Chapter 10

Chloe studied her hair again in the mirror one last time before darting out of the ladies room and into the lobby at The Daily Planet on her way to her interview with Oliver Queen. She turned a blind corner directly into Jimmy Olsen. The two cracked heads, audibly howled, and slapped their foreheads in unison.

“Watch where….Jimmy?” Chloe abruptly swallowed her tirade when she realized who it was that she ran into. “Oh god.”

“Chloe I’m so sorry, I was looking at camera and didn’t even see you. Are you alright?”

She knitted her brows together and opened her eyes wide. “I think that I have a goose egg forming right in the middle of my forehead.”

Gently, Jimmy lifted her fingers off of her face and his pale eyes widened with alarm. He smiled brightly. “No worries – let’s go get some ice on that, it’ll go down right away!” He started steering her towards the elevators.

Chloe put on the brakes. “Jimmy I can’t. I have to be somewhere.”

His face fell. “Oh.” Lighting up again, he asked, “Big story to report on?”

She chewed the inside of her mouth. “No.” Her voice lowered. “Job interview.”

Jimmy looked like he had sand kicked all over his ice cream cone. “Oh.”

Slowly, she sat down on a bench, her shoulders deflated. “I don’t know why I bother, who’d hire a felon?”

“I would!” Jimmy chirped.

She smiled broadly. “Thanks, Jimmy.”

“I’m sure that you’ll do great, although I’ll admit that I’ll miss your weekly Geek Girl Colum. I’ve learned some great tips from you.”

In the span of a heartbeat, her cheeks burned as brightly as the lump on her forehead. Chloe found herself overcome by emotions that she had buried for years for the sweet man at her side. As quickly as they rose they were smothered in shame. How could she have turned her back on such an amazing and generous guy?

Slightly wobbly, she got to her feet. “I’d better get going. What were you in such a hurry about?”

Beaming, Jimmy flashed his close up photos of Superman at the factory. “Lois was right there and there weren’t any other reporters. We’ll scoop everyone!”

“That’s great, Jimmy,” Chloe replied, with a smile. “I’ll see you later.”

Before he could say anything, Chloe ducked her head and darted towards the door. The throbbing in her forehead felt like a drum beat, pounding her stupidity into her brain on how effortlessly she had screwed up her own life and could find no way to find absolution, nor a reason that anyone should offer her forgiveness for her own idiocy.

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“Marcus Washington, pleasure to meet you both,” the factory owner beamed his glaringly white teeth at Lois Lane. “Lois Lane…I never thought that I’d have the pleasure of meeting such a well known celebrity here in Metropolis!”

Lois nodded her head slightly. “Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with us on such short notice.”

The heavy set man pumped Clark’s hand enthusiastically. “My pleasure. With what will likely be a PR nightmare forming outside, I’m more than happy to grab the opportunity to show our side of things.”

Clark pushed up his glasses. “So what exactly does McGovern Chemicals make?”

“We’re a part of a global company called ARB International. ARB is the world leader in manufacturing industrial cleaning solutions for companies. McGovern was acquired by them five years ago. We specialize in creating cleaning solutions that counter radioactive spills.” His dark eyes saw the surprise that jumped into both Lois and Clark’s eyes. The dark skinned man held up a hand. “Before you get all worried, remember, I said that we create the cleaning solutions we don’t do anything that’s actually radioactive here.”

“But don’t they need to be tested?” Lois asked.

“We’re just the manufacturing plant; we don’t create the formulas and test them here. That takes place at our corporate offices in Nebraska; although our resulting products are of course heavily regulated before leaving the plant.”

Mr. Washington led the two reporters down a long walk way that ended up at a door that opened onto a metal catwalk that looked over the entire manufacturing plant. Below large vats of chemicals bubbled and brewed with large amounts of steam rising under glass domed covers to prevent the vapors from escaping into the room’s air. The room strangely smelled sulfuric and clean at the same time. Employees raced around the vats below testing the chemical’s levels wearing jumpsuits but no face masks or gloves. The vats were very loud; Mr. Washington had to raise his voice over them to be heard.

“This is where the solutions are created. Everything that goes into our solutions are natural based. Although admittedly you wouldn’t want to get the stuff on your skin because it would cause severe rashes. But overall it’s not as toxic as you might expect.”

“Why is that?” Lois asked, unconvinced.

“We’re a new division specializing in green solutions for non-green problems. In the past any contact with such cleaning solutions would have meant instant death or immediate hospitalization for anyone who incorrectly came in contact with them. Our specialized formula is designed to specifically go after radioactive matter only,” the plant manager explained with a broad, toothy smile.

“How is it possible that the solution knows to only go after radioactive agents?” Clark inquired.

The man shrugged. “I admit that I’m not a scientist. I can only tell you what I’ve seen firsthand with the demonstrations that corporate has sent to us.”

“So the protesters outside…” Lois began.

The man’s dark eyes filled with sympathy. “I can completely understand their concerns. ARB had no idea that there was a school so close to this facility when they picked up the plant for a song a year and a half ago.” He led them out of the plant and in through another door that had them far above the distribution portion of the factory. “This plant sat vacant during the recent turned economy for many years. ARB got it for a good price and spent a lot of money retrofitting it to bring it up to code and to customize the facility for our needs.”

Clark lowered his glasses slightly and activated his X-Ray vision and studied the walls of the plant. From what he could tell they were heavily reinforced with industrial grade steel.

“McGovern and ARB have a long standing relationship with the EPA & OSHA; our facility is 100% up to code. In fact, OSHA gave us the highest marks for employee safety prior to opening this week!”

Lois and Clark peered down at the complex series of conveyor belts that distributed and sealed the solution into large drums.

“The chemicals go through four final rounds of purification through the machines over there on the far north side of the room before they’re ready for distribution,” Mr. Washington stated, pointing towards the opposite wall. “By the time that they’re ready to get loaded onto trucks and sent off for sale, the chemicals themselves are relatively harmless.”

Using his magnification ability, Clark’s vision zoomed in and he studied the drums. Nowhere on them could he see toxic stickers.

Marcus must’ve seen Clark’s intense stare and he chuckled. “Trust me, if they were toxic, the EPA would’ve made us plaster our drums with warning signs.”

“What about the vats of the chemicals in the other room though? I saw the toxic labels all over the vats there,” Lois pointed out.

“Yes, the chemicals start off harsh, but our purification process removes the toxins out of it.”

“What would happen if you had an accident in that room?” Lois demanded. “What if those unstable chemicals got out? Wouldn’t the children or the harbor be in serious danger of contamination?”

Mr. Washington chuckled. “We have safety protocols in place that would prevent any large catastrophes. The entire facility is equipped with special underground tanks that would catch any chemicals that tried to leak through our floors. There’s no way for the chemicals to find their way to the harbor.”

Clark activated his x-ray vision and saw a series of complex tanks below the concrete surface. He then examined the ceiling and asked, “What about an explosion?”

“The chances of that happening are slim,” the plant manager assured. “If something did happen we have the most highly advanced air filtration system built into the facility. It’s designed to trigger whenever there are significant changes in the chemical makeup of the air in the room. It is so sensitive that it would trigger warnings to our plant supervisors & security team before we were even aware that there was a problem brewing.”

The trio walked out of the distribution plant and walked into the large control room. Mr. Washington showed them the screens and large controller boards that examined every aspect of the manufacturing process. He pointed to a monitor that was covered in charts – all were strongly bright green indicating that the plant was running in safe mode.

After getting a detailed tour of the control room, they made their way out and into a series of long hallways that led away from the plant and towards the offices. Lois was asking Mr. Washington about what sorts of positions that they offered for employees. They passed a large graphic that showed the layout of the employee offices and Clark activated his super hearing; with it he penetrated into the office and began scouting out any anomalies. He focused his hearing towards the accounting department. He sifted through several conversations about facility expense costs, payroll discussions, and focused in on one voice. He couldn’t make out what the individual was saying but he was mumbling incoherently under his breath about something. Clark’s eyes widened when he picked out two words, “Senator Luthor.”

Clark broke into the conversation, the blood pounding in his ears, and asked, “Are you aware that this facility used to be a part of Luthor Corp?”

Mr. Washington stared blankly at Clark’s curve ball question. “I suppose that’s possible. As I stated before, this warehouse had been sitting vacant for many years before ARB acquired it.”

Lois peered around their host and flashed Clark a “where are you going with this?” expression.

“Does this facility receive any sort of Federal funding?”

The man’s eyes opened wide. “Federal funding? Why on earth would we receive that? Our products are targeted for the private sector only.”

Stepping closer to the man and using his large physical frame to block any sort of retreat path, Clark zeroed in on the man pining him to a spot next to the wall. “Plants that would produce anything that would be radioactive would require intense Federal scrutiny. You can’t live without them and vice versa.”

Mr. Washington slightly gulped and appeared uncomfortable with being blocked between the two reporters. “True we would be out of business without our customers, but we have nothing to do with how they receive their own funding to keep their companies afloat. As much as I would love to receive extra Federal funding, unfortunately that just isn’t the case here, we are at the mercy of the needs of our very exclusive and focused customer base.” The man’s confused expression convinced Clark that he was telling the truth.

Walking around the man, Lois put a hand on Clark’s arm and bore her hazel eyes into his green orbs. “I think that we have enough for our story, don’t you think so Clark?”

His entire frame relaxed and he smiled. “There is one more thing that I would like to ask, if I may?” Clark shoved his glasses up his nose again and stepped away from the plant manager, giving him room.

“Of course,” Mr. Washington asked slightly suspiciously.

“The woman who was attacked by the mob outside, have you seen her? Is she doing alright?”

The man’s face brightened. “Tamara? The poor thing was a wreck when she came into work and was so relieved Superman helped her out. In fact, we’re all grateful for Superman’s assistance. The crowd showed up at the crack of dawn before my security team could attempt to put up those crowd barriers. We were this close to calling in the police for assistance. Frankly, we prefer not having to do so, don’t need that kind of attention you know what with being new in the neighborhood and all.”

Clark smiled. “We’d love to be able to talk with Tamara, if that’s possible. I’m sure that she wouldn’t mind being able to thank Superman in our story.”

Mr. Washing beamed. “Absolutely, let me get her. I’ll be right back!”

Lois and Clark were left alone standing in the hallway. A sliver of a smile spread on Lois’s face and she chuckled at Clark. “Wow Smallville, I never would’ve pictured you as the heavy. I swear if that man had been hiding anything, you would’ve scared the truth right out of him.” Clark grinned, his partner wore an expression of extreme satisfaction on her face. “Maybe Mr. White really did know what he was doing when he paired you up with me.”

He flashed a lopsided smile. “So you like aggressive Clark Kent?”

“I’ll admit, I don’t mind seeing him show up every once in a while,” Lois said. She chewed the side of her mouth. “Just don’t make a habit of bringing him out all of the time.” She leaned in close to him. “We really don’t want to make a habit of scaring our sources!”

With a large smile, Clark replied, “I’ll keep that in mind and chalk it up to one of Lois Lane’s rules of reporting…don’t scare your source.”

Lois laughed and pulled a face. “Remind me to remember that one myself.”

After a few minutes the woman came out and gushed over Superman. Clark left the building with a warm feeling in his gut that he had been able to help the woman out. Out on the pavement, Lois said, “I’ll cover the Superman angle of the story if you want to work up your impressions on what we learned about the plant.”

Clark stopped in his tracks and gave her a sideways glance. “I would’ve thought that you’d want to cover that since that’s the meatier part of the article.”

She tucked a stray brunette clump of hair behind her left ear and said, “Call it reporter’s intuition. You were onto something in there Smallville. Something tells me that this is your story…the one that could be your big break.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know…I’m not ready for that. How about, we’ll combine the two parts into one large article and share the byline.”

Lois studied her tall friend with wonder. “You’re amazing Smallville. That thing that you did back there, it was all for the story wasn’t it? You really don’t have ambition of your own do you?”

“It’s all about uncovering the truth, Lois. That’s what being a good reporter is, right?”

Sticking her hand out to hail a taxi, Lois bore her eyes into his. “No Clark it’s not.” He flashed a startled, worried expression. She beamed mischievously. “It’s how you become a GREAT reporter!”

Beaming from ear to ear, Clark jumped into a cab along with his partner and the two raced off towards The Daily Planet to begin working on their article.

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