Who: Lois Lane & Superman Where: The Daily Planet rooftop When: May 27 What: Lois and Superman reunite in the aftermath of the nuclear disaster
It had been a week since the nuclear disaster had threatened to destroy the world. As a reporter, Lois had been given no time to process the information or react to it in any kind of a personal way. Like most experienced reporters, she had a knee-jerk reaction to catastrophes that some would consider heartless. She could not waste time on her own fear or confusion or grief, but instead catapulted forward, seeking to find as much information as possible and provide it to the public as efficiently as she could manage.
This was terrorism in its truest form. There was no political, religious or social motivation. The targets had no universal commonalities, besides large populations, that showed any specific intent. It had been designed, very simply, to inspire chaos and fear. And it had succeeded in that task.
Lois's first instinct was to search for information on how the attack had been organized. Launching five nuclear weapons simultaneously required a worldwide coordination of sinister efforts, and frankly, that level of deliberately destructive malice terrified her. The decimated city was, of course, a tragedy. And it would take generations for the world to recover. But the fundamental problem was that this attack had been possible. And Lois was determined to find how the responsible parties were linked together.
But Perry had other plans. According to him, the public needed a familiar face to comfort them in this time of uncertainty. They wanted someone that they knew they could trust while they grappled with the implications of such an event. And although Lois hated being relegated to such a useless role in such a globally significant situation, she knew that Perry was right. She hated it when Perry was right.
So off to Qurac, or the edges of what remained, she flew. There, like reporters from thousands of international news stations, she repeated the same depressing statistics at the camera once an hour, with the occasional interview with terrified citizens or helpless officials. In Metropolis, being Lois Lane got her somewhere. There, she was just another reporter. The twenty-four hour news coverage of the recovery attempts was monotonous, the devastation she witnessed first-hand was horrific, and the ineffective investigations were infuriating. After a week of futile efforts, Lois had finally been given permission to cease on-location broadcasts, and return to Metropolis.
Now, on the morning of her return, the usually efficient and determined reporter was a mess. She was tired, mentally, emotionally, and physically. There was so much to be done that it felt overwhelming, and while the Planet newsroom had calmed considerably since the incident, it was still a swirling vortex of chaos. Lois had sat at her desk for a solid ten minutes, utterly still and seemingly oblivious to her surroundings, when Perry had told her to get some air. When she objected, saying that she had work to do, he simply repeated the command and walked away. Against her usual instincts, Lois obeyed.
The rooftop was the best place for Lois to clear her head. The break-room wasn't far enough away, and the streets had their own distractions and frustrations. Up here, above the noise, she could clear her head, and maybe actually be of use to the paper when she returned.
She also secretly hoped that a certain red-caped hero might finally have a spare moment, now that the immediate response had passed. And the rooftop seemed like a pretty decent place to gain his attention.
OOC: I'm guessing that I probably did something here wrong, so please correct me if I need to change something.