Hattie and Mr. X - Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1 – P 7/11
By KenJ <ken.janney@kjanney.com>
This version is rated PG-13
Submitted
Disclaimers: Some of the characters in this story are property of DC, December 3rd productions and Warner Bros., except those I created. No copyright infringement is intended. I have just borrowed the characters for a short time.
Note::
This story takes place in the Matchmaker Chronicles universe. Hattie Kaplin has had a long standing relationship with Jon Kent and the entire Kent family; in fact she is almost part of the family. Recently she had been brought in on the family secret that the Kents are in fact the super family.
This story is a sequel to Hattie Kaplin and the Main Street Bomber – Matchmaker Chronicles Volume 1 - O
*denotes emphasis*
<denotes thoughts>
/” denotes telepathic communications.”/
Previously
Things were quiet for a time. There were no more mysterious robberies. The evidence provided by STAR Labs was used by the lawyers when the cases went before the Grand Jury and the decision arrived at was against indictment.
The nicest thing was that there were no more overt attempts on the lives of JJ or Hattie.
A search of the Trade Publications provided them with a lead. There was a researcher, Dr. Clarence James, now an employee of MiraLabs that had worked with Benzodiazepines in previous years. He had been hired based upon the articles which had been published
There was also a Dr. Frank Simmons who was a researcher in psychoactive drugs, specifically those used in the treatment of bi-polar disorder. His article on the use of Lithium in the treatment of schizophrenia gave them a lead as well. He also was employed by MiraLabs subsequent to the publishing of his article.
A search of the background of Dr’s James and Simmons showed that both had problems, both were gamblers. Dr. Simmons had taken a second mortgage on his home to pay off gambling debts.
Recently, however, both had received massive influxes of cash from unnamed sources. They had both claimed that they were salary bonus checks; however, they were the only individuals to receive such bonuses.
Red flags were waving all over the place when they found this information.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Saturday, March 10, 2029
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Moving day had arrived. Jon and Jen, Lois and Clark all showed up to help move the couple to their new apartment.
Hattie and JJ had been living in Hattie’s apartment, but he had only moved enough of his clothes down to get by, so items had to be moved from both apartments.
Hattie and JJ had taken Friday off to begin packing up.
Lois and Hattie led the way with the first load. Hattie opened the door, stepped back and said to Lois, “Why don’t you go first.”
Lois smiled and stepped forward. As soon as she crossed the threshold she said, “Hello apartment,” and chuckled, “It’s been a long time. Be good to our girl.”
Hattie smiled as she heard this. She entered and said, “That box goes into the bedroom.”
Lois nodded and headed in that direction.
And now:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Chapter 7 – A Little B&E
Friday, March 16, 2029
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After discovering the information on James and Simmons, Hattie and JJ had researched the plans for MiraLabs by pulling the architectural drawings of LexLabs. They found out where James and Simmons each had their labs. Fortunately they did not have separate offices. Theirs and their technician’s desks were located within the lab itself which would simplify matters considerably.
By checking the sub-surface maps they found an old subway spur line, not much more than a tunnel. It was a part of the old, unfinished subway that Luthor had been funding.
Clark came into the conference room when he overheard what Hattie and JJ were talking about. “Luthor never did anything that wouldn’t benefit him in some way. There has to be a reason for that tunnel. It is possible that it was going to be used for either an escape route or else as a means of moving contraband, in or out. There is most probably a hidden access into the basement of MiraLabs that has been forgotten about. What are the two of you thinking about doing?”
Hattie replied, “Well, we need to get in and search a couple of the labs to see if we can find evidence of the manufacture of the drug.”
Hearing what they were talking about, Lois abandoned her desk and joined them in the conference room. Looking over the plans she said, “Sweet! We could get in easily and avoid the guards and security systems.” She pointed to a section of the basement and said, “Electrical room. If we short out the panels the entire place will be without power and we won’t have to worry about the security cameras or electronic locks.”
Hattie asked, “Why not the locks?”
“Fail safe. In the event of a power outage they all release so that the occupants aren’t trapped. It’s a disaster emergency policy.”
“Oh, that’s a good thing to know.”
Lois asked, “When do we go””
Hattie looked at her in surprise, “We?”
Lois smiled and said, “Sure. I haven’t done any B&E for a long time. I want to make sure I’m not getting rusty.”
Hattie smiled, Lois was going with them! She looked at Clark. He was shaking his head as he said, “You are incorrigible, you know that?”
“Come on, Clark! It’ll be fun. Besides, it’ll give us a chance to watch over the two of them.”
He was weakening and Hattie could see it. He asked, “What if we get caught?”
“With what we can do? Who could ever catch us? Come on, Clark loosen up!”
Shaking his head he said, “All right. It has been a while. It’ll make a nice change of pace and if we can find the evidence we need we can put this gang out of business.”
Hattie was smiling broadly as she said, “Great! Shall we do this tomorrow night? There shouldn’t be any staff to avoid, just the guards.”
Lois was also smiling as she said, “Sounds like a plan. Come on over to our place for dinner and we’ll leave from there.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Saturday, March 17, 2029
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When they arrived at the Wisteria Lane home, Hattie was wearing her black cat suit with the equipment belt. In one pouch was her lock pick set. She had two telescoping batons, one on each hip. A forehead flashlight as well as a regular flashlight were in another pouch. .
JJ had on a tight fitting coverall. He also carried a flashlight. On a utility belt he carried a mini-scanner in a pouch. The scanner plugged into a Smartphone and was wide enough to feed full sheets of paper into. The images would be stored on the phone until downloaded or e-mailed to an account. Their Smartphones also had integral high resolution cameras. He also carried a hand scanner, in case they had to copy pages from a research notebook.
Lois and Clark were both dressed in black as befitted their purpose. They all headed out in one car. When they arrived at their entry point they all dropped down trough a manhole into a culvert. This led to the tunnel they were after. After traveling down this for a distance with Lois leading the way they found the access into MiraLabs. Passing through the hidden door they entered the sub-basement of MiraLabs. After ascending a flight of stairs, Hattie found the electrical room. Clark opened the main switch panel and used his heat vision to melt all of the breakers in the box. When the breakers failed emergency lighting throughout the structure turned on.
Quickly, they ascended another flight of stairs and took refuge in a room because they could hear feet rapidly approaching. Once the guards had passed, they quickly moved up a stairwell to the third floor, where they had determined James’ and Simmons’ labs were located. They found them without any difficulty. Before they were able to start their search however, they heard guards approaching. They could hear their shouts and doors banging as they attempted to force them closed.
Clark grabbed JJ and Lois grabbed Hattie and they floated up to the ceiling close to the door. When the guard looked in, all he saw was an empty room.
Once the guard had left they proceeded with the search.
Hattie used her lock picks on a file cabinet while Lois opened a locked desk drawer where they found a research notebook.
JJ started thumbing through it looking for some familiar words. Dr. Klein has been kind enough to provide a list of terms to look for. It wasn't too long until he said, "Bingo," in a hushed tone and started scanning pages.
While he was doing this Clark continued to look through the files.
Lois and Hattie had gone to search the other lab. They found evidence of cooperation between the two scientists in references to each other's work.
The final piece fell into place when Lois found a clinical trial report which referenced DD as a subject and there was another reference to AA as another subject. Apparently the 'Programming' of the two subjects prior to the robberies had been done by the scientists.
The Icing on the cake was a container of gelatin capsules labeled "Zombie version beta". Hattie placed six capsules in another container, labeled it and put it into a pouch to give to Dr. Klein.
She said to Lois, "This is the mother lode. I think we have all that we came for. Let's collect JJ and Uncle Clark and split."
Lois sent, /"Clark, let's wrap it up and get out of here. We have all that we came for."/
In the other lab, Clark said to JJ, "Lois and Hattie are finished. Let's put everything back and get out of here."
JJ nodded, finished scanning the final report and started putting things away.
Just then they heard the guards returning. Seeing books and papers scattered around and knowing that if the guards looked in they would know that something was up, Clark sent, /"We. are going to need a distraction. We can't possibly clean up before the guards look in."/
Looking down the hall and seeing a six gallon bottle of water on a water cooler, Lois used her heat vision to poke two very small holes in the top. As soon as she did, water started to run out of the bottle, overflowing the reservoir and onto the floor. Hearing the guards approach she flew up over the water and used her superbreath to first spread the water over a large section of the hallway and then freeze it into ice. When she finished the hallway was a slick as an ice hockey rink. She quickly flew back and rejoined Hattie. She sent a message to Clark, /"I think you will have the time you need."/ At the end there was a mental snicker.
Picking up on that, Clark sent, his worry coming through the link, /"What did you do?"/
Lois smiled as she replied, /"It's pretty cold outside. With the power off it's starting to get cold in here. I thought I'd give them a chance to play some winter sports. Are you packed up yet? Watch the fun."/
/"Just about finished."/
/"That's good because here come the guards."/
Thanks to the poor lighting provided by the emergency lights the Ice was invisible on the floor. Lois picked up a souvenir paperweight that was sitting on a desk and threw it out the door and down the hall aiming at a fire extinguisher hanging from a bracket on the wall. There was a metallic clang as it struck.
The shouts of the guards were clearly heard by all four of the trespassers as they started in pursuit of what they thought could be an intruder. Their shouts of, "Stop right there." and "Hold it." suddenly changed to cries of dismay as they hit the ice and their feet went out from under them and they fell heavily to the floor. Their attempts to stand only got them more contusion from bumping into each other and from additional falls. It was a ludicrous situation and Lois and Hattie both were hard put to stifle their laughter.
While this had been going on, Clark had been putting books and papers back at superspeed. He sent, /"Finished here. Let's play shepherd and get our little flock out of here. I'll carry JJ. You carry Hattie and we will superspeed back to the basement. If there's no one there, I'll replace the breakers I fried and we can exit."/
/"Gotcha, we're on our way."/
The guards were hanging on to each other and barely managing to keep their feet when the breeze created by the passage of the superheroes and their companions passing at superspeed knocked them down again. They thought that they heard brief laughter, but were unable to identify its source and decided that it must have actually been something else entirely.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Monday, March 19, 2029
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Hattie and JJ went straight to STAR Labs in the morning. Jon met them in the lobby and took them back to the lab.
“Well, Ms. Kaplin! Do you have something else for us to look at?”
“I think so Dr. Klein.” She pulled out the vial and extracted a capsule and holding it up asked, “Could you analyze this and tell us what it is?”
Dr. Klein looked at it and said, “Well, off hand, I’d say it is a gelatin capsule. Fairly common. Used by a lot of pharmaceutical companies.”
Hattie was shocked at this apparent unconcern. “No, Dr. Klein! Not the capsule, what’s in it!”
Bernie started to chuckle, “Just my small attempt at humor. Sure, we’ll look at it and see what we can come up with. Jon, standard protocol. See what it will dissolve in. Make a solution with a measured quantity. Add an external reference that we can calibrate against. There will probably be diluents included, Bardon Clay, talc, sugar, something like that. The clay and the talc won’t dissolve while the sugar will. Make notes of your observations.”
“You got it, Doc.” Jon went to work.
After two hours of intensive effort the reports were correlated. After Dr. Klein reviewed what he had, he directed Jon, “Send the data to Cray. Let’s see what he can come up with. Let’s see if he can give us a structure.”
Hattie asked, “Who’s Cray? Is he some brainy guy that you work with?”
“We keep Cray down in the deepest, darkest, coldest dungeon we have and make him work on projects like this.”
Shocked, Hattie blurted out, “He’s a prisoner? Slave labor?”
Jon was standing in the background, laughing and shaking his head at Dr. Klein’s joke.
Hattie looked at Jon questioningly seeing his reaction to her question.
Dr. Klein was also laughing at her reaction to his joke. He clarified, “Cray is actually a Cray25B supercomputer. It has a liquid nitrogen cooling system and it is very big and takes a lot of space even though its components are very small. It isn't the latest version, but it is only two years old."
Jon checked the data transfer progress and said, “Upload complete, Doc.”
“Thanks, Jon.” He motioned for Hattie and JJ to follow him. He led them over to an oversized monitor, handed them each a pair of what looked like sun glasses and turning on the monitor said, “These are polarized glasses. The offset is 90 degrees. They should render the picture in 3-D. Let’s watch as Cray builds the molecule for us.”
While they watched, different colored balls appeared on the screen and started to move together. Bars of light started connecting then, some single, some double and some triple. Dr. Klein used a laser pointer to indicate the balls as he narrated, “The red are Carbon atoms, the yellow are Oxygen, blue are Hydrogen, green are Nitrogen. Oh, what is that?” He typed a command and in a second he had a label attached to an orange ball, “Lithium!”
For several minutes the display shifted and rearranged itself, the computer adjusting the display as more data was fed in. After about five minutes the display firmed up and across the bottom of the screen a line of text appeared, “Statistical probability 97% within three standard deviational units.”
Dr. Klein let out a sigh of satisfaction as he said, “There it is. That’s what has been causing this. You were right about the Lithium. See all of those double bonds on the Oxygens? That is an alcohol like structure. The basic structure is a lot like the Benzodiazepines, but enhanced. It would have an effect similar to several shots of alcohol to start with then the victim would become suggestible as the psychotic episode kicked in. As we saw it metabolizes fairly rapidly and when the concentration in the blood falls below a certain level, the victim comes out of it with apparently no side effects other than not remembering the period they were under the influence.” He hit a key and an attached printer started to spit out a sheet of paper with the structure on it.
Hattie felt in her pocket and felt the vial with the extra capsules in it and smiled. She asked, “During the initial phases, could the drug act like a truth serum?”
“Hmmmmm, this structure here is basically the Benzodiazepines structure. This section is more like Scopolamine. They are joined by an Oxygen bridge and each side has a Lithium atom replacing a Hydrogen atom in several key locations. I’d say that it could.”
“Thanks, Dr. Klein. That’s very helpful. Let’s go JJ. We need to take this to the MPD. Maybe with this and the articles we found they can get a search warrant. They might even be able to bring in James and Simmons for questioning. If they do, I want to be there. Maybe I can make them a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee? Why?” JJ was mystified at this sudden change in her behavior.
“Just being nice.”
JJ saw her smile and was apprehensive.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sometimes the wheels of the judiciary, like bureaucracy, can grind slowly, but in this case, based on the evidence presented by Hattie and JJ coupled with the testimony already obtained and presented to the Grand Jury and judge, the judge hastened to sign the search warrant and the order for detaining James and Simmons for questioning
Files and research notebooks were all impounded and the assistants as well as the researchers we brought in for questioning.
After several hours the assistants were released. It had become obvious that they were simply following directions prepared by the researchers as they set up equipment and added reagents.
James and Simmons were each being questioned in separate rooms. Boyce was handling the investigation and was moving from room to room, but both researchers were stonewalling him. Their answers were evasive at best.
Boyce was taking a break when Hattie and JJ approached. Hattie asked, “How’s it going?”
With a disgusted air, Boyce replied, “It isn’t. The only good thing is that they haven’t lawyered up yet. At least this way I am free to question them.”
“Could we have a few minutes to talk with them?”
“Only if I can observe through the glass.”
Hattie smiled and said, “That’s fine by me.” She appeared to think about it for a second before she said, “Maybe I’ll fix Dr. James a cup of coffee. You know, break the ice. Put him off guard.”
Boyce said, “It might be worth a try. The coffee maker is in that room over there.”
Once in the room, out of sight, Hattie poured a cup of coffee and then extracting one of the pills from the vial she dropped it in. She stirred it to make sure it was dissolved before exiting and moving to the interview room.
Boyce entered the observation room as she and JJ entered.
Hattie asked, “Dr. James, would you like a cup of coffee?”
He said, “Sure. Cream and sugar.”
“JJ, would you get the creamer and sugar for Dr. James?”
“Be right back.”
Less than a minute later he was back and Dr. James was preparing his coffee. As he started to drink, Hattie said, “My name is Henrietta Kaplin and this is my partner, James Olsen, Junior. We work for the Daily Planet.”
“I’ve read your articles. You’re good. Almost as good as Lane and Kent.”
Hattie smiled and said, “Thank you for that compliment. Lois Lane has been my hero for years. We’re incredibly lucky to be working for them. Dr. James, we have read your treatise on Benzodiazepines and their use in treating Bi-Polar disorder. It was ground breaking.”
He was surprised, “You read that article?”
“Of course we did. We are very interested in the subject. You have been adding new, novel variants of the basic structure to form new compounds, each with unique properties. The inclusion of Lithium in the molecule was brilliant.”
He was startled, “How did you know about that? It wasn’t in the article.”
“It was a logical extrapolation. Since Lithium salts had been used previously in the treatment of bi-polar disorder.” As Hattie was speaking she noticed that his eyes were starting to glaze over. He shook himself as one who is struggling to stay awake and a look of strong apprehension overtook his features.
Suddenly convinced that something was wrong he asked, “What did you put in that coffee?”
Hattie smiled and said, “Well, to paraphrase and old saying, I’ve given you a taste of your own medicine. A little something I think you called ‘Zombie’.”
He started to rise from the chair and then his strength failed him and he fell back.
Hattie asked, “Dr. James, can you hear me?”
In a rather flat monotone he replied, “Yes.”
Hattie pulled out her recorder and turned it on before she continued, “Are you the inventor of Zombie?”
“Yes.”
Hattie waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. She realized that she would have to couch her questions in such a way as to elicit the desired responses. She asked, “Who was involved in the creation of the Zombie formula?”
“Myself and Dr. Simmons.”
“Who funded the project?”
“It was funded through MiraLabs.”
“Who is behind MiraLabs?”
“It recently changed hands. The new owner chooses to be called ‘X’.”
“Is that supposed to keep his name a secret?”
“Perhaps, but I gather that it is part of his name.”
“What is that name?”
“I’m not sure. I heard the name Jackson, but I don’t know how ‘X’ could be part of that name.”
“Did this ‘X’ order you to use Zombie on innocent people and use them to commit robberies?”
“Yes.”
Again Hattie was frustrated because she had failed to phrase the question properly. “Why did you choose the individuals that you drugged?”
“We left that up to Colbert.”
“Who is Colbert?”
“He works at ‘Stokes’. He is a bartender.”
“But, why were these particular individuals chosen?”
“It was a random selection.”
“Why did you consent to go along with this criminal activity?”
“I had large gambling debts. ‘X’ picked up my paper and threatened me. Then he promised large payments if the drug worked as he wanted.”
After placing a large pad of paper in front of him, Hattie gave him one final direction, “Write down everything you know about ‘X’, and then write down how you got involved in this and what your part was.”
He picked up a pen and began to write.
Hattie shut off the recorder and motioned to the mirror that Boyce should join them. A few seconds later he entered. She said, “I’d let him finish writing and then I’d let him sleep it off.”
“I’m not so sure that any of this will be admissible in court.”
"If it isn’t, you will still have leads that you can follow up, plus, you can take this in to Simmons and tell him you have James’ statement and if he doesn’t want to take the full weight of the charges, he should also write up a statement, putting himself in the best light possible.”
Boyce smiled and said, “That’s a very good idea. Thanks!”
Hattie looked at JJ and said to Boyce, “We’re getting married this weekend, so I doubt that we’ll do anything more on this until we are back from our honeymoon.”
Boyce clapped JJ on the back and said, “Congratulations. All the best,” and shook his hand.
They exited and headed for the Planet.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tuesday, March 27, 2029
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The headline in the Daily Planet read:
“MYSTERIOUS ROBBERIES SOLVED – ARRESTS MADE”By – Kaplin and Olsen
The case of the mysterious robberies being performed by individuals with no previous criminal record has been solved.
Researchers at MiraLabs discovered a drug which enabled them to program individuals to perform robberies and then have no memory of doing it.
Based on evidence gathered by the Daily Planet staff the drug ring has been broken and most of the principals taken into custody. Story continued on 2A.” comments go here TBC
