I must have posted this originally on February 26, so it was lost in the crash of 2007:
From part 38:
Within moments Trask was secured tightly, cuffed hand and foot with the plastic ties the SWAT teams carried. He lay ignored on the floor of the dais, almost frothing at the mouth in incoherent rage and hatred. His men were sitting with their backs to him and their hands behind their heads, unmoving, as the SWAT team members cuffed them one by one.---
The Girl Next Door, part 39:
Bill Henderson, Superman, some of the SWAT team members, and several officials stood on the dais near the table as the last of the less seriously injured people were loaded into ambulances; the gunshot victims were already at the hospital. Lois and Perry had joined the group on the dais once the last of Trask’s men had been removed.
Bill Henderson and the SWAT team leader had moved to the table on the dais immediately upon entering the convention center, while Trask’s men were still being secured and the convention guests were still getting to their feet. Lois hadn’t been able to move away from the group she’d been sitting with fast enough to appropriate the metal box.
She was close enough to keep an eye on it, at least, but she’d feel safer if she and Clark had that box. Maybe Superman could convince Bill Henderson to let them have it? Or maybe she could just hover near it, waiting for an opportunity, and just swipe the thing.
The convention guests who had been drenched but uninjured were being gently interviewed, prior to being released to their hotels, by members of the city’s Crisis Response team.
Most of the officials surrounding the table had also been thoroughly drenched in the deluge from the sprinklers, as had Lois. Once the water was turned off, however, she had politely asked Superman if he could dry her off, “At least a little, please.” He had graciously done so, and had then offered to dry the others. So while most of them were slightly rumpled and a little damp, at least they weren’t uncomfortably wet.
“Get the box – it’s evidence,” the SWAT team leader told one of his men.
The man, who looked like he was barely legal age, stepped forward and hesitantly reached for the misshapen mass on the table.
Lois gritted her teeth. Drat. That would make it much harder to steal the blasted thing.
Perry spoke suddenly. “What if it’s too hot?”
The young man hesitated, pulling his hand back, and looked at his commander. “Um, sir..?”
Lois frowned, confused. Even if metal that had been heated to melting didn’t normally cool very quickly, surely the water from the sprinklers would have speeded the process by now. She looked inquiringly at Perry, who smiled benignly back at her.
The SWAT team leader waved a hand in dismissal. “It’s probably cooled off, Thompson.”
Still the young man – Thompson – hesitated. “Uh, sir… I don’t think that’s what he meant.”
The team leader cocked an eyebrow at Perry, who said in a pronounced drawl, “Whatever kind of rock that guy had in there, it melted the box, which according to Trask’s men is lead-lined. Y’all know lead is the one thing that’s supposed to protect a body from radiation. Well, this stuff, whatever it is…”
Bill Henderson smothered a cough that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Lois glanced at him but he was looking, apparently seriously, at Perry.
Thompson chimed in. “…It melted the box, sir. I mean, even that… what’s-it-called, uranium stuff ain’t *that* hot.”
Lois looked at Cl- Superman, keeping her amusement hidden, as the team leader asked him, “That wasn’t you, Superman?”
“No, sir,” Superman said gravely - and of course it hadn’t been.
“Sir, there ain’t no burn holes in the ceiling or walls,” Thompson added earnestly, “and it happened before we came in. How could it be Superman? I’m tellin’ you, that stuff melted the box.”
The people standing closest to the table moved back several paces.
The young man, Thompson, thought the green rock - kryptonite, Trask had called it during one of his rants - was what had melted the box.
And he seemed to be convincing everyone else.
“But Trask had it in there for a long time,” the SWAT team leader argued.
“So it takes awhile for the stuff to melt metal – lead’s a metal, right?” The speaker, one of the older men, looked at his teammates for confirmation. They all nodded seriously.
“I don’t want to be anywhere near it,” a third SWAT team member, another very young-looking man, spoke up.
“Uh, sir… Can we get it out of here?” Thompson asked somewhat desperately.
Bill Henderson coughed again. When Lois looked at him, he met her eyes impassively.
“How?” asked still another of the SWAT team members. “If it’s so radioactive that it can melt lead, how do we contain it?”
“Bomb squad?” asked the older man.
Perry spoke. “What’ll the bomb squad have that’s better than lead?”
Everyone moved back even farther.
Lois didn’t dare look at Superman, or she’d have trouble concealing her amusement. These people all thought the green rock was so radioactive that it had melted its box…
Wait a minute - people were scared of radioactivity.
Suddenly, this whole thing wasn’t just an amusing little interlude. In fact, Perry was a genius.
If the word got out – and it most certainly would - maybe people would be too afraid of kryptonite’s supposed radioactivity to touch it. And if they were too afraid to touch kryptonite, she and Clark were much less likely to come into contact with it. No one would even want to store it or transport it, regardless of its effect on Superman.
It might not be a bad idea to… make *sure* the word got out. Give it a little boost, so to speak. If several newspaper reporters who’d been there, for instance, were to reproduce this discussion in the next edition of the Daily Planet…
In the meantime, though, they ought to get rid of this particular piece of kryptonite.
“What about Superman?” she asked. “That stuff is still shielded by lead – melted lead, yeah, but still lead. So Superman could dispose of it…” She looked at Superman. “Couldn’t you?”
He inclined his head gravely. “Yes.”
“But where can you dispose of it safely, Superman?” the older SWAT team member asked.
“I can leave the atmosphere with it, and launch it toward the sun,” Superman replied.
“Wait - you can’t,” the SWAT team leader said. “It’s evidence.”
“Hey, if it eats through lead, how you gonna store it?” the older team member asked. “Even if you put it in a couple’a layers of lead… it’s too dangerous.”
“Well… How do they store and transport stuff for nuclear reactors?” the SWAT team leader argued. “Don’t they use some kind of special containment system? There’s got to be something – I *know* hazmat regulations include radioactive substances…”
“Yeah, but they store it in the special containers and then put *those* containers inside lead. And concrete. Or something. But this stuff – we don’t know what it is. There’s no guarantee that the usual storage containers for seriously hazardous stuff will work – I mean, whatever’s in that box *melted* *lead*, sir.” He looked around at his teammates, who were nodding in agreement. “I don’t want that stuff anywhere near me,” he added.
“Yeah,” Thompson chimed in. “That Trask guy’s crazy; maybe this stuff made him that way.”
“Oh, come on,” the team leader said.
“Sir, even his own men are distancing themselves from him now,” the other young SWAT team member spoke up. “One of ‘em said the guy made perfect sense when this whole thing started, but you all heard him when they took him away.”
“I don’t think radioactivity makes you crazy,” the team leader said skeptically.
“I don’t care,” Thompson said stubbornly. “I don’t want that stuff anywhere near my coj-“ He hesitated, glancing at Lois. “Pardon me, ma’am.” He looked around at the others. “You know,” he continued awkwardly. “I heard it can mess up your genes, or whatever, and me and my wife… Well, we’re still planning on having kids some day.”
Most of the men stepped back even farther. One or two were right at the edge of the dais, and if they weren’t careful, they might fall off it altogether.
“Maybe Superman *should* get rid of it,” Bill Henderson said mildly.
Amid a chorus of agreement from the SWAT team members, Lois looked slightly incredulously at Bill. Catching her eye, he shrugged. “We don’t really need it; the prosecution won’t be focusing on some mythical possible harm to Superman. They’ll be concerned with the actual harm done to this guy Trask’s hostages. And with the whole hostage-taking thing.”
The team leader was nodding thoughtfully as Bill continued, “If this stuff presents an immediate and serious danger to the public, we’re within our guidelines to remove it and destroy it. We don’t preserve bombs planted in public buildings as evidence, you know.”
“There you go, sir,” said Thompson eagerly. Several of his teammates added their emphatic agreement to his statement.
The team leader sighed and said, “Okay, okay… I guess I don’t want to be around it, either.” He looked at Superman, who stood in his characteristic arms-folded stance. “Can you please remove and destroy this, Superman?”
“Yes, I can,” Superman replied with a faint smile. Possibly only Lois noticed it. He stepped forward and gently picked up the box, then turned away from the table. As he strode toward the edge of the dais, the officials and SWAT team members fell back from him on both sides. Without further comment, Superman lifted into the air and within minutes, had disappeared through the hole in the ceiling.
---
Several hours later, Lois and Clark sat in Perry’s office at the Planet, waiting while he went through their story one final time.
Superman had returned to the convention center briefly to report that the box and its contents had been successfully destroyed. He’d left again after gravely accepting the thanks of numerous people, including members of the SWAT team, Bill Henderson, the entire convention committee, Perry, Lois, and many of the guests still present.
Clark had arrived shortly after, and had taken Lois in his arms. She’d gone gladly, needing to reassure herself that he was okay. Temporarily lost in each other, they’d been aware of nothing else for several minutes.
As they’d finally separated, they’d both become aware that their interaction was also successfully projecting an impression of a Clark who, arriving late, had been blocked from entering and who had run the gamut of worry for his partner and his friends, relief that they were okay, and excitement at several good interviews from witnesses.
And Superman, Clark had announced, had found time to give him a quick but comprehensive interview, too.
Bill Henderson had taken his leave of them at the convention center.
The woman who had defended Superman and the man who had dialed the cell phone, while seriously injured, were both expected to live. The two medics’ actions were credited with saving their lives, and Superman had treated both victims as his top priority, transporting them – along with the third gunshot victim - to the hospital as soon as Trask had been secured. The city’s premier trauma hospital, Wayne Memorial Hospital - one of the top trauma centers in the nation - was only a few blocks from the convention center.
Alice White was okay - she’d been on the near fringes of the group Trask had shot into, but his shots had gone well over her head since he’d been aiming, more or less, for the center of the group. The woman she’d assisted to sit on the floor had been hospitalized overnight for observation after experiencing heart pains, as had at least half a dozen other people, including the very large man who had been sitting in front of Lois.
Some of the bullets Trask had fired had caused minor injuries to several people, as had the rain of glass from the broken light fixture. Those people had also been transported to the hospital, but were expected to be treated as outpatients and released to their hotels this same night.
Franklin Stern, the owner of the Daily Planet, had made several phone calls from the convention center, even as the police continued to remove Trask’s men and take statements from the convention guests.
Within half an hour, Stern’s personal secretary and her two assistants had arrived, and they’d proceeded to coordinate a whole army of people from Stern’s own business offices to begin transporting the uninjured convention guests back to their hotels, liaise with the attendees who’d been hospitalized, and begin the process of cleaning up.
The secretary had also arranged, in a stunningly short period of time, a complete rescheduling of events for the next few days. Mr. Stern had then held a short press conference, standing near the dais with some of the damage visible behind him.
After a brief discussion with the editors of all the newspapers represented among the attendees, he had announced that the convention would go on as planned - except that everything would be delayed one day. The interrupted ball would be held on Friday night and the Friday sessions would be held on Saturday, and the closing ceremonies would be held on Sunday.
Special arrangements would be made so that the injured and hospitalized guests could participate in the planned sessions via closed-circuit television if they wished. Additional options, such as – for lack of a better term - temporary leaves of absence from the hospital, were even being considered for the Sunday night ceremony in order to include the injured guests.
And with the full weight of Franklin Stern’s considerable resources behind him, no one doubted that these arrangements were possible.
Friday would be a day of rest, recuperation, and relaxation for the convention attendees, Mr. Stern had added, and his secretary and her assistants would coordinate all arrangements for extended hotel stays and changes in travel plans.
Shortly after he finished speaking, Lois had overheard his secretary reporting to him that her two assistants had managed to obtain financial commitments from more than half of the newspapers represented. Between them, Stern Industries, the various newspapers, and a special ASNE ‘in need’ fund would cover all travel, housing, health care, and meal expenses related to the rescheduling.
Finally, the uninjured guests had been escorted back to their hotels with their convention gifts - repackaged in Daily-Planet-blue and gold gift bags that the efficient secretary had apparently conjured out of thin air – and vouchers for meals, courtesy of the Daily Planet.
It was entirely possible that the convention hosted by the Daily Planet might end up being remembered as much for – maybe even more for – the recovery from Trask’s attack, as for the attack itself.
At last, Perry and Mr. Stern had returned to the Daily Planet, disappearing into Perry’s office while Lois and Clark wrapped up the story as fast as they could.
Perry had cleared the entire front page – of the current edition – for their eyewitness story, and was even now holding the day’s printing run.
Changing a print run was next to impossible to do at this time of day; in fact, it was unheard of. For one thing, it was incredibly expensive to shut down the printing presses and wait for the new layout to be transmitted to them – in effect, to stop the presses. But Perry had been instructed to do so by the man whose money paid those kinds of bills, Franklin Stern, himself.
“Pull in as many extra people as it takes to print the new run and get it out on time,” the billionaire had said, “or within an hour of its usual time. If necessary, bring one of our backup printing presses on line and print two runs simultaneously, to speed things up.”
So now Lois sat with Clark and watched Perry go through their story. Mr. Stern, well pleased with the work accomplished, had left about an hour ago.
Perry looked tired – as, of course, he probably was. It had been an… eventful night.
He hadn’t said anything to Lois about the lead-lined box. So did he know, or didn’t he?
He had to know – he’d given her those very distinct signals when she’d begun heat-sealing that box.
Remembering, she looked him over carefully again. Had she burned him? He’d shed his tuxedo jacket hours ago, and his shirt looked fine. But wait - was that a red mark on the side of his neck? Just under the collar line and extending slightly above it? Was the area just scratched – although the group they’d been sitting in hadn’t been hit with flying debris, to her knowledge - or was it a mild burn?
It was mostly under his shirt collar, but if he’d had his head tipped to one side as he’d shifted into her line of vision, there in the convention center, she could have burned an area that would be concealed when he sat or stood up straight. And in the tenseness of those moments when she’d been trying to seal the box, she hadn’t used her special vision to look beneath the layers of tuxedo and shirt.
In fact, she hadn’t noticed the mark earlier when he’d been sitting squarely behind his desk, talking to Mr. Stern. It was only now, as he leaned against one chair arm, going slowly through their story, that she could really see it. She used her special vision now to look through the shirt collar; there was an oblong patch of red skin, not very large, just under the material. It lay along the editor’s neck in such a way that it could – possibly – have been caused by irritation of the shirt collar against his skin. Or… by a focused beam of heat from her eyes?
“Perry?”
“…Hmmm?” he replied abstractedly, not looking up from his reading.
How could she ask him about it, though? Did she even want to? Maybe it was better not to know. “Um…”
Clark looked at her inquiringly. He’d taken her hand earlier, and he still held it. Now he gave it a reassuring squeeze, and sent her a softer version of his super powered smile.
She tucked a foot around the leg of the chair, just in case. <I think…> She hesitated, then continued, <I think Perry might know.>
<Know what?>
“Yes, Lois?” Perry had stopped reading and was giving her a mildly questioning look.
“Oh. Um… nothing, Perry. Just…” She hadn’t expected him to really reply to her. She glanced at Clark. <I think he may know about me.>
Clark’s expression didn’t change, but he squeezed her hand gently. <Know your secret?>
<…Yes.>
“Just what, Lois?”
She looked at Perry. “Just…”
He looked back at her, no expression on his face other than mild inquiry. Nobody else could do that bland look as well as Perry.
.
“Just… thanks,” she said rather lamely. She felt Clark squeeze her hand a third time, and in a firmer voice, added, “For… for helping me tonight…” She trailed off for a moment, but other than a slight raising of one eyebrow, Perry said nothing. “You know…” she continued awkwardly. She waved a hand, forgetting that Clark still held it. “…With the phone, and…”
She glanced again at Clark. <I don’t know for sure, but…>
“You’re welcome, honey.” She looked back at Perry as he spoke, and he smiled at her. “But…” Looking back and forth between them, he drawled softly, “Seems to me that you…” He paused, looking her in the eye, before continuing, “…you and Superman… did all the work.”
“Perry –“ she began, unsure what she wanted to say.
He held up his hand, and she fell silent. “Why don’t you kids take off?” he asked them blandly. “This looks good. I’ll send it on, and then I’ll get outa here too.”
She and Clark looked at each other, then at Perry. “Um…” she began, but he waved her words away.
“Go on, you two. Go home. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He picked up his phone, punched in an extension, and returned his attention to their story. “Harry. I’ve got the new lead story – it’s a go… I’m sending it down to you now. Get those presses running…”
---
To be continued
Author's Notes:
The melting point of aluminum (chemical symbol Al) is 1220.581 degrees Fahrenheit (660.323 degrees Celsius) – hotter than for lead, but still much cooler than for steel. (
Jefferson Labs - Melting Point of Aluminum )
--
I had a much harder time finding a specific physical description of safe storage and transportation containers for extremely dangerous radioactive substances than I did finding the general *guidelines* - what they should be able to do - for such containers.
So I kept the guys’ comments vague.
But here’s a German site that has specific examples (and these containers are definitely not something your average police force, even that of a big city like Metropolis, would have at their disposal):
Castor Transport Containers --
Plastic restraints have been around since at least 1965 – a company called NIK was one of the first (possibly *the* first) to introduce them (the ‘Flex-Cuf’).
--
Stopping the presses… apparently, it isn’t done.
I didn’t really research it, but I remembered a Fanfic Related thread on the Lois & Clark Fanfic message boards that talked about newspaper editions and stopping the presses. Scroll down to post number 6:
Newspaper Editions, etc. - AnnieM explains it all very nicely.
