Lois Lane Is Getting...Dumber

The reporter shook her head. This was insane. She needed to do something. This was real magic—way out of her league.

She picked up the phone and speed-dialed the one person she thought she could trust.

"Hey Zatanna? It's Lois. Look I need a favor—don't give me that, you owe me. Yes, I'm calling it in. How soon can you come to my apartment? Okay, see you then."

The call ended. The reporter rubbed her head, a sudden headache throbbing in her temples. She put the phone down. Zatanna said she'd be here within the hour. Lois needed to get dressed...couldn't great the powerful witch in the nude. Walked into the bedroom and reached for her...

The woman stopped, blinked. She could see the garment on its familiar hook. A red silk number, embroidered with white dragons, that she had picked up on assignment in Japan. Something she often liked to lounge around in, when she didn't want to wear underwear.

For the life of her, she couldn't remember its name.

The word seemed to be right at the tip of her brain, but stubbornly refused to resolve. Confused, Lois tossed the garment on and cinched it about her waist, then returned to her laptop, intent on googling it.

Lois sat down...and then stared at the keys. She knew how to type. It was one of the first things she had learned, back in school, right after cursive. Her father had joked about making her his secretary, because by age 13 she could take dictation at 100 words per minute. Now...her hands hovered over the keyboard, suddenly unsure.

She tapped a key. Then another. Both times with the first finger of her right hand. That seemed terribly wrong, somehow. The reporter frowned and painfully began tapping out her question into google, trying to frame it around the lost word.

Five agonizing minutes later, Lois sat back and savored the word she had recovered. Robe. How did I ever forget that?

An advertisement popped up.

DO YOU WANT BIGGER BREASTS?

"Well, sure," Lois said outloud. She clicked on the pop-up without a second thought.

That led down a rabbit hole of weirdly pornographic sites, promising bills and treatments for restoring libido, increasing breast size, and some offers so arcane Lois couldn't quite figure out what they were—and none of which was anything she'd normally have clicked on before. Worse, her adblock and anti-virus programs were going haywire, popping up little warning signs almost as fast as she could deactivate them.

After forty-five minutes, Lois had managed to add the Maximum Value Breast Enhancement Package to her cart and was striving digit by digit to input her credit card information when there was a knock at the door.

She left the computer and almost immediately forgot what she had been doing.

The reporter opened the door. Standing there, six feet tall in her heels and tophat, was a statuesque woman in fishnets, tailcoat, and tophat. The white corset did amazing things for her cleavage, and the smile above the little black bowtie was genuine.

"Like, hi," Lois said, breathily.

The smile turned into a frown.

"Lois? Are you feeling okay?" Zatanna said.

The reporter blinked, the rubbed her temples.

"Just a headache. It's been, like, really weird tonight."

Zatanna pushed her way in...and saw the squat form of the idol.

"Yeah," the witch said. "I think I can see why. What happened?"

What followed over the past fifteen minutes was one of the most embarrassing episodes of Lois Lane's life. She knew what had happened, and normally prided herself as a reporter on her abilities of recall. Yet getting the words out, the sequence of events, was like pulling teeth. Zatanna watched her, face showing growing concern as Lois stumbled through the events of the night, leading up to her phone call.

"Okay," Zatanna said after Lois stopped, a slightly dazed look in her eye. "This sounds like pretty old magic...and that tends to be very powerful and very nasty. Let me try something..."