The Good Intentions of a Cyborg Werewolf

Loud and Clear - IX

"You picked a hell of a time to be late, Broadhead!" Robert bellowed as Erin entered the office. "Story of the century breaks and you're nowhere to be found!"

"I got-" Erin began to explain, but Robert didn't seem as angry. Instead he shoved a stack of papers towards her.

"Get this ready for print, stat!" He ordered, "if we can get this out in the next fifteen minutes we'll be the first to hit the news!" Robert pointed towards the television, tuned to the news channel, and though Erin couldn't quite hear it from the office entrance, she could read the bottom line.

"Masked vigilante saves child hostage, then vanishes in broad daylight!" Robert read it aloud before turning back to Erin, "and we have the exclusive."

"How?" She asked, and that's when Erin looked at the stack of papers. It was an article, written by a colleague she was no doubt expected to edit, and along with it were pictures. Erin felt a cold sweat down her back. Someone had a camera. Luke was caught on photo, she was caught on photo. Erin steeled herself enough to pass off her anxiety as enthusiasm, and quickly headed to her office. She locked the door behind her, something she almost never did, and immediately began rifling through the photos.

Luke was in almost every one, his suit on full display. The whistling man was there as well, and that's when Erin felt her heart surge. She was there, too, barely visible in the background. She thanked God that no one had looked too closely. She wasn't in focus for most, and in the few that showed her clearly only showed her back, not her face, save for one. It was when she was pushing the second switch on the assembler, and it clearly showed both her and Luke. No way she was sending that. She pocketed the most damning photo and tore up the rest, making sure her face was properly destroyed in case anyone sifted through her garbage. That left about six showing Luke and the whistler, and while it would've been advantageous to destroy them as well, she couldn't be too obvious. She'd just chalk the missing photos up to being bad shots. Erin breathed a sigh of relief, and hoped Luke and Mercer would understand. She also gave a quick once over to the article. It was hastily written, with spelling and grammatical errors, but the writing wasn't exactly flattering. The rhetoric was heavily slanting Luke as a dangerous threat, their move against the whistler painted as though it was done without consideration for the boy. Erin felt a personal slight against her.

That would have to change. As she quickly rewrote it Erin decided to punch it up a bit, make things a little more favourable for the real hero. In five minutes she was practically done, but she didn't like what the previous writer used to describe him. It kept referring to him as a monster, a creature, and other derogatory terms. She scoffed. Clearly he wasn't a monster, he was wearing a costume with a helmet and everything. To anyone else he could've been a normal man under there, but his superhuman feats were well-described, so she had to think of something. Erin was mulling it over when she was jolted by a knock at her door, and Robert's voice shouted through the glass and drawn curtains.

"Broadhead, is it out?" He asked. "Send the article to the printers, send the photos to the news, now! I don't want The Daily Sun beating us to this!"

"It's going now!" Erin shouted back, and immediately printed her article. It wasn't her best idea, but it'd have to do. She immediately began faxing the photos while her computer dialled to the printers downstairs. Now that the stress of covering her tracks was gone, the excitement of a breaking story started to kick in. She felt mixed emotions capitalising on the situation, but this might finally get her out of the editing room and onto the real stories again. Once everything was sent she hurried out of her office, joining Robert and her other coworkers in front of the television, waiting with baited breath for the story to update. They listened to the anchorwoman drone on about witness reports and testimonies, before finally the moment came.