Chapter 17 by Zeebop

Where is Maria headed?

LexCorp

Blaze put her hand on the reporter's shoulder. There was a crack of thunder...and then Lois Lane's guts lurched, and she bent over as her dinner made a sudden and violent comeback. When she was done, the reporter straightened up, one hand on her queasy stomach...and saw that they were in the alley behind the main LexCorp headquarters building.

"I suppose I should have warned you," Blaze said, without a hint of apology. "How do you know this is where she will come?"

Lois spat and looked around. They were half-hidden behind the LexCorp recycling dumpsters, but a quick glance gave her a good view of the loading docks and the entrance to the private parking garage below the building.

"Things she said, and didn't say. She's been talking about her internship at college, trying to recruit the other girls into it...while she didn't mention the name, it sounds exactly like one of Lex Luthor's strategic business intelligence recruiting schemes. Maria was working the other girls for information, trying to get them to spy on you. Maybe you weren't as discreet as you should have been. But everything you mentioned shows that Maria is manipulative and ambitious; when she saw the opportunity to seize your power source..."

"My heart," Blaze corrected.

"...she jumped at it. If she takes that big of a risk, there's only one person she can take it to, and that's Lex himself...ah, here we go."

A female figure hurried down the alley, on a path that would take her right past the dumpsters. Lois Lane crouched low by the edge, Blaze a silent figure that stepped back into the darkness, out of sight...and Lois had a bizarre glimpse of something then, of dark horns and pure white eyes, something utterly inhuman...but she pushed it out of her mind because she heard the footsteps get nearer and nearer.

The reporter's hands balled into fists. Her head still throbbed. She was about to show Maria what a hostile interview looked like when the Daily Planet's reporter was on her feet and facing the right direction.