The next morning every channel was running the same story.
Anchors who usually disagreed on everything had found common ground in collective confusion. Was the alien real. Had it truly been living among them. If the deadline passed and nothing was handed over what came next.
The ship was still up there, visible now on amateur telescopes, sitting in orbit without moving, without communicating, just waiting the way something waits when it already knows the outcome.
One name kept surfacing between the speculation.
Lois Lane.
One month ago the Daily Planet had killed her story about an unidentified individual who had appeared at a classified military site in the Arctic and vanished without explanation.
Perry White had killed it personally. The internet had not forgotten.
***
Her phone rang at seven in the morning.
She already knew who it was before she looked.
"Lois are you watching the news," Perry said.
"I'm watching four of them simultaneously," she said, coffee in hand, standing at the window.
"Then you understand why the FBI has had your name on a list since six this morning. Your Arctic story. The one I killed. They want to know what you know and they are not going to ask politely." A pause. "Do you know where this alien is Lois."
She watched a black SUV pull slowly onto her street below. Then another.
"No," she said.
"Lois—"
"I'll call you back Perry."
She hung up, grabbed her bag and her recorder out of habit, and took the back stairs.
She made it to the alley.
Three men in black suits were already there, the kind that don't carry badges because they don't need to.
"Ms. Lane," the closest agent said, his tone carrying the particular politeness of someone who wasn't actually offering a choice. "Please come with us. This is related to national security. We're the good guys."
"She won't be coming."
All three snapped their heads toward the voice.
Daniel stood at the alley entrance, hands in his coat pockets, completely relaxed, wearing the expression of someone who had arrived exactly when he intended to.
"Sir this is FBI business," the agent said, hand already moving toward his jacket. "I'm going to need you to step back."
"Yeah," Daniel said. "I don't care."
He snapped his fingers.
All three dropped simultaneously, clean and quiet, like a switch had been thrown. No stumbling. No noise. They were standing and then they were on the ground and that was the end of that conversation.
Lois Lane stared at them for a full second.
Then she reached into her bag and pulled out pepper spray and pointed it at Daniel.
Daniel looked at the pepper spray. Then at her. Then back at the pepper spray with what appeared to be genuine appreciation.
"Pepper spray," he said. "Excellent instinct."
"Who are you?" Lois said, not lowering it.
"Someone who just removed three federal agents from your immediate future," Daniel said. "Which I'd argue earns at least thirty seconds of conversation before you spray me and I'm one of the good guys."
Lois didn't move.
"They said the same thing you know," she said. "Good guys. Those exact words."
"Fair point," Daniel said. "But those good guys were about to put you in a room with no windows and ask you questions until you told them everything you know about a certain individual." He tilted his head slightly. "I'm just here to talk. And I'm considerably better company."
Lois looked at the three men on the ground. Breathing. Just unconscious.
She lowered the pepper spray two inches. Not all the way.
"Talk then," she said.
"We can continue this conversation," Daniel said, glancing back toward the alley entrance. "But not here."
He pointed toward a car parked at the end of the alley and started walking.
Lois looked at the three unconscious agents on the ground then at Daniel's back then at the agents again and followed.
Daniel took the passenger seat. Lois got in the back and pulled the door shut.
"So who are you people?" Lois said, bag on her lap, recorder already in her hand. "Some kind of government security."
"We are more of public people," Daniel said. "We need you to take us to Clark Kent. Although we can find his address on our own but that makes things a little complicated."
He really didn't want a tense entry with Superman. The moment Clark used his x-ray vision he would figure out Daniel wasn't human and that would stall the entire conversation before it started. Better to bring Lois Lane. Clark wouldn't go cold with her standing there.
"Clark who," Lois said.
Daniel turned around and looked at her. "Ms. Lane don't play dumb with me. I know you know him."
Lois said nothing.
"And you should stop lying because that will save some time for what we are about to go through," Daniel said. "Isn't that right, Bruce?"
Lois looked at the driver for the first time.
Bruce Wayne looked back at her in the mirror.
"Mr. Bruce Wayne," Lois said slowly, genuinely confused why a billionaire was sitting in a driver seat in a Metropolis alley at seven in the morning. "What are you doing here?"
"War," Daniel said. "Between humans and Kryptonians. For Earth."
Bruce started the engine.
"What war?" Lois said, sitting very still now, the recorder forgotten in her hand.
"A war between humans and Kryptonians," Daniel said, looking straight ahead as Bruce pulled out of the alley. "For Earth. And your friend Clark is right in the middle of it whether he likes it or not."
*****
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