[CHAPTER 5]
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Everyone values things differently. In other words, they place their own value on everything that affects their lives. Also from moment to moment they may even change their values. Such as a person, who values diamonds above all else, might be willing to trade a gallon of diamonds for a drink of water to save his life in a desert. – Sidney Madwed
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Monday
Jimmy Olson was waiting for Lois as she stepped off the elevator. Together they descended the ramp and merged into the bustling activity of the newsroom.
“What do you got for me, Jim?”
Jimmy took a CD-Rom case from the top of the stack of items he was carrying. “For the record, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Lois took the disc from him with a smile. “Duly noted, thanks. So, what will I find on this?”
“IP impressions of every website and search query accessed by Mr. Kent when he has been logged into the Planet’s system.” Jimmy flicked a glance around and lowered his voice even more. “This is not something you can just *happen* to come by, Lois.”
“No one will know this ever happened, Jimmy. Okay? Me and you – that’s it.”
He wasn’t much comforted by the assurance. “And the disc?”
“It will spontaneously combust five minutes after I look at the contents.”
Sighing and shaking his head, Jimmy changed directions so he could complete the rest of his deliveries.
After arriving at her desk, Lois locked the CD in her bottom drawer. “So, I’ve got good news,” she announced, getting the attention of her new colleague. “I have a source at STAR Labs who is taking a look at the documents we uncovered.”
“Let me guess, the source is your uncle,” Clark said wryly.
“How’d you know?”
Clark looked at her in surprise. “You mean he really is?”
Laughing, she winked at him. “Not all of my sources are related to me – this one just happens to be an old friend of my father’s.”
The phone on her desk started ringing. When she saw the name on the caller ID, her eyebrows rose. “Lois Lane,” she said into the headset. “Uncle Bernie? That was quick.” She had just left him about an hour earlier.
After listening for a few minutes and jotting down some notes, she replied, “No, I understand. This helps though. Thank you… Yes, of course... Talk to you soon.”
She hung up the phone and gave Clark a triumphant look. “Respiratory.”
Clark frowned in confusion. “What?”
She waved a hand toward the phone. “That was my guy - my *uncle* - from STAR Labs. He says that he still needs to work on the documents to put together the whole picture, but that we should focus on respiratory disease in infant lung tissue. Adults wouldn’t be affected because they have built immunity to environmental contaminants.”
The suddenly clouded expression on Clark’s face made her stop. “Are you okay?”
“They’re targeting children?”
Lois felt the need to choose her words carefully. “We don’t… know that for sure.”
“But these toxins… It’s generally known that children are more susceptible to infections than the adult population, right?”
The look in his eyes was almost wild. She nodded wordlessly.
“So, hiding the potential damage their processes could be doing to innocent victims, a chemical company is *not necessarily* targeting children. A scientist in their employ tries to delay implementation so more research could be done and they make him disappear.” His angry gaze focused on her. “Allegedly.”
His slammed his hand against his desk and the sound caused her to jump. Lois wondered if he had cracked the surface with the force.
The sound seemed to also be a jolt for Clark. He looked down at his hand and took a deep breath, slowly unballing the fist he’d made. “Sorry, I just…” He rubbed his jaw. “I don’t like it when the victims are children. They can’t fight for themselves.”
He got up from his chair and walked over to the window. Lois stared at his silhouette for a moment, lost in thought. Children, frogs… societal laws; she was now beginning to see the complex picture that Clark Kent projected.
He was a man that carried the weight of the world on his shoulders but felt powerless to do anything about it.
Lois slid her chair away from her desk, stood up, and walked over to the window. After a brief hesitation she placed a timid hand on his shoulder. “Then we fight for them.” She pulled her hand away. “I have an idea, let’s go see my mother. Now that we know what we’re looking for, we can limit the scope of her search. It’s time to align some evidence with the theory.”
~.~
Lois kept sneaking glances at Clark out the corner of her eye. Since his semi-meltdown at the Planet, she’d been trying to ignore the urge to analyze. Even while her mother had talked them through the hospital reports she’d printed out for them, part of Lois’s brain was making up stories about his childhood.
He had a great sensitivity to things being victimized – which greatly insinuated that he had once been in that position. She shot another glance across to him sitting at his desk. It was hard to imagine someone with his size and stature being picked on.
He was more likely to be the protector, she thought, the kind of person that was always standing up for the people who were getting victimized. Somehow that theory made better sense – perhaps that was just because it was a more comfortable thought than one of child abuse.
Her hands itched to pull out the CD from Jimmy. She needed to know what was going on. She needed to… help him.
But first, they needed to write this article. “Did you know that the FDA can take at least 6 years to go through all of the tests for approval, and that in the meantime, the company can do as they please?”
Clark frowned. “Cyphren probably figured they would have erased all links between the side effects and their product by that time.”
Lois nodded grimly. “I can’t help but to think that there is a connection between the company and the hospital. All of those reports of the increase in nose bleeds, skin rashes, infant RSV occurrences – someone would have had to at least alert the CDC, even if just for a *minor* flag.”
“All of the samples came back clean – a little too clean. We still don’t know how the byproducts are getting out.”
Lois titled her head. “Actually, we do. They burn them.”
Clark took in the information thoughtfully. Burning made logical sense – the *alleged* effect of the toxins on babies was on the respiratory and immune systems. That meant the poison was airborne.
He returned the focus of his gaze back to Lois warily. He didn’t know if he was going to like where this was going. “How exactly do we know this?”
~.~
“Chemical Poisoning Plot Exposed,” Perry read gruffly. He pulled the paper down so he could look at the two reporters standing on the other side of his desk. “This is going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Lois, just tell me one thing – do I want to know how you acquired this *evidence* from the manufacturing plant?”
Lois bit her lower lip. “Probably not.”
“Lane! I thought we agreed you wouldn’t do… what we said you wouldn’t do, anymore.”
“You agreed,” Lois corrected with a shrug. “I agreed that I would try.”
Perry’s eyes narrowed and he opened his top drawer to get to his stress pills. “If I print this, there’s going to be whole lot of scrambling and denial. You’re doing a lot of finger pointing here. Please tell me you’re not just doing a jig.”
Clark frowned in confusion at the editor’s words. “You want us to tell you that we’re not dancing?”
Perry nodded as he reached for his water bottle to wash down his pills. “Jigging, jiving – throwing a head fake.” He pointed a finger at Lois. “Flushing the rabbit out of the hole.”
Lois smirked. “Yes and no.”
Perry wasn’t amused. “Which is it?”
“No, it’s not *entirely* a provocation piece. We’ve got at least three more stories to follow this one, but we would be naïve to not think that the demons are going to come flying out of the closet when this thing hits. We just have to be in place to catch them.”
Perry gave her a hard look and then turned his glare on Clark. “You agree with that assessment, Kent?”
“Why are you asking him if he…”
“Lois.” Perry shushed her without looking.
“Sir, I came here to uncover the ill dealings of a Fortune 500 company. That’s what we’re doing.”
Perry continued to stare at him for a full minute before nodding curtly. “All right then. I’ll get this over to Print. You two go get me the next story in the series.”
Lois followed as Clark left the office. Just before exiting, she turned back to her boss. “Why would you ask him if he…”
“Lane! Get me the story!”
With a huff, Lois turned and left the room. When she was gone, Perry finally allowed himself to release the chuckle he’d been withholding.
~.~
Monday Evening
Lois frowned at the screen of her laptop. She had spent hours going through the information from the CD-Rom and still hadn’t covered half of it. What she had discovered, however, was that Google was no match for the Daily Planet’s search system.
It appeared that Clark Kent was doing extensive research on two different people. The first was Anthony West, a now-deceased British author, and the other was Lana Lang, a former cheerleader from Smallville, Kansas. Nothing in Lois’s notes showed her any possible connection between the two.
Lana Lang was obviously someone from Clark Kent’s past, and he seemed to be doing all he could to locate her. Logged into the Daily Planet’s system, he would have the ability to set up a background check, a university student search, and a tax statement query, among other things. Sitting at home, Lois was limited to brief mentions about the woman on the personal websites of former classmates. There were no pictures, no publications, and no information since Lana had been part of the graduating class of 1994.
As far as Anthony West was concerned, his biography and list of published works was unremarkable, save for the fact that he was the illegitimate son of the famous science-fiction writer, H.G. Wells. The best she could tell was that Clark was a fan of the man’s books. He seemed to be looking for a certain unpublished manuscript.
Lois sighed as yet another IP address returned a failed authorization message. This entire process would have been better served from her computer at the Planet, but she’d gotten spooked when Clark had come up behind her desk the moment she’d slid the disc into her drive. Not willing to tempt fate with discovery, she’d packed the disc up and brought it home with her… only to face frustration and declarations of unauthorized access.
Glancing at the scribbled notes she’d made on the limited information she had been able to gather, Lois decided to put it aside. Blinking her eyes in an attempt to bring moisture back to them, she reached for her phone.
“Hey, Jimmy,” she greeted once the line had been picked up by the answering machine. “I know you’re home, and I know you’re screening me. I promise, this time it’s on the story. Pick up.”
She paused for a moment to wait. When there was still no answer, she unconsciously arched an eyebrow. “Pick up or I come over.”
“Hey, Lois. Sorry about that- I was in the shower.”
Lois smirked but didn’t dispute his claim. “You know how you tracked Kent’s computer? I need you to do that for me again.”
“You said this was about the story!” Jimmy protested.
“And you said you were in the shower,” she quipped. “It is on the story. I need you to track Stan Richardson. He’s the CEO of Cyphren Chemical.”
The other end of the line was silent for a brief moment as Jimmy absorbed the request. “I can’t do that.”
Lois closed her eyes. “What do you mean, you can’t do that? You did it for Clark.”
“I had access to Mr. Kent’s system. I set up his access codes. I don’t have that kind access to Richardson’s computer.”
“What if we…”
“I’m not breaking in with you, Lois,” Jimmy interrupted. “Do you know how much trouble I got in when Perry found out about last time?”
“Jimmy, you have got to stop fearing him. He can smell it.” She sighed. “Okay, say we don’t get inside Cyphren… what is another way to get that information?”
“I don’t know.”
“You answered that too quickly. Work with me, Olsen. Massage that brain a little. What was that you are always telling me? Hacking is an art? Well, show me your best Van Gogh.”
Jimmy was quiet for a full minute and Lois held her breath, hoping she hadn’t lost him.
“Van Gogh was crazy.”
Smiling triumphantly, Lois pumped a fist in the air. “What do you need?”
“His personal IP address. He’s got to have some sort of internet service at his house- and *that* has to have some type of protected connection to his system at the office. If I can tap into his system while he’s online, I should be able to install a back door that will allow us to imprint his footsteps.”
Lois grinned into the phone. “James Olsen, you are an undervalued asset to the entire Planet, you realize that don’t you?”
“Thanks, Lois,” he muttered in reply. She could practically hear him blushing.
“Listen, I wouldn’t ask you for this if the guy wasn’t crooked. Someone involved with the Cyphren Elite is behind the disappearance of a prominent scientist. I want to find him before it becomes permanent.”
“I understand,” Jimmy said. “Do you think you’ll be able to get the details on Richardson’s internet provider?”
“Let me work on it and I’ll get back to you. Oh, and Jimmy…”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t screen my calls.”
~.~
tbc
