NOVEL NEXT Side Chapter – The Daily Distress
“Oi, Kent! The chief’s callin’ you!”
“You making troubles, Kent?”
I walked from the office hall towards the chief’s. My surroundings became lively—well, actually, the better description would be ‘noisy’, as the fact that most of the reporters who worked here that got called by the big chief are those who just got into troubles.
“I guess we’re gonna find out.” I say, as I kept walking.
Several more of my fellow co-workers were asking me as I kept walking. Since I have nothing to tell them—I mean, considering I know nothing on why I was called, all I can do is just simply say “I don’t know” and gave a short smile.
And so… I arrived in front of the chief’s office.
Inside the office, a lone man was sitting down, smoking his thick cigar all the while gestured me to enter the office.
He wore a clean white shirt under his gray suit vest, and his brown tie complements his looks, as well as his gray trousers and brown shoes.
His neatly combed brown hair and his stubble beard gave him a rough look, but overall, he is a good looking man with the demeanor of a strict boss on him.
That man—was Perry White, chief-editor of The Daily Planet.
“Chief, you’re looking for me?”
“Kent, come here.”
On Perry’s desk were several newspapers and magazines. These papers look very familiar to me… considering I was the one who reported and wrote the articles for the papers of those titles.
Perry spread the newspapers and magazines on his desk, and tapped each one of the titles.
“[Harbor Attacks Uncover Smuggling Activities], [Attack of the Wraith, Another Manhunt], [Vigilante in the Dark Hunts Gangsters]. These are all nice titles, eh Kent?”
Perry stood up, and put his cigar on the ashtray by his desk.
“Kent, you are a good reporter. You are diligent, hard-worker, and above all, you know how make good stories. But… I need you to stop chasing this so called ‘Wraith’. It’s the second—no, the third week now that you are writing about this Wraith.”
I was surprised. To think that I’ve been working on chasing Wraith for so long. Perhaps that massacre back in the slums, and the fact that I failed to catch him made me obsessed in chasing him.
But, I don’t think this is a problem…
“Wait, Perry, I’m just trying to find more informations about him. He’s someone with a vendetta against mafias and gangsters. I just want to find out if he's dangerous or not...”
“Kent, we have the cops for that.”
“The cops can’t deal with someone like him…”
“Listen, Kent… let go.”
Perry walked towards me. He tapped my shoulder.
“What you are doing are good, and I approve. But I can’t keep posting these. The public wants not the news about a freaking ghost killing gangsters. It's scaring them. Write something else: football games, politics, cat rescue… hell, post about the Superman for God’s sake. You were doing pretty good when you wrote the stories about his heroic actions.”
“Perry, I’m just doing—”
“—Kent, I’m giving you the time, here. Use it well.”
Perry seems to have spoken his last, as he took his still burning cigar back to his mouth, and puffed some smoke. I don’t think I am able to say anything more, so I just walk out.
Outside, I saw Lois standing by the door. She had a smile plastered on her face as she waited for me to go out of the chief’s office.
“How’s the talk with the chief?” she said, obviously trying to joke around with me.
“Well… he did lecture me.” I sighed.
“Honestly, I can’t blame him either. You’ve been running around chasing that infamous Wraith. I mean, what’s your goal anyway, Clark? Why chase someone as dangerous as the Wraith.”
“I don’t know. I guess I just want to know who he is.”
“Well, your “wanting to know” is more of an obsession.”
I can only laugh as a reaction. She’s right, it has become my obsession ever since my first defeat. And it’s not like something I can tell her either that I’m chasing him not as ‘Clark Kent’, but as ‘Superman’.
“Y’know, as much as I agree that he is a dangerous individual, he is also not someone who killed innocents.”
I nodded at Lois’ statement. Then I remembered the one piece of info during the massacre at the slum.
“Hey Lois, you know when the massacre of the local gangsters in the Slums happened, there are also bodies of young children on a broken sports field.”
Those bodies of dead children… the image still haunts me, made me angry. I thought that whatever the Wraith was doing in the Slums causes death towards those poor defenseless children. But…
“Oh yeah, I remember that too. I thought that the death of those children were caused by that Wraith thing—but then we got the report from the MPD official coroner that the evidence points towards those massacred gangsters…”
Yeah… it wasn’t him who killed those children. I’m sure his action; him massacring those local gangsters was him trying to avenge those dead children.
This is why I want to find him, so that I can ask him why he's doing what he's doing.
Lois tapped my arm with her elbow as she chuckled.
“You don’t need to look so serious, Clark. I’m sure if the Wraith truly is dangerous, Superman would be able to beat him, right?”
Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be able to… I have to be able to in our next encounter.
