Chapter 4: The Boss
Some folks like to be the boss;
They get up on their high horse.
--“Sound Advice”
****
With the efficiency of someone who didn’t want to waste even a second out of the day, Lois directed our taxi to Platt’s address. Then, before I knew it, I was climbing out of the taxi after her as she briskly moved toward Platt’s chosen residence. As I reached the sidewalk, I nodded and smiled as a woman passed by walking a bulldog. I’d always been partial to animals, and the dog looked suitably grumpy for a specimen of his breed. I’d had bigger dogs growing up on the farm in Smallville, but I liked smaller dogs just as much.
However, as I looked at the building that was our destination, my mood changed, and I couldn’t help but give Lois a skeptical look. “This is where Dr. Platt lives?” The brick building didn’t really look inhabitable.
“Yeah, well, I guess Platt’s seen better days,” she returned. She opened the building’s green door, ducking under some badly placed police tape to get inside.
Stepping in behind her, I made certain to hide my smirk when I saw her recoil just perceptibly as a plump rat trotted by. She glanced back at me to see if I’d seen her revulsion, and I hastily averted my eyes to the door I was closing.
Lois walked past some barrels and approached the door that was presumably Dr. Platt’s. A sign on it proclaimed:
THIS BUILDING IS UNSAFE
DO NOT ENTER
UNDER ORDER OF METROPOLIS BUILDING & SAFETY
Ignoring the sign, Lois rapped on the door. “Dr. Platt?” she asked loudly. Not receiving an answer, she repeated the name.
“Yes? Who—who is it?” a shaky voice queried at last.
“It’s Lois Lane,” she answered, looking back at me.
He opened the door a few inches and peered out in fear, only his nose and his eyes and part of his clothes visible. “Who—who’s that with you?”
She hesitated. “My . . . colleague, Clark Kent. We’re working on this story together.”
I bit back a response about the word “colleague,” as Platt’s frightened eyes were moving to my face. I hastened to give him a look that was reassuring but not pressuring. It must have worked, as he finally opened the door and gestured for us to come inside. As we entered, I noticed he was holding a crowbar. It wouldn’t have protected him against a skilled criminal, but I supposed it would have done all right against a common thug.
Lois began talking almost immediately. “We’re here to learn more about the Messenger, Dr. Platt. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you before.”
He nodded, obviously nervous. “I don’t blame you, Ms. Lane. They called me crazy—and maybe I have been. But that was all on account of the drugs, you see.”
“Drugs?” Lois echoed in surprise.
“Yes, the drugs,” he confirmed as he led us forward. “They drugged me, you know, after I submitted my report on the Messenger to Dr. Baines.”
I glanced around as Lois went to the center of the room. The place was in total disarray. Only the books—which were crammed into shelves—seemed to have been placed in a logical spot. Well, the books and some of the items on Platt’s desk. As I wandered around, I saw that many of the objects in the room pointed to Platt as being eccentric, if not a bit unhinged: the fake camel head on a stick which was hung up on a coat-rack, the bright blue marlin mounted on the wall, the bird skeleton resting on the television . . . .
“And what did you say in this report?” Lois asked.
“When I broke into one of the off-limit labs, I discovered something. You see, the Messenger’s particle isolators were in danger of shutting down under extreme temperatures, and so we had installed heating devices as a countermeasure. . . . But I found out in the lab that the heating devices were no longer there. They had been replaced . . . by coolant systems.”
I turned to look at him with a frown, unable to help myself. “That would freeze the ion particles, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, it would!” he told me, sounding excited that I had understood. “And then fumes would be emitted, and the Messenger would blow up—I said all of this in my report.”
“Do you have a copy of that report?” Lois asked.
“Yes, yes, I do. It’s . . . hmm . . . ” He moved to the bookshelves and began searching for something.
As Dr. Platt pulled out first some crumpled sheets of paper from on top of some books, then a few from behind the fish, and then a couple from a tennis shoe in a box, I realized we could be waiting for a while for him to gather all the pieces of his report. Lois’s thoughts seemed to parallel mine, as the look she gave me said something along the lines of, “Is he for real?”
Sighing, she said out loud to Dr. Platt, “Maybe you could get us your report later—we can have someone come by and get it tomorrow.” I saw her turn her attention to a frame on Platt’s desk. She picked up a photograph that had been nestled in the corner of the frame. Curious, I moved forward to get a better view. It was a picture of three happy people: a chuckling girl in a wheelchair, a laughing woman with red hair, and a smiling man who just barely resembled Dr. Platt.
The scientist scampered over and took the photograph from her with a trembling hand, placing it back in its former position. “That’s my wife . . . and our daughter Amy.” He took in a deep breath and told us quietly, “We had planned to live together on the Prometheus . . . . ”
“Where are they now?” Lois queried.
“My wife died over a year ago of cancer,” he responded in a voice so quiet I had to strain to hear it.
“And Amy?” Lois ventured with unusual gentleness.
“She’s with my sister . . . . It is . . . for the best.”
I could hear the sympathy in Lois’s voice when she asked, “Who would want to sabotage the space station, Dr. Platt?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know, Ms. Lane. I can’t understand it—you see, the Prometheus’s microgravity laboratory could be the key to helping us cure hundreds of diseases. A zero-gravity environment would enable us to separate the proteins which form viruses—and then, well . . . then we could cure so many people with crippling diseases . . . . ” So softly I had to strain to hear it, he added, “We could cure my daughter.”
His voice sounded choked up, and I thought that if I looked at him I might be able to see tears in his eyes.
But I didn’t want to look, as my heart was already heavy enough. How could someone be so heartless as to attempt to sabotage such a noble cause? What was to gain from it? It wasn’t fair that a man like Dr. Platt had to attempt to ward off such evil alone. Dr. Platt had only his drug-addled brains and a simple crowbar to protect himself from whatever powerful people were attempting to do this terrible thing. It just wasn’t right.
“Dr. Platt,” I said suddenly, “I don’t think you should be here anymore.”
“What?” he said in confusion, turning toward me.
“If there is a conspiracy, then this is really big. I don’t think you’re safe here. If Lois and I were able to find you, someone else certainly could. You can’t stay here and defend yourself with just a crowbar.”
“My partner’s probably right, Dr. Platt,” Lois admitted, and I turned to her in surprise—I had never thought I would hear an admission of my correctness coming from her lips. Begrudgingly, she added, “You’re probably in danger just for talking to us. . . . Quite frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t killed you already.”
But Platt shook his head. “I can’t leave. They will get me if I leave—they have eyes everywhere. My books, my notes—everything I have left is here.”
“I can help you move your things, Dr. Platt—” I tried.
“No, no, no. That will take too much time—it will attract too much attention. Just conduct your investigation. . . . And I will do what I can.”
I stared at him, knowing I should argue with him. He’d been through so much that he couldn’t be thinking rationally. But there was such resolution in his eyes that I could only bring myself to make one last try: “You don’t have to be a martyr, Dr. Platt—”
“Go, Mr. Kent, Ms. Lane. I will gather my report and await your messenger. . . . Tell them the password is . . . ‘Amy.’” He turned away so we couldn’t see his face, and he began gathering more pieces of his report with trembling hands.
After watching him for a few seconds, Lois looked at me grimly. “We should probably go and see Dr. Baines and ask her about this report.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, giving the scientist one last sad look. I didn’t like leaving him, but I couldn’t just stay and babysit him. I could argue that he shouldn’t be foolish—that he wouldn’t want to orphan his daughter. But I couldn’t do that to him. Not when I knew that the thought of his daughter being an orphan would hurt him so much.
****
At EPRAD, we received visitor tags and were taken to Dr. Antoinette Baines, who seemed to be caught up in the middle of something. Whether she was actually busy or putting on a show, I wasn’t exactly sure.
Dr. Baines was an attractive enough woman, but there was something cold about her. Her short blonde hair framed her face in a manner that should have softened it—but something in her tone and her eyes belied whatever kindness she tried to project. All I knew was that she gave me a bad feeling.
“We’re all in a state of shock,” she told us in a voice that attempted—but failed—to be sincere. “This explosion was such a catastrophe . . . . And Captain Laderman was one of our best men. His three children and his wife are heartbroken, of course . . . . ”
“And what’s being done to investigate the reason for the explosion, Dr. Baines?” Lois pushed. She appeared annoyed at the false sorrow in the other woman’s voice, and I knew exactly what she was feeling.
“I can assure you, Ms. Lane, we will do all we can. But we can’t know anything for sure until we get a chance to look at the wreckage. It’s being moved to a hangar right now for analysis.”
“Can we see it?”
Dr. Baines shook her head. “I’m sorry. Press aren’t allowed.”
Disappointed, I pressed, “No exceptions?”
She gave me the once-over and reconsidered. With a small smile, she told me, “I’ll see what I can do, Mr. Kent.”
“That’s great,” I replied, smiling at her warmly, though internally I felt a little disgusted with myself for attempting to use charm to get help from the woman. I was receiving bad vibes from her.
She turned and found a file, picking it up and flipping through a few pages. “When I heard you were coming, I took out Dr. Platt’s file. It really is a shame he wasted his talent as he did. His wife’s death and his fanatical work on the space station both seemed to really get to him. It wasn’t long before he took a turn for the worse—he started drinking, taking drugs, acting violently . . . . He had given us so many years of hard work that we tried to hold on to him for as long as we could, but we had to let him go when he burned down one of our laboratories. We recommended that he seek help, but he was just too far gone.” She replaced the file, indicating she considered the subject closed.
But Lois wasn’t one to give up so easily. “Dr. Platt told us he submitted a report to you. It was about coolant systems that—”
“Coolant systems?” echoed Dr. Baines. Her brow furrowed in thought. “No, I don’t remember a report from him about that . . . . If you’d like, I could look at my records . . . . ”
“Please do,” Lois said curtly. “And then call us.” She got out one of her business cards from her purse and handed it to Dr. Baines.
“I’ll do that,” she promised. She turned her gaze to me, eyeing me like a piece of candy. Softly, she told me, “Please, let me know if I can do anything else to help you . . . . It would be my pleasure.”
Trying to hide my discomfort, I replied with a smile, “Thank you.”
“Any time,” she returned in a low voice.
As Lois and I walked to the van, I commented flatly, “I don’t like her.”
Lois stopped and looked at me. “I thought that was supposed to be my line.”
“What?” I frowned.
“Well, while you were batting her eyes at her, I was the one trying to get information.”
“I was not batting my eyes at her,” I protested. “I just thought . . . maybe a little friendliness might get us what we needed.”
She studied me for a moment before she began walking again. “Offering yourself in return for a story, Kent?”
“Is that something you’ve never done before, Ms. Lane?” I retorted.
She smirked. “Maybe being partnered with you isn’t so bad, farmboy. Just make sure you don’t step on my toes.”
“I won’t—so long as you don’t walk all over me,” I responded darkly.
“Sorry—I never make promises to partners I don’t intend to keep.”
I bit back a reply, not wanting to show her just how much she could irk me. I’d never let people with chips on their shoulders affect me this much—why was she any different?
Well, whatever it was, I was glad our partnership was only temporary. Even if she was a brilliant reporter . . . and a beautiful woman.
****
When we returned to the Planet, Lois assigned Jimmy and me some legwork tasks, leaving the more promising parts for herself, of course. Before I got to work, however, I finished my article on Beatrice and the Sarah Bernhardt Theater. After submitting the piece, I made a few calls and then began looking through my notes on the Messenger and Dr. Platt.
I was concentrating hard on a piece of paper when my eyes felt a little strange. Lurching back in alarm, I realized I needed to disappear for a few minutes.
I looked over at Lois, who was calling some of Platt’s associates. She seemed busy enough that hopefully she wouldn’t notice my trip to the restroom was an abnormally long one.
I passed Jimmy, who was slowly walking and reading a sheet of paper, and disappeared into the men’s bathroom. I entered one of the stalls and closed the door carefully. Looking behind me at the discolored toilet seat, I decided I didn’t want to sit on it. It was going to be difficult to stand, but I was going to make the attempt.
Coaxing my locket out from underneath my shirt, I clutched it in my hand briefly before finally opening it and letting it drop down to rest against my tie.
My immediate instinct was to sit, but as I clenched my head and shut my eyes, I fought to remain upright. Finally, I braced myself against the stall, using it as support. I tried to think about the picture nestled in the locket. I always attempted to think of happier things whenever I exposed that photograph to the world. But I usually couldn’t think of anything beyond what happened when I opened that locket.
Waves of pain were wracking my body and pounding at my head like a million merciless hammers. My pain increased as the seconds ticked by, but still I didn’t close the locket. I needed to wait long enough to ensure I was stripped of all my powers for a while.
When I was almost to the point where I would have to sink to the floor, I fumbled with the locket and shut it with a low groan. The locket was coated with lead paint, so closing it made the pain disappear. Now the shard of meteor rock hidden behind the picture in my locket could no longer hurt me, but I still didn’t feel good.
Breathing heavily, I rested my forehead against the stall door. This wasn’t going to work—I couldn’t neglect exposing myself to the glowing stone before leaving for work as I had today. I had thought I was so drained by the previous day that I wouldn’t need any exposure. But I’d obviously been wrong—my powers had started to return. I was beginning to wonder if I might slowly be building up an immunity, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to test that theory. If it were true, then I might need to completely change my lifestyle one day . . . and I didn’t want to consider that yet. As it was, I refused to touch people as a precaution—in case my powers came back unexpectedly. Predicting my body’s fluctuations wasn’t an exact science for me.
I felt so weak I wasn’t sure I could make it to my desk. If I disappeared for an hour, though, Lois might come looking for me. I certainly wouldn’t put it past her to come into the men’s restroom if someone told her that was where I went . . . . And I did not want to have to declare bowel problems to be the cause of my extended absence.
I opened the stall door and feebly washed my hands, splashing some water onto my face. After toweling my hands and face down, I took a deep breath and exited the bathroom. As I walked through the newsroom and came close to Lois’s desk, I couldn’t help but overhear her involved in an unhappy personal phone conversation.
I didn’t have the energy or inclination to eavesdrop, though, so I just sank into my chair, drained by the meteorite.
But I knew I couldn’t do anything to arouse suspicion, so after a few seconds I picked up some notes and pretended to study them as the throbbing in my head began to pass away.
A few minutes later, Lois came up to my desk. I was actually able to concentrate by that point, and so I was working on getting a few things done. When I sensed her presence, however, I turned my attention to her. “Yes?”
She looked at my shirt in interest, and I paled as I realized I had left my locket out. Fumbling, I quickly tucked it inside my shirt, but not before she had quipped, “Nice locket. Is that some kind of weird farmboy tradition, wearing girls’ jewelry?”
Gritting my teeth and knowing the jab wasn’t exactly undeserved, I told her, “It was my grandmother’s.”
“Oh.” She didn’t seem to know what to think, and part of me wondered if I should have been proud that I had brought her to the point of speechlessness.
I could have just left it at that, but I didn’t. “Not that you care, but I was close to her until she died when I was ten . . . . Her picture is inside it.”
“Well, that’s sweet of you, Kent.” Her voice sounded surprisingly sincere.
“Clark,” I prompted with a sigh.
“Clark,” she echoed absently. Staring at me in a pensive manner, she asked, “So, do you have big plans for tonight?”
Wary, I replied, “Not especially.”
“Well, you know, the White Orchid Ball is tonight . . . . ”
I hid a smile behind a hand. “Hmm, really? I hadn’t realized that.”
She looked at me as if I had grown another head. “You do know that this is the big social event of the season, don’t you?”
“I guess I’m just not a celebrity columnist,” I commented with a shrug.
“Well, some of us apparently care more about our social lives than others,” she muttered.
I suppressed a snort. Somehow, I doubted someone as work-driven as Lois had the type of active social life she was implying was hers. Investigative journalism was a lot of work—there wasn’t exactly an abundance of free time. Criminals didn’t just stop being criminals on the weekends.
“And at the ball, I intend to talk to Lex Luthor and land the first one-on-one interview with him if it kills me,” she proclaimed.
“I’m glad to hear it.” I put my chin on my hand. “Now, what does that have to do with me?”
She began to look awkward, and I found myself enjoying it. “Well, it’s my date, Mitchell . . . . See—he has the sniffles . . . . ”
“How tragic,” I remarked, my voice equal parts sarcasm and sympathy.
She glared at me. “I can’t go alone . . . . ”
I nodded in understanding. “That would be equally tragic.”
Furious at my deliberate obtuseness, she turned away, but then she swiveled back to face me. “Look, farmboy, do you have a tux or not?”
“I bet I could get my hands on one,” I said musingly.
“Then are you going to this ball with me or not?”
“I couldn’t dance with you,” I pointed out.
“Farmboy, you are flattering yourself if you think I want to dance with you. I just need someone to go with me. Now, are you going to come?”
I looked at her in amusement. “So, will it be a date?” I wasn’t serious, but I didn’t want to make this easy on her.
“No, it won’t be a date,” she growled. “It will be strictly business.”
I gave her a reluctant look. “Business outside of work hours? Gee, I don’t know, Lois . . . . I think maybe I’ll just stay in and read a good book.”
Her rage escalated, and she spewed a few unintelligible tidbits before finally managing, “Fine. You can call it a pig dance party if that’ll make you happy, but—”
I broke in, “In that case, I accept.”
She opened her mouth to make a retort, realized I wasn’t arguing any more, and then changed what she was going to say to: “Good. Then I’ll meet you there.” She started to walk away but then abruptly turned back to me. “At 9. Sharp.”
I nodded, my eyebrows raised in acknowledgement.
“All right,” she said as she went to her desk, still sounding surprised I had suddenly given in so easily.
I smirked to myself. I was obviously getting better at dealing with Lois Lane, and it pleased me that I was going to be able to stand on my own two feet with her at least some of the time. It was kind of important if I didn’t want to feel two inches tall in her presence.
As I flipped through the pages of a phonebook in search of a tuxedo rental place, I reflected on how this constant bickering with Lois Lane wasn’t a good thing if it could make me impulsively agree to go to a ball. I hated social situations; they made me nervous. There were always too many hands that needed shaking. Well, at least these high-society types usually weren’t as keen on shaking hands as people in smaller towns (assuming I even got to talk to any of them). Still, regardless of whatever happened, I would probably be a wreck all night.
I looked down at the phonebook. It was tempting to tell Lois I couldn’t find a place to rent a tuxedo—to say they had all been closed. But if I stood her up like that, she might phone all the places and find out their hours; after all, probably at least one of them was open late on big social nights like tonight . . . .
And then I would have to face the wrath of Lois Lane for the rest of my Daily Planet career. Yeah, because that sounded pleasant.
I just had to suck it up and go.
It wasn’t because she was already the boss of me. It was because I didn’t want to make things awkward in the newsroom.
At least, that was what I was going to tell myself.
