Fallout (Lois Lane) (21 page)

Two men in security guard uniforms entered the room, and I started to steer Devin and Anavi toward the door. I shouted, “Help the kids first!”

We were close to the door by then, and staggered through it. Only to be greeted by more security guards rushing up the hall toward us.

A tall man in front slowed as he approached us. He held out a hand and said, “Everyone’s on lockdown. We’re going to need you to come back in with us and wait it out. ”

That wasn’t going to work. I had to get Anavi and Devin out of here.

Thinking fast, I fumbled in my bag and brought out the prism flare. Not that I had any intention of using it. A repeat flare that quickly after the first could cause more than temporary vision damage. My friends and I were the good guys. And what made us the good guys was acting like it.

But the security goons didn’t know that. They’d assume the worst of me in this situation and I needed them to until we were clear.

The man frowned as I lifted the cylinder, Anavi and Devin shielded behind me. “Back off. Let us out or I’ll set off this flare. I’m guessing you don’t want your prize test subjects here getting hurt.”

They wouldn’t know that Anavi and Devin were useless for their CEO’s evil purposes. Not yet.

The security cowboy started to surge forward, but a hand from behind pulled him back, against the wall. We were allowed to pass.

And there was the elevator, which I guided us past. I opened the stairwell door. “Sorry, we have to take the stairs. Pretty sure they can stop that elevator.”

“You are kind of terrifying,” Devin said, going through to the stairs.

“Thanks,” I returned.

Anavi was shaking her head, her blinks slowing as her eyes recovered. She hesitated at the threshold. “Lois, I—I had no intention of collusion, I—”

I pressed her into the stairwell after Devin. “Good to have you back.”

Both of them were recovering. They were going to be themselves. That was all the thanks I needed.

“Do you think the connection’s severed for everyone?” I asked.

“I could still feel the others when Daisy tossed us out of the game. Weak, but there. The second shock severed us. Cleanly,” Anavi said.

“She’s right,” Devin tossed over his shoulder. “It was like my brain made a moat, forced everything on the other side of it.”

We half stumbled, half ran down the stairwell. “How did you figure it out?” Anavi asked.

“Long story, lots of research. Some help from my trusty sidekick.”

“I don’t think that was a game,” Devin said. “It didn’t feel like
Worlds
.”

“It wasn’t—or it wasn’t going to be one forever,” I said. “They were going to try to sell it to the military. ”

Maybe even to my dad.

Maybe he would have liked it. Maybe he would have wanted to buy it.

No, I wouldn’t believe that. Couldn’t. It was plain enough that the military hadn’t been told anything about this. And Dad would never have agreed to it. But soon they and the rest of the world
would
know the details—assuming the rest of the plan went smoothly.

We reached the door that opened to the first floor. Part of me was more nervous about this than any of the rest. We had to make a getaway if we were going to tell this story. That was the only way to ensure the experiment got put on permanent ice. “Follow my lead,” I said, pulling open the door. “We’ll move quick and hope for the best.”

Or not.

The lobby was filled with more security guards. There were stun guns pointed toward us. The tightly wound, superior front desk woman held a taser that I did not doubt she’d delight in using.

It was my responsibility to get the three of us free from this place. Once we were out the front doors, everything would be fine.

That meant holding off security until our reinforcements showed. The only bluff I had was the prism flare.

So I hefted the cylinder high.

“Stay back,” I said.

A tall woman in a suit wearing an earpiece stepped forward. “I’m the head of security,” she said, “and you seem to be abducting two of our visitors.”

“They want to go,” I said. “They never wanted to be here in the first place.”

She ignored that. “I also happen to have this gadget developed by our very own lab that disables that kind of flare.”

The woman held up a long, slender device. It didn’t look that different from the detonator the soldiers in the simulation upstairs had been about to use. “It’s got a limited range, but it can kill that or anything with a signal—like your phones—from here.” She pressed a button on it. “Our instruments were designed to be unaffected by this. Yours wasn’t, I’m afraid.”

To be on the safe side, I said, “Close your eyes,” to Anavi and Devin, before I squeezed my own shut and pulled out the pin of the flare.

But as I’d suspected, nothing happened. The woman was telling the truth about her effective little gadget.

She was also coming toward us.

Which meant the commotion at the front doors was as welcome and as well-timed as it could possibly have been. Jamming the dead flare in my bag, I walked forward to meet the woman, and when I reached her, I did something I’d done plenty of times playing around with Lucy—I tripped. I grabbed her arm for balance, and she reached out to steady me. She dropped the gadget in the process, but I was still in motion, and the device made a satisfying crunch under my boot.

“Um, oops,” I said.

She frowned down at it, and I released her arm and slipped away from her.

The part of Dad’s self-defense lessons about evading holds had come in handy, finally, against someone other than my kid sister.

I moved back to Devin and Anavi, putting a hand around each of their waists. “We’ll just be leaving now,” I said.

“You’re not going anywhere,” the head of security countered, smiling coldly.

That was when James’s shout rang out. He and Maddy stood inside the entrance, having shown right on schedule, and he had his phone raised over his head. “I have to hit one button to transmit this entire thing live, immediately. I think I’ll call it Security Lady Attacks Defenseless Student Journalists.”

Gadget broken, Security Lady had no way to prevent him from broadcasting. I returned her smile, just as coldly.

Or almost. My smile might have included a hint of gloating.

Maddy added a threat to James’s. “In case you don’t know, that feed is showcased on the
Daily Scoop
’s homepage, but that means all the visitors to the
Daily Planet
site will see it too,” she said. “Live.”

The nearby elevators
bing
ed and people poured off them, including the sympathetic man from the experiment and the rest of the Warheads.

They didn’t look so warlike anymore. They looked . . . dazed. Best of all, when they walked into the lobby, it wasn’t in any kind of sync. The man nodded to me, a thanks in it.

The head of security turned away from me to James and Maddy, “What do you want?”

I spurred Anavi and Devin forward. “They’re here for us. Like I said, we’ll just be leaving.”

The head of security and her team growled at that, but what could they do? Nothing. Especially when the research man stepped up and said, “Let them go.”

Maddy came forward to meet us, and James backed to a door and held it open, his phone still overhead until everyone else made it outside.

James shut the door, and breaking into a jog, said, “We’d better run.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was already broadcasting,” James said, “the entire time. We need to get a story up fast. Might take longer if they come after us.”

“Excellent point,” I said, smiling.

A taxi sat at the curb and I wasn’t surprised at all to see my grinning friend behind the wheel. “Need a ride, big tipper?” he asked.

I climbed in the passenger side. The others piled into the back.

Security goons were pouring out the front door, and even the CEO’s mother-slash-assistant and the front desk receptionist were with them. I pressed the button to roll down the window.

“Your CEO can email me any statement of response,” I called out to them. “He’s got my address.” Then I told the cab driver, “Earn your money. Get us out of here.”

He floored it away from the curb with his typical screech, and asked, “Where to?”

“The Daily Planet Building,” I said, “and make it fast.”

My phone buzzed in my bag, and I bit back another grin. The message was a question mark.

F
ill you in later,
I tapped out,
right now I’ve got a story to write.

CHAPTER 26

I already had the story half-composed
in my head by the time we got to the Morgue. I banged it out as quickly as I could, while James pumped Devin and Anavi for details, and Maddy helped Devin design the graphics to go along with it.

James also edited his video to embed within the text. This time, he did want an also-contributed credit. He was going over my copy now.

We’d turned off our phones and taken the receivers for the office’s dinosaur landlines off the hook, not wanting to risk any cease-and-desist calls. I had to admit I was a little surprised Perry hadn’t been by to check in on us yet. But I could be thankful for small favors. This would be a coup for the
Daily Planet
—and an even bigger one for the
Scoop
.

The story it told was of a principal in bed with industry. Of students privileged above others because they were taking part in a secret experiment started without their consent, one that shouldn’t have taken place on living subjects, or at all. Anavi hadn’t yet turned in the permission form they’d sent home for her parents to sign, which only gave approval for her to leave school property and gave no details on the experiment itself, so in the story it went. Exhibit A.

The story also said that the company in question had been days away from demonstrating the entire thing to the military-industrial complex, an ethical breach its shareholders should not reward unless they supported the idea of black ops projects that violated international law and used children.

So what if my rhetoric was heated? They’d almost stolen the selves of two of my friends.

Friends.

I had
friends
, plural, friends who knew more about me than I’d ever let anyone see. Except for SmallvilleGuy.

I still couldn’t believe he’d come through by finding a way to send Daisy into the sandbox in his place. He didn’t break the rules and take the risk himself, but he had been there for me like he’d said he wanted to be. Maybe I should make hoping for things a habit.

“It’s good,” James said, when he finished going over the story. “I just cleaned up your spelling. Sending your way, Devin.” He turned to me. “Really good, actually. And you can keep my holoset. I’m not much into gaming.”

“Why, thank you, on both counts,” I said, surprised—and at the same time, not—by the gesture.

Maddy was practically bouncing again. “Did you see the looks on their faces when they ran out of that building?” She giggled. And it wasn’t even the first time she’d said it.

“You should have seen the head of security’s face when Lois ‘accidentally’ smashed her toy,” Devin said.

“I wish,” Maddy said. “You do it for me. A historical reenactment.”

To my surprise, Devin made an affronted gasp, his eyes going wide and his hand clasping at his chest.

We were laughing together, then. James rolled his chair over to watch as Devin formatted the story to send it live. Maddy came and sat on the corner of my desk. Anavi was in a chair beside it, where she’d been quietly observing the flurry of activity. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry to go home.

“Headline request?” Devin asked. “‘Queen of the Elves Clears Out Commandos.’”

“Hilarious,” I said. “I don’t care what it says as long as it starts with the word ‘Exclusive’.”

“Done,” he said.

Anavi tapped her fingers on the top of the desk.

“Spit it out, Anavi. You’re making me nervous,” I said as gently as I could.

“I feel I must . . . Lois, I don’t know how I could ever repay you. There’s no adequate compensation.”

“I can think of a couple ways,” I said. “And I should never have let them get you in the first place.”

“Is there any other crazy mad science going on that you haven’t told us about?” Maddy asked.

“Way number one,” I said, leaving Maddy’s question aside for a second, “if you could put in writing that your retraction request was garbage—or however you’d say it—”

“Spurious,” Anavi said. “My greatest pleasure. May I use your computer?”

I got up and took Maddy’s arm. “You
should
be in a band, you know. If you want to.”

Maddy’s smile was shy. “And leave all this? Maybe someday. Mostly, I like daydreaming about it. Is that weird?”

I smiled back at her. “Yes, but only in the good way.”

Maddy’s gaze found its way back to James, like it always did.

I didn’t tell Maddy that he wasn’t worthy of her, though I still felt like he was an idiot for not noticing that she was into him. It wasn’t my place to butt in, not between them. So I said, “Boys,” low so only Maddy heard. “Sometimes they are so clueless.”

“I know, right?” Maddy agreed enthusiastically.

Even if he was clueless, the truth was James wasn’t that bad.

“We’re live,” Devin said, spinning his chair so he and James could high-five.

I reached over and set the receiver back on the antique phone on my desk. Which immediately vibrated, then sounded an uber-loud ring.

We all exchanged a look, and the others pointed at me.

“You answer,” Devin said. So I did.

“Get up here right now. All of you,” Perry barked into my ear.

*

All Perry had said was “Newsroom,” with another bark that he assumed I could find it. We piled off the elevator onto a bustling upper floor.

A floor that was overcome by a rolling hush as we made our way along the open area packed with desks.

“Perry White?” I asked.

“Second office from the corner,” a man in a brown suit said. “You must be the prodigies.”

We kept walking.

“Prodigy’s a good thing, right?” I asked Anavi, who’d insisted on tagging along in case the retraction came up.

“Usually,” Anavi agreed.

“Is that them? Get in here!” Perry, from somewhere nearby. We followed the shout to an open office door.

He had an open bottle. “It’s sparkling apple juice, not champagne, because A, this is a newspaper and we don’t have money for that and B, contributing to the delinquency of minors is not on today’s agenda. Now, I have one question for you to answer, Lane.”

He called me Lane. That was a promising sign.

“Did you give the company a chance to respond?”

I lifted my chin. “I told the CEO’s assistant personally that he could email me if he wanted to go on the record.”

Perry burst out laughing. The rest of us exchanged looks of the “has he gone insane?” variety.

“Was that before or after you filmed the stand-off in the lobby and broadcast it live on our streaming channel?” He shook his head, picked up the bottle, and started to pour. “Don’t tell me. I don’t really want to know. I’m proud of you guys. You might turn into real newshounds yet.”

We accepted the praise and the sweet, fizzy drinks, and I went over to have a look out Perry’s window.

The view wasn’t exactly what I’d imagined, but in some ways it was better. That was the real city of tomorrow out there.

And it was my city now.

“You heard from your dad?” Perry asked from behind me.

“I turned off my phone,” I said, “so not yet. But I should get going.”

“Good luck,” he said. “I knew you’d whip these guys into shape. They just needed someone with a nose for it.”

“I can smell news,” I said.

“Nah,” Perry said with a grin, “anybody can scratch up news. I meant for the truth.”

*

My parents were not waiting with sparkling drinks when I got home. They were at the kitchen table, though. “Lois, get in here,” Dad called when the door closed.

Lucy was sitting halfway up the stairs, and waved at me before grimacing and making a slicing motion across her neck with her hand.

CUTE
, I mouthed to her, and marched in to greet the firing squad.

“You want to tell me what you were thinking writing a story like this?” Dad asked, and the coolness of his tone was troubling.

I decided to be relieved that he hadn’t asked about the distraction I’d used for the disruption at the lab. Hopefully that meant the prism flare could be discreetly replaced, with him none the wiser.

“That it was my job,” I said, not showing him a moment’s weakness. I knew what I was doing. I had a place where I belonged. Finally.

He said, “I’m not so sure—”

“I saw your name on the sign-in book at the lab,” I said, “but I do hope that our paths won’t cross that often. I know you’re probably grateful to me for uncovering what I did, because I also know you wouldn’t want to support a company that would do something like that. Would you?”

“Lois, of course not, but this isn’t about me—”

“I’m good at this. It’s what I want to do. Any help you can give me with Butler would be welcome.”

I didn’t think the story would make the principal lose his job. He had plausible deniability about the nature of the research, and if I was honest, I doubted he had known the details. But that was one unfortunate thing about how quickly I’d had to write the story. Not enough time to find out whether he would have defended it the same way he did the Warheads when Anavi was their victim.

There was always next time. I was curious about the rest of the companies who’d made charitable donations or become research partners with the school.

“I have to go catch up with . . . my schoolwork.” I walked over and planted a kiss on my mother’s cheek, then on Dad’s.

I’d almost slipped up and said I needed to catch up with a friend.

Somehow, when I got upstairs, I knew not to bother logging into chat, even if it did mean potentially missing a new baby cow picture.

After a day this long, I wanted to
see
him. I figured he would want the same thing, impossible as it was.

The CEO of Advanced Research Laboratories was the bad guy. There was a risk that the people running
Worlds War Three
weren’t that great either, as a baddie subsidiary, but one of the workers had helped us in the end. It was a risk I was willing to take, since this was the only way we
had
to see each other.

That was how I justified going back inside
Worlds War Three
as I slipped on James’s holoset. Well, mine now. I settled on the bed and turned on the holoset.

The game sprang into view around me and for once, the world wasn’t on fire or in the midst of an attack.

Two suns were setting with a downright poetic mix of dark, unnatural hues tinged violet and red. In the near distance, I could see Devin’s castle, rising from the rubble like a phoenix made of stone. His army was at work rebuilding it and as I went closer, I saw two figures directing them. One was King Devin, back in his full chainmail and armor regalia. The other was a familiar female form, whose grenades were emblazoned with words.

I was about to go talk to them when a voice behind me said, “Hey.”

I turned and smiled at the green-skinned alien boy—friendly—who was smiling back at me.

“We did it,” I said. “Pretty nice teamwork. Did you come up with the idea?”

“I knew I couldn’t stand by and not do anything,” he said. “So after I told him we were trying to stop the experiment, I asked if there was any way to send fiery backup. Once I explained the plan to disrupt the signals, he wanted nothing more than to help. I’m not sure he really thought we’d manage it though.”

“Well, sending Daisy, that was . . .”

Oh, god, I was blushing again. Already.

“. . . genius,” I finished awkwardly.

His smile evaporated. A seriousness took over his features and I so wished I could see it in the real world. See if that expression was real.

It felt real.

“Lois,” he said, “I wish I could have been there. I hate that I wasn’t.”

“But you were, in the way that counts. I know it’s complicated.”

“You have no idea,” he said.

And my elf face must have looked stung, because he said, “My fault, not yours.”

He waved for me to come with him, in the opposite direction of Anavi and Devin. I did.

“I told my parents about you,” he said.

My heart pounded and thumped and thudded and made a general nuisance of itself.

“You did? What—what did you say?”

“I told them you were my friend, and that I wanted to tell you the truth about me. That I wanted to tell you what I’ve been keeping secret, who I am in real life.”

“And?” I was breathless.

“And they said that I can’t. That it’s too dangerous.”

He sighed and turned to me. His eyes were a striking blue. I wanted, more than ever, to know if that was their actual color.

“I knew they’d say no, but I wanted to try. I owed it to you to make sure. I want to tell you everything . . . I needed them to remind me why I can’t. Not yet.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, knowing I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding my disappointment.

“But, Lois, I promise you that someday I will. You’ll be the first person I tell.”

I kicked at the ground with my bare foot, and then started to move forward again. “It seems like you’re making an awful lot of assumptions.”

He caught up with me. “You mean that you’ll still be here, waiting to find out. I shouldn’t assume that. But . . . we are friends, aren’t we, Lois?”

“Yes, we are.” I faced him again. “I meant you’re assuming I won’t figure your secret out on my own first.”

He smiled at me. “Want to go help your friends rebuild?”

“Sure,” I said, and offered him my hand. He took it.

And we walked into the violently beautiful sunset together.