FALLIN'
(I recently watched " Green Lantern Corps " and felt a bit itchy to write some suspenseful plot notes as practice.)
(Just a little bit)
John wouldn't be foolish enough to hand himself over directly.
Moreover, this place had finally regained its peace, and he didn't want to cause any new trouble.
This is so damn annoying.
So, he casually draped the rag over the edge of the sink and chuckled in feigned surprise:
"Miss Ryan... you come from the Metropolis, shouldn't you have more faith in science?"
John picked up his glass, took a sip of water, and continued:
"Moreover, those drunk drivers from the countryside can come up with all sorts of outrageous excuses to extort insurance money."
As for that 'child'...
"If any of these freaks existed on this land, they would have been captured and studied by the FBI CIA, or research institutes long ago. How could they still be here now?"
At this moment, Kelly, who was sitting next to her, nodded repeatedly like a chick pecking at rice:
"I told you so, sis! You're always watching those ridiculous fake news reports from the Pentagon..."
If aliens truly existed, they would have appeared long ago.
Lois ignored her cousin's interruption and continued speaking:
"The unknown may also be part of science."
"After the accident, the driver became a vegetable, and the old pickup truck not only had its windows broken, but the control room was also completely damaged."
Now, the pickup truck is naturally no longer of any use.
It was only natural that he was sold to a local chemical plant by his cronies.
"Coincidentally, the chemical plant went bankrupt in less than a month, and I haven't found any records of it being resold locally since then."
"So..."
Lois stared intently at John:
"You're a local, how about being my guide? I can pay you double the hourly rate."
To be honest, John is not short of money.
Any single technology aboard the Krypton outpost would be enough to make him one of the wealthiest people in the United States.
Moreover, this is the town where he, Martha, and Joe lived together, and it is also the most central hinterland.
If anything goes wrong, or if this female reporter digs up some "juicy gossip," trouble will soon follow.
Therefore, John shook his head:
"I'm sorry, Miss Ryan, I have to help Old Sam unload two truckloads of draft beer this afternoon, so I can't get away."
He paused, then continued:
"By the way, that dilapidated chemical plant has been abandoned for over a decade."
The underground pipes had long been corroded and hollowed out by the acid fumes.
It was full of methane gas and old mud; even the town's homeless people didn't dare go there.
Lois met John's "innocent" gaze and hesitated for a moment.
She came here to dig up a big story, so naturally she wasn't going to pass up this hard-won opportunity.
"Thank you for the advice, Mr. John."
Lois stood up and deftly buttoned her trench coat.
"However, what we journalists fear least is danger."
As she spoke, she turned and patted Kelly's head:
"Let's go... we'll go to the hotel first to put our luggage away."
"Hey! You owe me this meal!"
Kelly was being pulled away, still grumbling resentfully.
Contact me anytime.
John smiled and waved.
"Jingle--"
The brass bell on the lintel rang out again with a crisp sound.
The two women jumped into a used Ford parked by the roadside and sped away.
The tavern fell silent again, with only the old record player still playing hoarse country tunes.
John's smile gradually faded.
He looked down at the few drops of water remaining on the bar, his expression gradually turning strange.
"I have a bad feeling about this..."
At 5:30 p. m., the Kansas countryside began to glow with a dark reddish-yellow hue.
Beside the abandoned railway line that stretches north from Smallville stands a long-abandoned car factory.
Due to policy rectifications and disputes, the car factory owner absconded to Japan with the funds.
This place was abandoned more than ten years ago.
More than a decade later, this place looks more like a wasteland.
The area was completely enclosed by weeds taller than a person and rusty wire mesh.
Occasionally, you can see the shadows of a few wild rabbits or field mice darting by.
The pickup truck whose main control room was smashed to pieces back then was sold as a dismantled part to the underground workshop of this factory.
Over the course of decades, these scrapped parts could indeed have been refurbished, repaired, or reinstalled in other vehicles.
But as a frontline investigative journalist, Lois was betting on this slim "possibility."
What if?
Lois parked the rented used Ford in the woods half a mile away.
She then took off her slightly cumbersome khaki trench coat and put on a neat jacket and cargo pants.
She replaced her black-rimmed glasses with contact lenses, and her hair was tightly tied back.
He was carrying a small, high-powered flashlight and a portable testing instrument borrowed from the laboratory.
"Sigh, Kelly's probably still snoring in the hotel..."
Lois, with half a cigarette dangling from her lips, crouched down and deftly used pliers to cut a notch at the bottom of the silk netting.
"Snap--"
Some small pieces of wire still managed to tear the corner of her jacket, revealing the cotton wadding hidden inside.
Lois completely ignored it.
She's not the kind of hothouse "flower" who just sits in an office building, creating headlines through leaks and phone interviews.
In order to obtain firsthand evidence.
She has raced drug traffickers' armed pickup trucks in the Latin America rainforest and dodged rebel shells in the rubble of the Middle East.
(Referenced from DC Action Comics 1000 (2018) and Superman: Lois Ryan 1-12 (2019))
( Lois's father was a lieutenant general in the army. She traveled with him to Latin America from a young age and later accompanied him on a visit to the Middle East.)
(I am a very meticulous author)
Within this seemingly delicate and supple body flows a passionate and adventurous nature born of a military family.
"Squeak--"
Wearing a mask, Lois pushed open the heavy, rusty iron door to the main workshop.
The next second, a pungent musty smell mixed with the lingering smell of ammonia hit me.
The workshop was extremely spacious.
The towering dome was covered with shattered glass.
A few streaks of dim twilight slanted across the dusty, large reactor and the haphazardly laid pipes.
The ground beneath our feet was covered with a layer of slippery moss.
To prevent herself from slipping, Lois had to turn on her flashlight.
While looking at the ground, I carefully took steps forward.
The beam of light swept slowly across the dimly lit workshop.
Following the faded signs on the wall, she carefully passed through the main workshop and then headed towards the maintenance passage leading to the pump room and storage tank.
Just then, the detector suddenly emitted a faint "beep" sound.
"The reading is too low... Something's not right!"
Lois stopped at the bottom of a downward-sloping staircase, her gaze falling on the instrument screen.
Near the underground entrance, the environmental ionization readings showed a faint fluctuation.
Could it be that...?
Lois's professional instincts were suddenly triggered, and her heart skipped a beat.
She gave herself a pep talk and gritted her teeth to hold the flashlight.
Then, gripping the cold, slippery iron handrail, and stepping onto the suspended iron mesh stairs, he groped his way into the dark basement.
However, the pump room was far darker than she had imagined.
The air here is damp and cramped.
There was still half an inch of black water underfoot, and all around were thick drainage pipes and high-voltage lines with a diameter of more than two feet.
However, under the beam of the flashlight...
Lois found the spot with the highest ionization reading near a pressure storage chamber deep inside.
On a drainage gate half-covered by mud, a steel plate with rust on its surface lay exposed.
This is it.
Lois knelt on one knee in the cold, dirty puddle, the muddy water gradually soaking through her trousers.
But she paid no heed.
I excitedly took off the macro camera hanging around my neck, focused, metered, and then pressed the shutter button repeatedly on that steel plate.
"Now, let's see if we can remove these rust stains..."
As she spoke, she used her gloved knuckles to scrape the deep rust from the surface.
The rust was pushed aside to the right, quickly revealing the Silver Surfer surface underneath.
At that moment, Lois's pupils contracted sharply.
Because on the edge of the rusty burrs, there was a small, deep indentation—
That was clearly the outline of a hand!