ToC - for previous parts.
Waking a Miracle -- (07/??)
This was quite potentially the worst coffee ever concocted.
It tasted as if someone had recycled the beans six times
already and had left them in the machine for further
punishment. Lois winced and took another sip. The stuff
was just not settling well in her stomach. Her innards felt
like a brick was gathering there, which was fairly
astounding since this coffee was theoretically a liquid.
Theoretically being the key word. When she gave up and
poured the noxious contents of her steaming cup into her
desk plant's pot, it was definitely more viscous than normal
coffee should have been. Poor plant -- it seemed like it was
taking more and more hits for the team lately. The past few
weeks, it had started taking on a wilted demeanor.
"Morning, Lois."
She felt a small shiver race through her and looked up to
see Clark arriving. Most people avoided her, especially
early in the day. She rarely got a simple good morning --
at this point she suspected most people thought she was some
horrible dragon-like harpy that ate fair copy boys for
breakfast. Not that she minded, much -- having everyone
avoid her sure made getting her work done easier. But nope,
this man gave her a small smile and started to pull up a
chair without any apparent hesitation.
For a moment she was speechless. Lois Lane, the babbling
brook to babble all brooks, had her mouth open and nothing
was coming out.
"Maybe for you," she answered, finally recovering. She had
an image to protect. Snarl, goes the dragon, she thought
wickedly. "I've been at it several hours already."
Dr. Baines, as Lois had suspected, had been a complete waste
of time. She had given some sob story about how everyone
would miss Captain Laderman and that he was one of their
best. Then she had explained they didn't know what caused
the malfunction, and wouldn't until they examined the
shuttle. And then she had not-so-kindly told Lois that they
really didn't have much else to discuss.
Well, okay, Lois granted. Dr. Baines hadn't asked her to
leave until after Lois had boisterously explained that she
was there because she had to be and she thought the space
program was a quintessential example of the government
throwing money down a rat hole.
But it was true!
She finished typing up a quick article about her interview
with Baines and hit submit. She hoped Perry wouldn't be too
angry that it basically read, "I went to see Dr. Baines. Dr.
Baines told me nothing of importance." After all, she had a
far more interesting lead at the moment.
"Jaw-dropping exclusive?" Clark quizzed her.
She looked over to Clark and noticed for the first time he
seemed a lot more subdued than he had the previous day. His
skin was paler, and his eyes had lost the twinkle she'd
noticed yesterday. Not a huge difference, but he did seem
like some of the lights in his personality had gone dim.
Not that he didn't still look gorgeous. Oops, was she
staring?
"Hardly," she grumbled. "Are you okay?" The words tumbled
out of her mouth before she could stop them. She forced
herself not to raise her hands to her lips and tried to keep
her face straight. She had *meant* to ask that as far as he
was concerned.
Clark blushed a bit and his lips quirked upward. "Just
didn't get a lot of sleep."
"There's a shocker. No cows lowing you to sleep anymore."
This man was not her friend. This man was not her friend.
Not. Her. Friend. This man was a *man*. And leading him
on would certainly do her no good.
If Clark was annoyed or confused by her signal changes, he
didn't show it. He actually chuckled.
"It *is* a bit noisy here."
Their eyes met, and for the briefest of moments, she could
swear he wasn't referring to the traffic when he mentioned
the noise. But the double meaning dangled there like a big
question mark and his face was oh so much more interesting
to look at. She licked her lips and tried to ignore the
flutter in her chest.
Was it hot in here all of a sudden? They really needed to
consider waiting until later in the fall to switch the
heaters on. This was downright sweltering. The Daily
Planet's heating bill must be atrocious and easily
exploitable. She made a note to investigate that at a later
date.
A magenta-colored scarf whipped across Clark's face and Lois
was snapped from her mood like the tip of a cat 'o nine
tails being put to good use. Cat stood there with a
predatory grin, showing off her too-gorgeous teeth as she
let her eyes go wide and threw the fingers of one hand
towards her chest as if to say, "Who me?"
Clark stood up from his chair.
"Oh, I'm so sorry," Cat sighed, batting her eyes. "I really
should watch where I'm going."
Suddenly, it didn't seem so hot. Frigid, more like. Lois
wanted to yank Cat's eyelashes off. It was genetically
impossible for lashes to be that long naturally -- they were
probably the result of seventeen layers of cheap mascara.
Lois crossed her arms and tried not to think about how her
morning routine involved slapping some foundation on,
putting curlers in for ten minutes, and declaring victory.
Clark's mouth opened and closed. And opened again. "Hello,
I'm Clark Kent." He extended his hand towards Cat.
Cat swallowed the offered canary and moved towards Clark
with a sinuous gait that was surely meant to show off her
legs and hips. As Cat's heels struck the floor, Clark's
trapped look growing deeper with each individual step, Lois
could only think of that scene from Jurassic Park where the
kids were in the car, watching the water tremor in the cup
as the T-Rex approached.
"Catherine Grant, 'Cat's Corner.'" Cat's hand snaked out in
front of her and she held it out as if she were royalty
expecting Clark to bend over and kiss the outside of her
palm.
"Yes," Clark said, his eyes seeming to light up with
recognition. "I've read your column."
Lois rolled her eyes. He'd read her column, had he? To his
credit, at least he wasn't panting or drooling, or really
showing any signs of interest.
Actually, he looked quite terrified.
Lois might have even found it amusing if it weren't
happening practically on top of her desk. Cat leaned in
very close, and Lois's hands shot out to keep her plant
upright as Clark unwittingly backed into it.
"Then my reputation precedes me," Cat said, her voice so low
and throaty it sounded like a growl.
"Among other things," Lois couldn't help but interject as
she yanked her plant to safety and put it on the other side
of her writing space. This was sexual harassment. Right
there on her desk! But if Clark hadn't the sense to cry
foul she wasn't going to stick her neck out for him. At
least he wouldn't look so darned delectable after Cat had
chewed him to pieces.
"I know what it's like to be new in town." Lois bit down her
disgust. Had Cat swatted his nose with her index finger?
"I'd be happy to show you around."
Lois couldn't see Clark's face anymore but she could hear
him goggling. After several strange utterances, she heard
him say, "That's very nice of you, Ms. Grant."
Clark snuck away from the tackle and rotated the discussion,
conveniently making it so that Lois could see both of them.
Cat took Clark's escape ploy in stride and leaned in even
further, showing off her plunging v-line, not-quite-enough-
material-to-be-an-actual-shirt shirt. "Cat," she corrected
as she let loose a positively libidinous leer.
"Cat," Clark said in return, his teeth biting off the word
as if it were something that tasted like rancid meat and he
was trying to get as little as possible of it into his
mouth. "Maybe when I get settled."
"It's a date," Cat announced, gave another predatory smile,
and walked languidly off, scarf twirling behind her.
Lois shook her head and glared at her retreating form.
Clark stood there for several moments, looking for all the
world like a lost and extremely dumbfounded small child.
"Is she always like that?" he asked as he returned to his
seat. The look on his face was not a happy one.
"To any man with a pulse," Lois confirmed.
So not only was Clark nice to Lois, he didn't look like he
was pleased at being targeted for another notch on Cat's
garter belt. Cat had been practically pinning him to her
desk and he had managed to remain polite without showing
signs of interest.
Maybe he was gay. But then, she couldn't think of any gay
man who would ever be caught dead wearing such a horrid tie
-- it looked like a finger-painter had gotten drunk and
jotted down the Battle of Midway on it using mismatched
fluorescent polka dots. She wondered briefly where it was
even possible to buy ties like that. No department store
worth its salt would carry such an abomination.
No, this would have had to come from some men's magazine,
special ordered. 'Men's Abominable Ties 'R Us,' or
something.
"She comes on a bit strong," he said with a shake of his
head. "So what have we got?"
"*We*?" She raised her eyebrows, forgetting about the tie.
"There is no we," she snapped, immediately incensed. There
was what she had been looking for -- he was trying to steal
her story. It was all so obvious now. He wanted her notes
so he could walk off and publish them behind her back.
Maybe he had planned to butter her up and take her for a
spin, first. It would explain the country-boy innocent act.
She had almost been fooled.
And just as quickly as she'd changed gears and leapt to that
assumption, she started having doubts. He really just
didn't have the same sleaze-vibe that most men seemed to
have. Sure he smiled at her, but she had never once
yesterday gotten the impression he was looking at naked
Lois, or slowly-undressing Lois. He seemed to genuinely
just like looking at her, clothes and all. And when he
spoke to her, it wasn't as if he was pumping her for
information. To her, his inquiries felt like he was just
interested in getting to know her.
"Sorry I--" he stuttered. "Well, Perry still doesn't have a
desk for me. I figured I was--"
He looked horrified. His eyes had gone wide and his whole
demeanor was slouched and adorned with regret, as if he felt
he had broken something sacred. It was rather cute.
"Oh relax, Farmboy," she found herself reassuring him.
Reassuring him!? Farmboy!? "Just so long as we're clear on
the pecking order."
Not my friend, she recited in her head like a mantra. Not
friend. Friend not. Co-worker. Competition. Claude.
Bad. Bad, Lois.
"Top banana," he replied with a wry grin. "Right."
"That's the way I like it," she concluded definitively,
parrying his reference to one of their earlier conversations
with the most serious look she could muster. Her mantra
didn't seem to be working.
"So what have you got that you're deigning to allow me a
peek at?"
That beam of his was infectious, darn it. She had to steel
herself against duplicating it.
Not friend. Friend not. Man bad. Co-worker.
"Well," she began, "I looked into all the stuff Jimmy pulled
up for me about Thompson. He's a UFO nut--"
The grin on Clark's face faded so fast she almost started to
wonder if he was manic. It figured there had to be
*something* wrong with him. "Ah, heh, UFOs?" he mumbled.
"Yeah." Lois flipped through her notes and ticked things
off with her pencil. "He was in Project Blue Book. As soon
as it was shut down he was out of the Air Force and into the
FBI almost instantaneously."
"Interesting career shift."
"Suspicious," she confirmed. "Career military doesn't just
jump ship like that in my experience. So my question is,
what's the motivation?"
Clark seemed to have homed in on the same thing she had,
albeit with a little less clarity. He was still fairly
green, after all, but she couldn't count on one hand the
number of forced partners she had gone through that wouldn't
have even been able to make even that simple logical leap
with her. It was rather exhilarating.
"I'm thinking that whatever he was doing in the Air Force,
the only way he could continue it was by joining the FBI.
Does the FBI have a UFO department?" She held her hands up
in front of her, her index fingers and thumbs forming a
vague diamond shape. "You know, Martian Files? Or
something?" She stared through her makeshift picture frame,
her eyebrows shifting as she considered the possibilities.
He shrugged.
She pulled out the deck of photos and flipped through them
again, at a loss. "I just wish the photos Jimmy pulled had
some form of identification on them. It would make it a lot
easier to crosscheck names against government payrolls."
Clark gestured to the photos. "Let me see."
She shrugged and handed them to him. Did he expect to
recognize anyone? Some of the photos were likely to be as
old as he was, unless he aged better than a vampire.
She blinked. "Don't tell me you actually know any of these
people?"
She hadn't thought it would be possible for Clark's face to
fall even further from his earlier happy countenance, but it
did. His eyes widened a bit as he flipped through the deck.
He mumbled something that sounded like, "Ask," as he zeroed
in on one of the pictures she had examined last night. It
was the one where Thompson and the 'dangerous' man were
standing there posing in suits. There was no mistaking the
look of horrified recognition Clark was giving the photo in
question, and the surprise on his features led her to
believe it wasn't Thompson he was looking at with such
dread.
"Did you say something, Clark?" she asked, trying to prod
him into speaking, but he didn't seem to hear her.
Curiosity burned within her. How did Clark know this man?
What had happened that was so horrible? Clark was breathing
a lot more heavily now -- it almost appeared that he was
having a small panic attack.
"Clark? Are you okay?" She cursed herself for asking that.
Of course he wasn't okay. And why did she care?
Not friend. Friend not. Bad, Lois. Bad, bad, Lois.
She put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze.
"Uh, Clark?"
Even through his sport jacket she could feel knots of
muscles chorded and wound. And, wow, what muscles they
were. He *had* to work out. Good Lord, he belonged on a
calendar in full Technicolor glossy prints. She now worked
with a potential Mr. January. She tried very hard not to
focus on that, and resumed her 'not friend, friend not'
mantra even though it didn't appear to be helping much.
Several moments passed before Clark made a move to respond.
He gestured nebulously towards the picture, but his gaze was
centered on a point past the film paper, as though he were
looking through to the other side of a mirror. "Jason
Trask," he whispered.
Lois looked at him. "Probably just some flunky. How do you
know him, anyways? What was that all about?"
"Lois, maybe this investigation isn't such a good idea.
These people could be dangerous."
That didn't sound like speculation to her.
She grabbed the photos from his slackening grip,
straightened the stack, and slapped it onto the desk. The
photos settled with a loud clap and shuffled into minor
disarray from the force.
"Okay, Kent, what's the deal? You're smiling one minute and
the next you look like someone died. On top of that, you
were Mr. Optimist about this whole thing yesterday. And *no
one*, got it, buster? NO ONE tells me something is too
dangerous, especially not our newest Mr. Green Jeans."
"I-- I'm sorry," he stammered. "I just. Got a weird vibe
from--" His voice fell off into silence. So not only was
he nice, but he could be as stubborn as she was. Great.
She let loose a frustrated sigh. "Me too, but I still say
Thompson is the story. You never answered my question."
A flash of panic swept across his face. "Question?"
"How do you know Trask?" She stared at him hard, determined
not to let herself get distracted again. He was not looking
her in the eye, and he had grown decidedly more twitchy.
Clark *knew* something, and she was going to find out what.
"I--" he floundered.
She leaned in closer and crossed her arms over her chest.
She meant business. "Well?"
"I--"
The door to Perry's office slammed open and the editor
stalked out of it, eyes flashing. "There's been an accident
with one of the construction workers on the corner outside,"
he announced, his gaze roaming around the room only to land
on... "I want you on it, Kent!"
Clark let loose a hefty sigh. The look of relief on his
face was palpable. He looked at her and mouthed, "Sorry,"
but she knew he really wasn't.
Damn it.
"Is there a reason you're still here?" Perry asked as he
ambled over.
"Sorry, sir," Clark answered, and then he was gone. She had
barely let the sight of his vacant chair register when she
shoved hers back and got to her feet, eyes blazing.
"Chief," she cried, slamming her fist on the desk for good
measure. "How could you!?"
The newsroom got decidedly quiet at that moment, and with
what had become an all too familiar feeling, heat spread
across her cheeks. But she didn't care. The Chief had just
handed Clark Kent a get out of jail free and she was going
to make sure he regretted it. Oh yes.
She set her mouth into a straight line and gave him what she
esteemed to be her most deadly glare.
Perry blinked. "How could I what?" His utterance wasn't
really a yell, but the room had gotten so quiet, it sounded
like it.
She groaned and gestured for a minute before giving up
trying to find words. "Forget it," she sighed. "Can you
take a look at this while you're over here?"
The newsroom began to regain its earlier noise level as
people got back to work and stopped looking her way. She
pulled the photo in question back out of the stack she had
made earlier and gestured towards it. The photo was the one
with the man she suspected to be General Burton Newcomb
alongside George Thompson and the man Clark had identified
as Jason Trask.
The Chief took her subject change in stride and glanced at
the photo. "Hmmm, General Newcomb."
"I thought so! Thanks."
That sealed it then. Trying to contain her excitement at
having a lead that was not drier than Death Valley, she
decided rationally and calmly that she would call General
Newcomb later to set up an interview. Already trying to
formulate a set of questions, she took a few moments to
realize Perry had not left yet, and that he was staring at
the photo in question with a look of keen interest. He was
rubbing his thumb and index finger along his chin, deep in
thought.
"I know this picture," he finally said. "It's the stock Air
Force press release photo of the day he signed away funding
for Project Blue Book. It got used in the article I wrote
on it way back in the day."
He laughed and shook his head. "1969. That was a good year
for Elvis. Why, I remember seeing him in concert at a--"
"Chief!" she interjected.
He snapped out of his flashback and looked back at the
picture. "Hey, that's George Thompson isn't it?"
"Yeah."
"He seems to be popping up in an awful lot of places all of
a sudden."
"Yeah," she confirmed, slowly. Prodding. If he was going
to destroy her interrogation sessions, the least he could do
was admit--
"Oh, Hell, honey," he caved before she could even complete
the thought. "I never actually said no on this story, you
didn't give me a chance to. I've learned it's best to let
you fly with the bit in your teeth anyways, but this better
be that Pulitzer you keep mentioning."
She let loose a mega-watt smile. "Thanks, Perry."
He shook his head and disappeared back into his office,
mumbling loudly enough for her to catch the words, "Craziest
woman.." something something.
She sat back in her chair to do some thinking. It seemed as
if a tapestry of clues was coming unraveled almost faster
than her ability to process them. The photo in question
with Burton Newcomb had been in 1969, when Project Blue Book
had been closed down. The previously unidentified
'dangerous' man now had a name with the face, and Clark was
for some reason terrified of him. Clark was also being
close-lipped and infuriatingly stubborn. Didn't he know she
would find out what the deal was before the week was up,
regardless of whether he contributed or not?
Look out, Clark Kent, she grumbled to herself.
Still, there had been a look of panic in his features that
had been unnerving, and even given her annoyance at his
reticence, she still found herself worried. Given
Thompson's position in the FBI, and the similar change in
dress she had witnessed with Trask throughout the veritable
timeline of photographs, it was logical to assume Jason
Trask was in the FBI as well.
Was Clark in trouble with the law? He had been cropping up
to be a really decent guy. And as much as she tried to deny
it or mantra it away, she was attracted to him. Given that
information, it wouldn't be too farfetched to discover he
was the worst scum on the planet, possibly a mass-murderer
in disguise.
But somehow the picture of Clark stalking around as a wanted
serial axe-murderer didn't seem to fit. No one with a smile
like that could be an axe-murderer, could they? She ignored
memories of the warm feeling she got when he looked at her,
smile devastating away any and all prior inclinations she
had towards being her usual snippy self.
Maybe he had an unpaid parking ticket.
Or maybe there was something else going on entirely.
What she did know was that there was a story around George
Thompson. Scott had never given her false information. Not
once. He was a veritable gold-mine of an informant and she
would have staked her career on his veracity at this point.
So, the question was now whether she was looking at two
unrelated stories in her midst, and hence just a
disturbingly large coincidence, or if the one she was
grasping at was even bigger than she thought.
She tapped her pencil on her desk for a moment.
Not friend. Friend not.
Coincidences were Pulitzers.
"JIMMY!" she shouted. "Get me everything you can on Jason
Trask!"
*****
TBC
(End Part 07/??)
