financial documents page by page.
The pile of discarded documents grew steadily, but they also had a second stack, growing much more slowly, of documents detailing unexpected declines in the fortunes of some of the companies. Sudden inexplicable stock downturns, or withdrawal of financial backing. Large business loans suddenly coming due. And in two cases, the unexpected death of someone of importance. And each company, shortly after its reversal of fortune, had been snapped up by Luthor Industries.
Thursday morning, they took a break from the research when Perry sent them both out to a press conference at EPRAD. There, they listened as the director of the entire space program, the director of the Space Station Prometheus project, and the director of the shuttle program assured the members of the Press that the programs were safe, secure, and on track. The assurances themselves took quite awhile, leaving very little time for questions.
On the way back to the newsroom, Lois and Clark agreed that the reduced time for questions had quite possibly been deliberate. “I don’t think they want Lane and Kent asking uncomfortable questions,” she’d said with a grin.
Clark had agreed laughingly, and they’d made their way up to the newsroom amicably discussing the statements they’d heard.
They were currently sitting in the conference room again, side by side, as they worked their way through the pages and pages – and pages - of financial documents. With a huge sigh, Lois tossed the one she’d been reading in the general direction of their discard pile, and propping her elbows on the table, dropped her head into her hands.
“I am so *tired* of reading about this guy I could scream!”
Beside her, Clark chuckled sympathetically. Lifting her head, she glanced over at him. Tossing his own document on the discard stack, he smiled at her and teased, “Tired enough that you’re ready to work on one of Perry’s story assignments?”
She tossed her head at him, and with a straight face, said haughtily, “A true investigative reporter *never* gets that tired. Asking me to write some of those drabble stories is like… giving a leopard a bowl of oatmeal instead of a steak.” The effect was ruined by the giggle she was unable to completely suppress.
He laughed as he picked up another document and tossed it lightly in front of her. “Here you go, tiger – sink your teeth into that one, then.” As she reached for it with a groan, he grabbed a second document for himself and began to read through it.
She’d barely gotten halfway down the first page when Clark suddenly straightened up in his chair. “Lois - look at this!”
She leaned toward him and he tipped the document so she could read it more easily. “You know this list of companies Luthor’s taken over recently? Well, look at the way Jimmy’s got some of them listed.”
“He’s got them all linked together, instead of listed separately,” she said. “Why?”
“Well, I wonder… There was something I read in one of the news articles on Luthor’s ‘empire’. It’s here somewhere…” Clark flipped through a stack of documents they’d read earlier in the day. “It says he’s made use of shell corporations to… Let’s see… ‘…Been called a corporate raider by some disgruntled rivals…’ That’s not it. ‘Savvy businessman…’ Here. Here it is: ‘…Has grouped several failing businesses under shell corporations to more easily obtain financing for them, thereby preserving the businesses and eventually bringing them back from the brink of financial failure…’ So – could they all be shell corporations?”
“Shell companies have been used for tax evasion, haven’t they?” Lois asked. “Or for tax *avoidance*, anyway… And for money laundering.”
“Well, seeing the way these companies are all linked together made me think of that article. Maybe these’re all companies that have shells. The same article, by the way, said he’s got a knack for finding companies in trouble and basically absorbing them into his empire.”
“Huh. *Finding* companies in trouble, or creating trouble for companies and then acquiring them?” Lois muttered.
“That’s what I’m hoping we’ll find,” Clark reminded her. “Some sort of trouble in a previously prosperous company that made it susceptible to a takeover.”
“Well, first let’s find out if Jimmy listed these companies like this on purpose.” She sighed and stood up. “Then it’s back to the documents. If Luthor *has* sabotaged companies so he can scavenge them, he’s certainly hidden his tracks well.”
She stuck her head out the conference room door, and seeing Jimmy across the newsroom, stuck two fingers in her mouth and whistled. Although it was pretty ear piercing, no one except Jimmy reacted to it. When the young man looked her way, she beckoned him with a smile. He rose from the computer he’d been either dismantling or repairing, dumped an armload of stuff on the corner of the desk and trotted toward the conference room.
Returning to the table, she saw Clark looking at her, one eyebrow raised questioningly. “What?” she asked.
“Uh… No one else in the newsroom even looked up when you did that,” he said wonderingly.
“Nah, they’re used to it,” Jimmy answered for her as he entered the room. “It started as a joke – Perry did it once when I was digging around in some computer files and didn’t hear him call me –“
Clark’s eyebrow shot up again. “Uh, Jim… Perry’s got a pretty… commanding voice,” he commented mildly.
As Lois laughed, Jimmy said with a grin, “Yeah, well, I get kinda… carried away doing computer stuff sometimes, you know? So anyway, he whistled, and I looked up, and now sometimes one of the reporters’ll do that if they see me messing around with a computer.” Turning to Lois, he continued, “Whatcha need, Lois?”
She handed him the printout. “Jimmy, those companies you researched for us – it looks like some of them are shell corporations. But you’ve got all of these names linked together. Was that intentional?”
He took the document and skimmed over it. “Oh - yeah. Yes, I linked ‘em like that on purpose. When I started to dig around, it was like… those rows of dominoes where you knock the first one down and then all the others fall in a line. Or – like those wooden nesting dolls, you know? You open one up, and there’s another one inside it - and then another one inside that. All these companies - I’d start with one, but the deeper I looked, the more there were. Each one led to another.”
“Like here – this one…“ He tapped the first name in one of the linked groups; Clark stood and joined them as Jimmy continued, “…This company, Upco, is apparently just a name, right? So someone is using it to do some sort of business, but it isn’t actually a company itself. Like you said, a shell corporation. So I go looking for information on Upco, thinking I’ll be able to tell you what it does or who’s on the board of directors… And I find another company called BRC. So I dig into BRC, and it turns out *it’s* a shell corporation, too… I don’t know why, guys, but quite a few of these companies are shell corporations several layers deep.”
“Wait a minute…” Lois exclaimed. She took the printout from Jimmy and pointed to a name at the end of one of the strings. “Clark, this company – NovaCo - wasn’t it in Dr Platt’s notes?”
Without waiting for his answer, she whirled toward the conference room door. “Here - we need his notes…”
“I’ll get ‘em,” Jimmy volunteered. “Is that box is still under your desk, CK?”
“Yes – thanks, Jim.”
Within a couple of minutes he was back with the box, which he set on the table.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” Lois said, already taking the neatly rubber-banded stacks out of the box. “It’s gonna take me awhile to find it… Why on earth the man couldn’t write on ordinary paper like everyone else...”
“Did you need anything else?” Jimmy asked, as Clark began to help Lois remove stacks.
“What, Jimmy? …We’ll have to page through each one,” she told Clark. “I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the first two stacks… No, Jimmy, that’s all for the moment. Thanks,” she added.
She dropped back into her chair. “This is going to take more than just ‘awhile’.” She sighed. Now would be an excellent time to make use of her enhanced speed, but unfortunately, she couldn’t.
“Here,” Clark said, setting down his stack. “How about if I go get us some coffee? The gourmet kind, with chocolate? I think we might need it.”
“Good idea.” Maybe she could do a little… speed-reading while he was gone.
---
By the time Clark came back, she’d zipped – sort of - through two stacks. Well, perhaps ‘zipped’ wasn’t exactly the right description. The quality of Dr. Platt’s writing precluded the use of much of her speed, after all, and she’d been forced to go much more slowly than she’d intended.
As he set the familiar Metropolis Coffee cup in front of her, she finished refastening the rubber bands around a stack and pushed it aside. He sat down beside her and picked up a stack of notes.
“Do you remember that list of subcontractors for the space station?” she asked him. “He listed every company that had provided components for the shuttles, as well. I thought it was at the end of his notes, but I can’t find it. I’m working backward from the last stacks. The problem is, neither one of us read every single… page… of his notes. But I *know* I saw a list -”
“He listed them more than once, I think.” Clark replied. “Let’s keep working backward – eventually we’ll come across it.”
Thirty minutes – and all of her coffee – later, Clark found what they were looking for.
“Here, Lois –“ He smoothed the list – written on a torn and crumpled piece of a brown paper bag – out on the table between them. As he held it flat, Lois leaned nearer and read it aloud.
“INX Global. Agilius Systems. Cohe Incorporated. Acor PLC… NAL. AdentED… Searec Technologies… Symacker USA… Here! NovaCo!” She turned her head, smiling triumphantly, forgetting how close she and Clark were as they both leaned over the list.
And promptly forgot all about the list. He was so close. Close enough to… If she just leaned forward a little… She could feel her heart start to pound as she stared at him. She felt… as if the air was too thick to breathe. Was this what it was like to be short of breath? His gaze dropped to her lips, and as she suddenly found herself moistening them, his eyes darkened behind his glasses.
“Lois,” he began softly, moving even closer. She held her breath, and unconsciously reached for something – anything – to hold onto. As her hand brushed over his, he turned it palm up, and she found herself gripping it tightly. Sensation shot through her, and she gasped.
His other hand came up and cupped her cheek – and there was a quick rap on the conference room door as Jimmy came in, his attention focused on the document he held. Lois and Clark sprang apart.
“Hey, guys! I went ahead and found you everything I could on NovaCo…” Jimmy looked up. “Uh - what’s up? Guys?”
“Nothing.” Lois said shortly. She jumped up, peripherally aware that Clark was also getting to his feet. That had been… She wasn’t going to think about it right now. “What’ve you got, Jimmy?”
He looked back and forth between them dubiously, then at her impatient, “Jimmy!” he handed her another computer printout.
“Well, uh… Like I said, I went and dug up what I could on this NovaCo – I figured that’d be what you wanted next, you know?
As Lois focused on the printout, trying to ignore how… *aware* of her partner she was, Clark asked, “Was this already one of Luthor’s companies?”
Lois found her voice. Time to scrape up some Mad Dog Lane. “Yes - Jimmy, how deep does this go? And which came first, the contract or the purchase?”
“Huh?”
“Did NovaCo get the contract with EPRAD after Luthor acquired it, or was it already contracted?” Clark elaborated.
“Yes –“ Lois grabbed the first printout and tapped one of the lines of linked company names for emphasis. “Like the chicken and the egg, Jimmy. Which came first? Did NovaCo get a contract with EPRAD first? And then got acquired by Lex Luthor, who concealed his ownership by hiding it inside a shell corporation called Vize, who does business as Indetics? Who in turn does business as Dynaron? Which is doing business as –“
“Whoa – I got it, Lois.” Jimmy held his hands up in a stopping gesture. “I don’t know which came first, but I’ll go find out.” He left the conference room almost at a jog.
Without looking at Clark, Lois flipped through the information Jimmy had gathered on NovaCo.
“Lois?” Clark asked softly, but she interrupted him quickly.
“Well, that was enterprising of Jimmy, wasn’t it?” She sat down again, still talking, and waved the printout in the direction of his chair, hoping he’d sit, too. “We’re one step closer to solving this. And if he can find out whether NovaCo got the contract before, or *after* Luthor Industries acquired it, we may be able to link Lex Luthor with the sabotage. Now, let’s see…”
Her enhanced hearing picked up a small sigh as her partner sat down, but he didn’t say anything. Just in case, though, she rushed on. “…We should probably also have Jimmy look at the rest of the names –you know, of the subcontractors – on Dr. Platt’s list. But anyway, let’s see what he comes up with before we get excited, huh? In the meantime – while we’re waiting for whatever he can find…” She was glancing rapidly over the document as she spoke, and now tapped a list of names midway down the page. Without pausing for breath, she charged on. “Oh! Hey, look what he’s found so far - here’s a whole list of names. What do you think – NovaCo’s board of directors, maybe? Or their scientists? Or… maybe their board of directors is all scientists? We’ve got to…” She ran out of breath.
Clark shifted in his chair, and she tensed slightly as he leaned in closer to read the section she’d indicated. “I think they’re probably just scientists – most of them are Ph.D.’s.” He spoke mildly, and she relaxed. Good. He wasn’t going to mention what had happened – what had *almost* happened – earlier. That was good. She wasn’t going to dwell on it either –
“Lois, look!”
Clark’s voice, so close by, startled her. She’d gotten distracted. Well, this *was* tiring work, though. Anyway, while she’d been thinking of… something else, he’d continued to read the document she still held, and now he was leaning closer, indicating one of the names on the list. Her eyes catalogued the contrast of his crisp white shirt cuff against his dark suit sleeve, the silver watchband on his lightly tanned wrist, those elegant fingers. He wasn’t an excessively hairy man – that was another appealing thing about him… She forced her eyes from his hand to where he was pointing.
“Lois, this name - Antoinette Baines. Her name’s in Dr. Platt’s notes, too. Here, I remember roughly where I saw it…” He half-stood, bracing one hand on the table, and began looking among the stacks of Dr. Platt’s notes that were still in the box.
It should be easier to concentrate now that he wasn’t sitting so close to her. Except that… She watched him for a moment. His suit jacket pulled taut across his shoulders as he leaned forward. Her eyes followed the line of his back, down to where…
Good heavens, she was… *ogling* the man. Not that it wasn’t a… pleasant sight, but… She could feel her heart pounding.
She forced herself to look away from him; forced her eyes back to the list that had prompted him to stand up in the first place. What had they been talking about? Oh, yes - “Do you think there’s an association there?”
He was thumbing through the corners of one of the stacks. How he could read much of anything that way, she didn’t know. Although really, some of Dr. Platt’s notes were memorable simply because of what they were written on – and so the content tended to stick in one’s mind. Maybe the name had been written on one of the more unusual… media.
“It would be awfully coincidental if it’s not…” he said absently. Then, “Ah! Here we go.” He unfastened the stack and removed the page he’d been seeking, tucked one of the bright orange three-by-five index cards they used as markers into its place in the stack, and refastened the bundle. Despite herself, Lois was impressed at the speed with which he’d found what he’d been seeking.
“Huh. How lucky is that?” she asked, leaning forward to look as he laid the page in question on the table. It was actually very easy to read for a change. Dr. Platt had written, in blue crayon on the inside of a torn piece of a Pop Tart box, ‘A. Baines,’ followed by an exclamation point and a question mark. And under that he’d written ‘Lisp’ and underlined it twice.
“I’ll go find Jimmy. We need to find out more about Dr. Baines as fast as possible,” Clark said, rising to his feet.
“And I’ll work my way through the stuff on NovaCo.” She forced herself not to watch as he left the room.
---
An hour later they were sitting at the table again, as Jimmy laid out the latest information he’d found.
“Well, it was easy to find out a lot of the stuff on this Dr. Baines,” he said. “It’s pretty impressive. She’s young – and attractive,” he added, indicating a glossy photo attached to the short bio he’d printed. “She’s in charge of the actual implementation of the shuttle flights. A… supervisor, I guess you’d say. She was an assistant – then after Dr. Platt was fired, she was promoted.”
“Kinda… suspicious…” Lois commented. The photo showed a young, blue-eyed blond woman. Her eyes looked kind of shifty. And she probably dyed her hair that color; it couldn’t be natural. Did… Clark think this woman was attractive? Lois glanced at him, but he wasn’t looking at the photo.
“Well, you know, she was actually a logical choice, according to this,” he commented, reading one of the printouts. “She’s the youngest scientist ever to receive the Geminox Award. She worked for EPRAD itself for… let’s see… five years, and only took a job in the private sector a year ago.”
“Yeah, and all that was really pretty easy to find,” Jimmy told them. “I also found you some trivia, but I really had to dig around for that.”
“Trivia?” Lois and Clark spoke together.
“Yep. I hacked into her alma mater’s computer files, and then into EPRAD’s personnel files –“ He stopped abruptly, glancing nervously around the room. “Uh… How often do you think Perry has the place swept for bugs, do you think?”
“Jimmy, it’s just us,” Lois said impatiently. “The room isn’t bugged. You’re not being recorded. You’re safe.” She grinned mischievously at him and added, “We already know you find us most of our information by hacking into various… secure and impenetrable systems. We won’t reveal our sources.” She glanced at Clark, and then added, “…At least, not until the December issue of ‘All Our Sources’ comes out.” She sat back and smiled Perry’s deceptively benign smile at Jimmy.
Jimmy looked even more alarmed and began to rise to his feet. Then as Clark began laughing helplessly, he sat back down with a thump.
“You’re joking, aren’t you?” he began, and then as Lois also started laughing, he finally relaxed fully and chuckled along with them. “Okay, okay – so maybe I’m just a little bit paranoid…”
They laughed harder.
“Okay, a lot paranoid.” He shook his head, and muttered, “Lois ‘Mad Dog’ Lane is actually *teasing* me. Of course I’m not gonna get that right away.”
Clark laughed again as Lois mock-glared at the young man. “I heard that.”
He turned red and squirmed for a moment, smiling sheepishly. “Uh. Yeah… So, didja want to know this trivia I found?”
“Okay, yes. Time to get back to the serious stuff,” Lois said, once again all business. “Whatcha got?”
“Well, guess what? She’s been married – although there isn’t an easily-retrievable record of that.”
“To Luthor?!” Again, Lois and Clark spoke together.
“No, no – gosh, wouldn’t that be weird? If all this time the richest guy in the country was secretly married? Nope, dude’s single, as far as I can tell – and that’s pretty far,” Jimmy said. “No, she’s a widow. She got married real young – like, just out of high school. To some rich old guy who died when she was in college, I guess. But get this – guess what her *maiden* name is?”
“Don’t tell us it’s –“ Lois began incredulously, as Clark asked, “You’re kidding; it’s -?”
“Yep. Luthor.” Jimmy beamed at them.
One of the reasons Lois used Jimmy exclusively for her research needs was that the kid was *good*. He got her what she wanted, and then some. He knew valuable information when he saw it, and he also knew how to keep his mouth shut.
She and Clark looked at each other. “She’s too old to be his daughter… His sister, maybe?” Lois mused. “Or a cousin?”
Clark shrugged. “I have no idea. I honestly wasn’t expecting that at all.”
“I’ll try and find out the exact relationship,” Jimmy interjected.
“…And NovaCo?” she asked him, suspecting she already knew the answer.
“…Got the contract. First. And then got acquired, barely eight months later,” Jimmy said with a grin. “By a company called Vize, who does business as Indetics. Which is a shell corporation for a company called Dynaron. Which turns out to be another shell corporation - for a company called ING Investments. Which is yet *another* shell corporation, for a company called Invicro. Who is doing business as IntEDD. Which led me to a company called T-Cor. Which in turn led to an outfit called BRC, which led to Upco – which is owned by Luthor Industries.” He stopped to draw a breath.
Lois looked at Clark. “Bingo.”
He nodded. “You think it’s him?”
“Yes.” She was sure of it.
“There he is, Lois – your dragon.” He spoke softly. “Now let’s get him.”
“If he’s behind it…” Lois said equally softly, “I think… he may stop at nothing to prevent that station from going forward.”
Clark nodded. “Or almost nothing. Thanks, Jim.”
Lois smiled at the young man, a genuine non-Mad Dog smile. “Thank you, Jimmy.”
He blushed bright red and muttered a quick “You’re welcome.” He rose, and gestured vaguely at the newsroom. “I’ll… If you need anything, you know…” He left the room.
Clark chuckled.
Lois ignored it. Time to get busy again. “Okay,” she said briskly. “Let’s see what we can put together. We need to find out if NovaCo was in trouble and headed for a takeover…”
“…*Before* they got that contract,” Clark finished.
They divvied up the information on NovaCo and began to read.
---
“I’ve got to get onto that shuttle.”
“Mmmmm. I don’t think that’ll happen, though.” Clark, still reading through the rest of Jimmy’s information, spoke absently.
“Well, probably not *officially*, anyway,” she conceded. “But that won’t stop me, you know. I’ll stow away if I have to.”
That earned her his full attention. “Lois, you *can’t*!”
“Sure I can,” she said confidently. “One of us needs to check out that flight.”
“Lois, it’s likely to be heavily guarded. You’re not going to be able to even get close to the thing, much less get on board it!”
“Clark, I’ll find a way.” She couldn’t tell him, of course, but with her abilities, it would probably be pretty easy to get onto that shuttle.
“And anyway,” he continued, “what could you possibly hope to find? You don’t know enough about it – about how the shuttle works, or what’s normal and what’s not… How would you know what to look for?”
“Clark, it won’t be subtle!” she argued. “Not only is this guy out of time, but he’s obviously gotten so arrogant that he’s just… just bulldozing his way to what he wants! You saw that with some of those companies!”
“Lois, it won’t be as obvious as a… a panel out of place, or an obvious cut line, or something!” Both of them were on their feet – Clark apparently felt the need to pace, and Lois didn’t like the height advantage he had if she stayed seated. She ignored the fact that she only came to his shoulder when they were both standing.
For the first time in her life, she found herself *wanting* to tell someone – Clark – what she could do. She wanted to explain it to him – that she was pretty sure she *could* see something out of place - if she looked carefully enough with her enhanced vision.
“Lois, the best thing for us to do is just stay off that flight and figure out what he’s up to from this side of things.” Clark added, apparently thinking he was making headway with her.
He hadn’t learned yet how stubborn she could be. “*You* stay and figure out things from this side,” she snapped. “And *I’ll* go and observe things from the shuttle side.”
“Lois –“
She kept talking. “Besides, I don’t think he *will* sabotage the shuttle flight, Clark. We found the code problems and EPRAD has fixed them… Don’t you think it would be just a little bit *too* coincidental if there was another problem with the shuttle? I think that flight will make it to the station this time - and there’ll be some sort of malfunction there… What’d Jimmy call it? Essential systems issues of some kind that require the whole program to be aborted.”
“Lois, we can have Jimmy start looking at the space station’s programs, just the way we did with the shuttle’s. He can start with those ‘essential systems’ and –“
“Yeah, fine – you have him do that. And I’ll keep in touch with both of you by cell phone,’ she said.
“Lois! Look, do you really think Perry would okay your going on that flight?” Clark demanded.
She could see this argument going on and on and on. Normally, she’d just keep arguing until she won, which was usually pretty quickly. Very few people argued with Mad Dog Lane. For long, anyway. But this was Clark, and he just didn’t seem affected much by Mad Dog.
Besides, she didn’t really feel like arguing with him.
He was… he’d somehow gotten around her defenses enough to become a friend, and if she was honest, she kind of… liked it, having a friend. What if… what if he finally got fed up with her? She was getting used to having him around.
She sighed and sat back down at the table. What was happening to her? Mad Dog Lane didn’t just… just wimp out. But still…
“Lois?” She glanced up to see that he’d sat down next to her again. Well, there was nothing wrong in allowing him to think he’d worn her down. She wasn’t really backing down. She was simply… preserving the peace.
“Fine, Clark. We’ll do it your way,” she said flatly. She *would* do it his way – for a little while, anyway. She’d work with him on this just as they had been doing, but on launch day, she would simply do what she had intended to do all along.
-----
To be continued
