A Ruby The Size Of Her Fist

It glinted darkly in the light, sending a red glow onto Lois Lane's face. Unconsciously, she had held her breath. The ruby lay on a square of black velvet, the only thing in the safe. The reporter stared at the thing fascinated by the size of the gem, the many facets of it.

She could see why it was in the safe. Something like this must be worth a million...or millions. Lois had hoped for something else, some evidence that would shed light on the mystery of why those women had disappeared, how they had been transformed. The reporter stared at it a moment longer...there was some flaw in the center of the gem, that made it dance like a flame when the light struck it just right.

Her right hand reached out to take it...and she paused, brow furrowed, mouth a thin line.

What the hell am I doing? This isn't what I came for. The reporter thought to herself. Yet something about that little flame had her journalistic instincts on edge. There was a mystery here, a story, a scoop. She could almost taste it. Lois Lane's hand closed on the great gem...

Static snapped at her fingers. Lois grimaced but picked up the stone. It was the size of a fist, more carats than the reporter could guess. It had been cut flat on two sides, so that it almost looked like a fat smartphone. The reporter turned it so that one of the flat sides faced her...and there was the flaw in the very heart of it. A very queer thing, from some angles it looked like a flame and from others...it almost appeared to be the outline of a naked woman.

"Curiouser and curiouser..." Lois wondered aloud, as she turned the gem this way and that.

Tilting the gem so that she could stare at it head-on, the crimson depths reflected Lois Lane's own head and shoulders, much like a tablet or smartphone screen when blank. Like most women, the reporter immediately checked her appearance in the impromptu mirror. Big eyes, a smooth forehead, raven-dark hair, small straight nose, a small mouth above a narrow jaw...she tilted it a little further, to see the top of her cleavage and the white t-shirt she was wearing.

The "Power Girl" Lois had seen earlier with her huge breasts had reminded Lois of her own...inadequacies. It was the one thing about herself that she would change, although the reporter knew she would never go in for breast augmentation surgery. She'd live and die a small-breasted woman, her little half-teardrop-shaped tits no more than a palmful for any lover.

"I wish..." Lois said...and for a moment she felt the gem grow warmer in her hand.