[right][sub][color=436eab][b]Jimmy Olson, Metropolis[/b][/color][/sub][/right] [color=darkgray] The ‘to-do’ list that took three sticky notes, front and back, was finished five minutes later than it needed to be. He stole a minute in the bathroom to send the text that he might be a little late. Every time he was caught with his phone out, it was a sharp look, a comment. Or at least he thought it was. Better to just avoid it, sad as it was, by hiding in a bathroom stall. He just hoped no one came in and pulled on the locked stall…that was always an uncomfortable moment that, for whatever reason, filled him with dread. He told the desk reporter he would be back in an hour. To his shock, the desk reporter just waved his hand and responded with, “Go home, kid. Nothing happening tonight.” Even when he thanked the desk reporter, the man never looked up from the AP Flash screen he was studying and exploring, click at a time. The subway took a little longer than he would have liked to get across the city to midtown. He got through the lobby and into the elevator in good time. When he got to the suite number, he was hopeful he’d made good time, only to enter the office and see no receptionist, and the woman standing in the doorway to her office, waiting for him. “Little late, Jimmy, come on in. We still have about thirty minutes.” “Sorry, Doctor Lanza,” Jimmy Olson’s heart sank a bit as his shoulders slumped and he followed the woman into her office and took a seat on the patient side of her desk. Had he really taken that long to get there? She asked him about his meds, and he answered as well as he could, as honestly as he could, his right leg bouncing nervously as he sat there answering her questions. “You think you’re taking the right dose at the right time?” He felt like he might blush, “I think so, yeah, uh, yes Doctor. It’s just…the newsroom sometimes gets a little hectic.” “Well, Jimmy, it’s very important you take the right dose at the right time. I’m sure the people you work for would understand. Just take them during your breaks?” Jimmy Olson smiled, sheepish, “Right, yes, I will do that. Thanks.” [i]You’ve never met Perry White, doc.[/i] “Sleeping better?” He nodded, “I think so, my Apple Watch broke, and I haven’t gotten a chance,” [i]or the money[/i], “to replace it yet, but tracking it myself it seems like it’s gotten better, for sure.” “Eating better?” He chuckled, “Learning how to cook when my roommate doesn’t take the kitchen, so I think so.” “Suicidal ideation?” His head shook, once, quick, “No. That’s a lot better,” the lie came so quickly even he barely noticed it. The rest of the twenty minutes were a blur of her telling him something about adjusting the dosage of his medication, and another lecture about taking it on time, every time. As if he didn’t know the agony of missing a dose firsthand. She asked him if he had wanted to talk about anything about a little joke about the five minutes they had left. He might had said something, he needed to say something—it was the only part of the sessions that he felt did any good for him, but the anxiety of the five minutes comment just left him smiling and shaking his head, making an excuse about how he had the rest of the night off and just wanted to go enjoy it. “Well then, I’ve got a date with my husband, so I’ll see you next week Jimmy.” The subway ride to his apartment was a gallery of people excited and dressed up for Friday night on the town. The northside seventh story walk-up was little more than a closet with a little kitchenette and a metal sink that doubled as bathroom and kitchen sink. His roommate worked in a restaurant kitchen, but left their kitchenette littered with mess and unwashed dishes that left Jimmy almost sighing as he walked in and stared at it. “FUCCCCCK!” The sound made Jimmy wince as it came through the thin walls of the lowest rent apartment he could find, the roommate there before him, the price too good to pass up. The roommate was rude, and it appeared, had brought company over unannounced and without checking as they’d agreed when the lease was heard. In a moment of dark curiosity, Jimmy got closer to the door, only to hear the sound of skin-on-skin, and the same woman’s voice who let out the ‘fuck’ began a disturbing stream of words that just made Jimmy blink. He didn’t always understand why some women let themselves be treated that way, but he wasn’t one to judge, he just didn’t understand. He retreated to his tiny bedroom, a single-sized cot decorated with a sleeping beg and blanket, a few pillows tucked against the wall between bedrooms. The desk was old, something he’d found on the street and cleaned up, his old computer on it, waiting for him. He nearly jumped when something started hitting against the wall between bedrooms, sighing deep as he slid on headphones and drowned it out, deciding against sleep for now, not wanting to feel the thuds from the wall. Instead, he logged into the coolest thing he was part of; the secret online forum for super sightings. There were posts about magic, gods, metahumans. Downvoted and towards the bottom he found a post about Boston. The poster claimed to be an MIT student with dark cell phone footage about a girl in the air, floating, then flying then floating. He tried to understand the downvoting until he saw the comments: [i]Great. Ultra Bimbo. Just what the world needs.[/i] [i]She can fly. Big whoop.[/i] [i]FAAAAAAAAKE.[/i] [i]You go to MIT and I go to Harvard, sure, bruh.[/i] [i]Clown ass simping dude.[/i] He’d been to Boston. He noticed a building, it had a garden on top of it, a co-op, his aunt had shown him when he visited her last year. He sent the link to an old online friend, a digital artist that worked contracts for gaming companies, and started up Baldur’s Gate 3. It was towards 3 in the morning when he finally could escape the burning of his eyes from screen exposure no longer, saving his game and checking his messages before he went to bed, taking off his headphones and frowned at the sounds of his roommates bed hitting against the shared wall again. Yet it was the message notification on the computer screen that drew him in. [i]” Hey James. Not sure what crackpipe they’re smoking but this isn’t CGI, or AI, this footage is real. Know anything more about it?”[/i] [/color] --- [right][sub][color=436eab][b]Lois Lane, The Daily Planet[/b][/color][/sub][/right] [color=darkgray] The phone rang, and her eyes darted to it, suspicious. It was the desk phone, not her cell phone, which rarely meant anything good. In the back corner of the bullpen, where new reporters and interns were tossed and forgotten, Lois didn’t have a line of sight on Perry White’s office, or the office of Jerry, the assistant editor for Metro that she’d been assigned to…but it was nearly three in the morning, and she knew she’d seen both offices empty. She heard the phones of every desk ring, too, “Security calling to see if anyone’s still here so they can leave early? Get off your butt and do your rounds,” she snorted, and returned her attention back to the screen that illuminated her cubicle and herself, fingers continuing to type. When it rang again, she ignored it, again. She was half-way through one of the better lines she’d written all night when the phone rang for a third time and made her nearly jump, “Jesus, you’re lazy,” it was irritation that drove her to pick up the receiver and hold it to her ear as she just continued to type, trying to recover the brilliant finish to the line she had lost when the third ringing of the phone surprised her, “listen, keep calling and I’ll give the editors your name for not doing your ro—” [i]“I need help. This is my only hope.”[/i] Lois stopped. The voice was a woman, older sounding, desperate and terrorized. “Ma’am, slow down, and—” The voice kept going like she didn’t even hear her, [i]“—they stole my baby. It took me over a decade to track them, but I did, and I think they found me out—”[/i] “—who found you?” Again, the woman just kept going, [i]“They took my little girl. They took her and everything she came with. They thought I wouldn’t fight, but I kept fighting, I escaped the facility they had me committed to, the judge they paid off—”[/i] Her eyes rolled, hard, eyes coming a close as she sighed softly into the receiver, “Listen, Ma’am—” Again, the voice ignored her, [i]“—no matter what they did, I found her. Luthor, they named her, my baby Kara…named after the MOTHERFUCKER WHO TOOK HER!...I think they found me, so if you’re hearing this, I’m dead—”[/i] Lois blinked and stared at the receiver for a heartbeat before bring it back up to her ear. [i]“—and you’re my only hope. The only journalists in town who they don’t own. North 81st and Clinton, Greyhound station. The key is taped onto the back of the last toilet of the women’s restroom on the second floor. It has the locker number on it...please, please, please help. Please do the right thing…please, please...”[/i] There was just sobbing and mumbled, desperate, heartbroken pleas before the line went dead. “...what was that?” Lois Lane found herself jumping out of her skin, so high, so fast, that she was on her feet and swearing at the shadow who she found standing at the entrance to her cubicle, “JESUS CRIST!” When she looked up, heart beating so hard and fast it had made it’s way into her throat, she found only Jimmy Olson, the copy boy and, as Jerry as so adorably put it, [i]the coffee bitch we’ll fire before his review period so we don’t have unemployment taxes spike on us.[/i] That was the moment Lois decided Jerry was a fucking sleaze. “...Jimmy, dammit,” Lois deflated back into her seat, taking deep breaths with her eyes closed before she regained her composure, and looked back to the guy, “Why are you even here?” He shrugged, like he’d been scolded, “My, uh...roommate had a party going, I had some work to finish, so, uh...” [i]You’re lying but I don’t care.[/i] “…okay, well, since you’re here why don’t you get me everything we have on the Luthors? I’m going to take the recording of that call and scrub it from the Planet’s system after I download it onto my phone.” Jimmy just looked confused, “Why?” “Jimmy…background. I’ll explain it over breakfast, but we have a few hours until people get here, and I want to be out of here by then. Can you do that?” She asked him, her tone softer, gentler. There was something raw in the guy’s eyes. Something vulnerable, and Lois was smart enough to know how to handle it. It was only when she watched Jimmy nod, walk off towards the archives that she finally turned her attention back to the phone, and listened to the call once more, the secure, encrypted browser on her cell phone the only search she trusted in the moment, bringing up pictures of the Luthor family and checking photo credits and descriptions, her scrolling stopping dead at a family picture dated a year ago, tagged at a charity function: the elder, Lyonel, the son, Lex, and...daughter, Kara. It should have been fear Lois Lane felt. But she was Lois Lane, and all she felt was determination. [/color]