A SECOND BYLINE

PART TWO:  

“Indeed, we do,” Terry found himself replying, and touched Deidre’s elbow in an effort to bring her down to the fact that she was staring with her mouth open.  It worked as far as getting her to close her mouth, but she continued to stare, her hazel eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“I understand you’re the owner,” Ross said, flipping open the note pad he had pulled out of his pocket and poising with pencil ready to write.

“Acting CEO Terry Thorne.  The owner is…unreachable at this time.”

“And the lovely lady?”

“Research.”

“Her name…is…Research?” Alex asked, eyebrows lifting with incredulity.

“Deidre,” she said, trying not to smirk.  Terry rolled his eyes.

“You were here when this happened?” Ross jerked his chin in the direction of the smoldering remains of Emerald City.

“No,” Terry replied and then added, “you can get all the information you need from the police report, I’m sure.”

“There’s some talk that it was a foreign job,” Ross pursued, his eyes flicking over Deidre once or twice, as if part of him would really rather question her, intimately.  “And NanoCorp is…or has been, heavily involved in foreign contracts.  Do you think someone might have seen that involvement as an abuse of power and taken action to stop it?”

Now Terry fought the urge to let his own jaw drop.  “Listen, you bloody bastard…”

“Who do you work for?”  Deidre cut in, turning on her magnolia charm.

“Work for myself, doll,” Ross replied, tilting his head and grinning at her with his own brand of appeal.  He nodded toward the gymnasium.  “I don’t suppose you’d have time to come inside with me and answer some more questions?  It’s hot out here and I could use some refreshment.”

Pisser looks at her like a piece of cake under glass, Terry fumed.

“Freelancer, eh?  That explains a lot,” Deidre noted sardonically.  “You’re not even going to ask what we’re doing here?”

“Mmmm, maybe I should let you conduct the interview,” Ross purred in a Cheshire cat smile.

Terry started forward and Deidre placed a hand on his shoulder.

“All right,” she said, brightly.  “What’s your connection to NanoCorp?”

“Connection?  Hon, I’m just a reporter looking for a title to put above my byline,” Alex shook his head, looking scandalized.  “And right now, this place is the hottest ticket.  Figuratively speaking.”

“But you’re so familiar looking,” Deidre protested.  “Terry, doesn’t he look familiar to you?”

“I seem to recall someone as ugly as him running around,” Terry muttered.

“Well, now, I’m not interested in any beauty contests that NanoCorp might have, unless,” Alex added, stepping closer to Deidre, “its dames like you that head the show.  What are you doing later…?”

“Washing her hair,” Terry intervened, pulling Deidre to him.  “As I said, you’ll find everything you need to know in the police report.  I’m sure I know as much as you do at this point”

“Do you?” Ross asked, all business again.  “The police I talked to said high grade explosives were set at key points in the complex, professional stuff that only military types knew about.  The kind of military stuff that mercenaries often employed in covert operations.”  Ross kept his tone light, but the blue-green eyes took on the same hardness reflected in Terry’s face.

“I’m glad our local law enforcement were able to discern the cause of this as quickly as they did,” Terry replied, suddenly affable.  “Tax money well spent, don’t you think, luv?” he asked  Deidre.

“And is NanoCorp at all concerned with who these mercenaries might be?” Ross went on.

“Ive no doubt that the following investigation will reveal numerous facts of which you can tuck into that precious space above your byline,” Terry replied, his tone a conclusive one, a tone that might have added ‘among other places’ as a suggestion.

He felt Deidre’s hand squeeze his.  The questions were hitting nerves they had yet to protect.

“All I’m actually concerned about at the moment,” Terry added, as Ross took a few moments to scribble on the small note pad in his hand - why he didn’t walk away with Deidre in tow at that moment, he couldn’t decide - “are the people who are affected by this tragedy.  I only hope there is no loss of life.”  

“NanoCorp is effectively non-existent now, isn’t it?”  Alex asked.

“That remains to be seen,” Terry hedged once more.  “Certainly production will be…delayed.”

“Does NanoCorp have any other branches?  Any other manufacturing bases?”

“No.”

“So the company is the only one providing the medical innovation of the nanoblood?”

“No.  There are competitive companies.  Look, Mr. Ross, I really need to find my employees and the managers in charge.  You want vital info?  Look at the police reports.  Any more questions, call me here,” and he reached into his jacket, pulled out a card, and gave him one.  “NanoCorp Sub-SID-iaries,” he added, stressing the word ‘Sid.’  When he got no reaction to that, he said, “In fact, I insist upon it.  I have some questions of my own to ask you.”

“Aw, well, everything you need to know about me can be found on my website,” Ross said, grinning wide.  “But I just might do that,” he offered in second thought, glancing down at the card with a frown.  “This your home phone number?”

“It is.  G’day, Mr. Ross,” Terry said with succinct dismissal.  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex watched them disappear amid the morass of emergency vehicles edging the long drive leading up to Emerald City, stared for a several moments at the black smoke still rising above the tree-line where the building had once glittered.  That had gone better than he had thought it would…but not quite as good as he needed for the story he wanted to write.  He’d been among the very first to arrive on the scene, just minutes after the shocked announcement came over the police scanner he kept in his bedroom.  He’d also seen Terry approach, hand in hand with a delicious red head, and had to struggle a bit with himself in deciding to pin him down for questioning.  It was disturbing that the man had the face Alex saw every morning when he dragged out of bed and inspected how much stubble he would have to shave off.  The young lady’s pointed question was easy to shrug off, but it had taken a few moments of deliberate effort to refocus on his original reasons for talking to Terry, and he still felt much of it had gone unanswered. 

What he had not expected was Terry handing him a business card.  This he tucked into a small pocket inside his worn jacket.  Oh, he would definitely be calling, right after he looked at all the police reports: Alex knew there was a history of them.  He meandered about some more, managed to lock down a few more questions, and realized that he would have to get back to his computer at home if he was going to turn in anything decent to the local newspaper.  So he hopped in his beat up Chrysler Sebring and beetled home.

Within the hour he had a fairly decent article typed up and faxed to the editor.  Then he pulled out a beer from the fridge, a plate of cold leftover fried chicken and sat on the porch of his apartment to sit and eat and stare at nothing in particular.  Even though the work was done, he still had a lot to process.

Alex Ross lived in the run-down part of town, in an apartment complex that overlooked the main thoroughfare leading into the heart of the city.  Heat radiated from the blacktop, was absorbed by the wood-frame sides of the apartments, and made life on the third floor a venture in living like a hot cross bun in the summer, like a frozen chicken in the winter.  He knew some of his neighbors well – a gay man in one apartment who seemed to prefer the social company of a select few and was very quiet; a couple of college girls who were noisy and oversexed (as if that were a negative!), but rarely gave him the time of day.  Some he did not know so well, but as long as they didn’t hold parties in the breezeway outside his door, they might as well not exist.  He was away from his apartment as much as he could be anyway.

Once again, the thought that he had stayed in this town for much too long crossed his beer-infused brain.  Thing was, he couldn’t think of anywhere else he wanted to be.  Plus, that Emerald City had always fascinated him, pulled him, as in the idea that if only he could step inside the cool shelter of the green plate glass and wander about, he’d feel like he’d found some landmark of his past.  And now it was gone.

He supposed he had gone there this morning because he was upset.  Something about the disaster told him that whatever he might find there was now irrevocably erased.  But then again, why would he think his past had anything to do with that place?  He’d come to this town after things with Myra disintegrated, with nothing more than the clothes on his back…

That was another fuzzy part he had neither the heart nor the will to puzzle out.  Even when he didn’t have beer flowing in his veins, he only remembered that there had not been peace, had been some great tearing apart.  He could only figure that it was her magic that might have done it.  It had to be that.  Myra was always messing around, always looking for some new thing to keep people’s interest.  She’d always had his, but sometimes she would just…experiment.  So, maybe the spell got broken.  Maybe he got tired of it and left.  Maybe she got tired of him.  Whichever way, she was gone now, and here he was, lost in a fog.  A beery fog. 

Her damned magic.  He pulled at a second beer and sunk further into the slump he had assumed in the lounge chair. Well, if she was gone and he was here, then it must for something good.  He’d returned to writing, returned to chronicling things with the pen and camera.  And he was good, they said, a sharp writer who needed only a byline to get his career really going. 

It was just too bad he had no one to share it with. 

Well, maybe the kind of stuff he was digging up on NanoCorp would help him get out of this long-running funk, get him the byline he’d been working for all this time…and maybe he could find another girl, one who would see him as something more than a rabbit to experiment on.

Someone like that russet haired dish…she had looked at Terry like he was a god to be adored…

He fingered the card he had pulled out and stared at it.  Poor bastard.  Corporate life had him by the balls.  He could see that the moment they walked onto the campus.  He smirked at the telephone number – it used periods to separate the exchanges, rather than the usual dashes.  If that didn’t say pretentious, he didn’t know what.   A grin sent the corners of his mouth cocking upwards.  Disaster had a way of bringing out the true man and from what little he had gleaned of Terry and his background, the trappings of corporate life would soon disappear.  And then he could really ask some questions.

ON TO PART 3

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