The Interview

I sighed. My first actual day on the job, yay! I mean, I was paid for the day I got hired, but this was my first real shift, spending six hours trudging around the city with Ms. Adamsen, or at the office. This was to be a special occasion, however, we were on our way to the offices of one Mr. Gustav Hammond, a multi-billionaire who just moved his headquarters to East City. No super heroing tonight, though. I actually had to put in a full shift at the Brigade.

"Okay, Charlie," Ms. Adamsen began, "you're mostly just gonna sit there while I interview the billionaire, but still, I wanna know what you know about him."

I tried to think. "Well, he was born in a small rural town somewhere in Kansas. His parents owned a fertilizer plant, but when he took over, he branched out into other things, he supposedly owns almost every piece of farmland in his home state."

She smiled. "That's pretty good for a shutterbug. Where'd you get all that?"

"I had to do a biography on him for class last year."

"I see. what else you got?"

"Ever since branching out, he's moved up to things like cell phones and computers, and even as far up as military technology. I think I read in a magazine somewhere that he's the second largest supplier of jets for the United States Air Force."

"Good job, kid. Maybe one of these days, you can work your way up to reporter."

I blushed. "I don't really want to be. I just like taking pictures."

She nodded. "One thing, though," she jerked her thumb at my pants, "wear a skirt some time. A lot of the folks I interview for the Brigade wanna get their pictures taken by girls who should be in pictures. A nice pair of exposed legs'll help with that."

I blushed again. "I'm a pretty hardcore tomboy."

"Tomboy, with a rack like that? Sweetie, when I was your age, I had to wear a tube top just to get boys to realize I had tits."

I sighed. That's the curse of having a naturally slim, attractive figure, I guess. I just fiddled with my camera for the rest of the ride to Hammond Industries. When we arrived, a very attractive-looking (if I was still a boy, that is) woman in a business suit met us in the parking garage. She shook Ms. Adamsen's hand, but just patted me on the head. I hate being short. I'm only five-foot-four, after all.

"Ms. Adamsen, my name is Svetlana Narekova, I'm assistant to Mr. Hammond. He's currently entertaining guests who's business arrangements have run overschedule. You and your little sidekick can wait in the meeting room outside Mr. Hammond's office."

Sidekick?! Ooooh, this woman was extremely lucky I wasn't using my powers tonight - or in the company of Ms. Adamsen - because she would have gotten some web in her face. I followed Ms. Adamsen, who in turn followed Ms. Nasty Russian-American Bitch (a.k.a., Ms. Narekova) to the elevator, and then into the waiting room just outside Mr. Hammond's office. "Snap some quick pictures while we're here," Ms. Adamsen ordered, so I did. I just managed to get a quick snapshot of Mr. Hammond's 'guests' as the door opened, before Ms. NRAB closed her hand over my camera.

Two very well-known mob bosses walked through the door, regarded the three women in the room with smiles that looked about as real as the Rolex Frank's dad wears, and then made their way to the elevator. Salvatore "The Roach" Lacasto and "Big Mike" Michael Richardson. I'd seen them on the news plenty of times, but never in person. That made me a little uneasy about what I was about to witness - witness being the operative word. I really hoped I wouldn't have to go live in the Amish Country for seeing something I shouldn't see. I really like my iPhone.

I could tell that Ms. Adamsen knew exactly who they were, too. She had probably done just as much to nab these guys as my dad did. Oh, crap, if I witness something bad, and they figure out I'm a cop's daughter, they might try to use me to force my dad into working for them! My God do I have an overactive imagination.

I followed Ms. Adamsen and Ms. NRAB into Mr. Hammond's office. Immediately, I took a picture of Mr. Hammond and Ms. Adamsen shaking hands. he didn't look all that bad. He was a pretty tall guy, chiseled face, clean suit. There was no way a guy who looked like this could be doing business with two of the most obvious mob bosses this side of the River. Gee, thank you inherent detective skills culled from a childhood of hearing your father talk about this crook or that crook, now I'm suspicious of everybody. When the hell did I become a detective?

"Ms. Adamsen, it's a pleasure to meet you. And this is?" he pointed at me.

"Charlotte Harkins, my photographer," Ms. Adamsen answered for me, and I let her. Everybody knows the lowly news photographer doesn't answer any questions. I just stood back and took pictures. Of everything.

"So, Ms. Adamsen, what would you like to ask me?" he asked, sitting down on the couch in the center of the room. Ms. Adamsen sat across a small coffee table from him. She motioned for me to sit down next to her, so I did. "Also, I'm sorry that my previous meeting bled into your schedule. I couldn't please them easily."

Ms. Adamsen laughed. "No, no, it's fine. I was running a little late as it was. I foolishly scheduled this meeting without thinking about Charlotte's school schedule." I couldn't figure out why she kept calling me Charlotte, as opposed to Charlie. She never calls me Charlotte. "I'm here to do a full interview for the Brigade, every one of us is eager to know why you're calling East City your home now."

He crossed his legs, his arms resting on the back of the couch. "Every year, living on the farm in Kansas, my father would bring me on a trip out here, to East City. It was always a wonderful time. You know the feeling, don't you? Small town boy, enjoying life in the big city for the first time?"

Ms. Adamsen smiled. "My reporting partner is like that. He grew up in nowheresburg, Illinois, himself."

Funny, actually, I still hadn't met Mr. Cabot. I didn't even know if he was real. I just kept hearing about him from Ms. Adamsen or from the only other photographer my age, Timmy Saul.

"Nowheresburg," Mr. Hammond said, then laughed, "it's not all that inaccurate, actually. I spent most of my days simply tending to the farm, hearing occasionally about how the fertilizer business was going. Those few times my father actually let me visit the plant, I was in awe of the pure industrialization of it. Seventy men per floor, working 'round the clock, it was absolute beauty."

"Beauty? That's not often used to describe fertilizer plants."

He smiled. "I know. It's a simple thing, someone like yourself, who comes from the big city, can't understand it. It wasn't until I turned twenty-one that my father, God rest his soul, turned the family business over to me." He turned to me. "What about you, Charlotte? Where did you grow up?"

I looked at Ms. Adamsen, as if to get approval to answer his question, which she granted me with a small nod, and then I answered, "Over on Thirty-Ninth Street, in the same apartment I've lived in since I was a little girl." Of course, my mind said little boy, but I couldn't very well say that out loud. I was getting a little better at my responses, though, thank God.

"And was your father a photographer?"

I shook my head. "No. He's a cop. Ordinary beat cop." Ms. Adamsen gave me a small smile as she nodded her head this time. I gave the right answer, no way any potential mafia bosses were gonna single out lowly photographer girl if her daddy was an ordinary beat cop.

"I see. Y'see, Ms. Adamsen, Ms. Harkins, where I grew up, every boy grew up to do the job his father had done, every girl grew up to do the job her mother had done. Very old-fashioned and very traditional. When I decided to branch out, turn Hammond Industries into a multi-billion dollar company with a multitude of ventures, to say I was the black sheep of the family would have been to paint me in with a good brush, as opposed to how my family really thought of me."

I kept watching his movements, his reactions. Once again, I had to thank my dad for turning me into Little Miss Junior Detective, because his subtle tells were about as subtle to me as a raging bull in a Walmart. He had perfected his own art at telling lies, but his office told me otherwise. For someone so proud of his family heritage, none of his family pictures showed anything but himself. He sat on the couch as a corporate businessman raised in a high-rise rather than a podunk farmer from Kansas. Then there was the telltale sign in his photos of the 'farm' that they were PhotoShopped. Extremely well, mind you, but anyone with a basic knowledge of the art of photography knows a PhotoShopped picture when they saw one.

So, about thirty-five minutes later, when the interview was over, Ms. Adamsen and I returned to her car, drove out of the parking garage, returned to the street and then she asked me the oddest question: "So, where do you think he's really from?" I must have looked wide-eyed, because she then said, "Look, Charlie, I saw you watching him the whole time, and your dad's not just some beat cop, he's a captain in the ECPD, you were reading him like a perp, not a businessman. Give me your readings on him."

I sighed. "He's not from Kansas, that's obvious. His pictures were all PhotoShopped, and he didn't resemble either of his 'parents'. There's a certain way that people from farms sit on five million dollar couches, and it's exactly how they sit on five dollar couches: like farmers. He sat on that couch like he spent his entire life listening in on business meetings at a corporate level that we couldn't understand unless we'd sat in on them, too. He referred to us as 'Ms. Adamsen', and 'Ms. Harkins', and didn't call me 'Charlie', even though it's on my press ID, which was hanging around my neck the whole time. He treated us properly, not casually, like a farmer would."

Ms. Adamsen smiled. "You'd make a better reporter than me, sweetie." She poked her finger at me. "But don't tell that to the Chief, or else he'll make us swap jobs." I couldn't help but smile.

***

Later that night, I swung on past Mr. Hammond's building. I stuck mainly by the large windows that looked in on Hammond's office, where he was meeting with some people who didn't particularly look like they'd be involved with a farmer. Bad thing, I couldn't hear them from outside the building, so I crawled up the wall to the nearest vent opening and pulled it off, then slipped into the vent shaft. I secured the vent cover back on and then made my trek toward Hammond's office.

The bad thing about my mask? It doesn't exactly help me see in the dark. I probably scared two or three cleaning ladies as I bumped into the corners before finally finding the vent that overlooked Hammond's office. Their conversation told me I was very right about them not being legitimate business partners.

"If Richardson wants to fight me on this, let him. I don't really care. I've got enough men to take down both you and your petty boss." Hammond meant business, I could tell.

One of the others spoke, but I couldn't see which one. "Look, Mr. Hammond, let's be honest: whatever muscle you have, you just weaseled in to this city. Mr Richardson has been here for years, he's bought as many judges as you have condos in Italy."

Hammond laughed. "I have ten condos in Italy. None of them on the books in this name."

"And Mr. Richardson has ten judges, and a dozen cops in every precinct." That didn't please me. That meant that twelve (or more, if he was just using hyperbole) of the cops that my dad works with were in mob pockets. I'd have to tell Dad. "There ain't nothin' in this city that Mr. Richardson doesn't have his hands in."

Hammond laughed again. "Y'know, Mr. Stevens, Richardson is yesterday's news. A week ago, a man in a gold and blue leotard floated over a shootout and stopped a girl who could make things explode with her hands. A girl who can shoot webs from her fingertips has been spotted beating down Upscales with a boy who can jump-kick a man three blocks." I heard him stand up, or at least it sounded like he stood up, I couldn't really tell. "People with super powers - Post-Humans, as I like to call them - are emerging every day, and not just in East City." He chuckled. "And not just on the right side of the law, either."

The third man, who hadn't spoken until now, finally said, "We know about the freaks, Mr. Hammond, we've even dealt with a couple. Just yesterday, I whacked a stupid punk who tried to glue my feet to the subway tracks using goop from his hands. What's they got to do with it?"

I slowly lifted up the vent cover and tried to get a better look. Lucky me, I was on the opposite side of the room and none of them were looking in my direction. I crawled out and ducked into a shadow in the corner. Hammond was standing, like I'd thought, so was one of the other guys, but the third was sitting.

The standing man - the one who had spoken third - pulled out a cigarette and lit up. "These freaks ain't all that special, Mr. Hammond."

Hammond smiled. "I beg to differ." He looked toward the door, where his assistant, that nasty bitch, walked in. "Have you met Svetlana? She's a very skilled woman." He turned his head to face her. "Svetlana, show them what you can do."

And with a puff of smoke and a very weird noise (y'know that 'BAMF' noise that Nightcrawler makes in X-Men comics? It sounded an awful lot like that), Nasty Bitch disappeared. She then reappeared behind Standing Man and grabbed him, applying pressure to his neck. Sitting Man stood up and pulled out a gun, but Nasty Bitch disappeared again, this time with Standing Man (I need to learn their names... this is sad... 'Standing Man', 'Sitting Man'... I could have named Native Americans in a past life). They reappeared beside Hammond, who was grinning like a sonuvabitch.

"I believe this demonstration is good enough, wouldn't you agree?" Hammond said, taking Standing Man's cigarette from his hands and puffing on it himself.

I couldn't stand - or, well, stick to a wall - for this. I quietly dropped to the floor, and then I shot a webline at Standing Man and pulled him away from Nasty Bitch, then, for kicks, did the same with the cigarette that Hammond was enjoying. "Y'know, smoking is very bad for you. Plus, East City kinda has this law where you can't smoke in office buildings and, well, this counts as an office building."

Nasty Bitch disappeared, and I thank my spider-sense (yeah, I still haven't renamed it; spider-sense it is) for warning me that she was going to appear behind me, even though I probably could have guessed it after seeing her do it twice to these guys. I jumped up and landed on the ceiling just as Nasty Bitch rebamfed behind where I'd been standing. She scowled up at me.

"Aw, does that mean you like me? I wouldn't know, I've never had a Rottweiler." I just happened to be perfecting my trash-talking witticisms as well. "Hey, does that foam in your mouth mean you've got rabies, because my doctor told me to stay away from rabid dogs." I webbed her in the mouth. "There we go, good as new." I did a couple acrobatic moves that I didn't even know I was capable of when my spider-sense warned me of the incoming bullets, then landed on the floor and cartwheeled over to Hammond and his two goon friends. "I wish somebody had told me I was playing the role of target at the end of the shooting range, I've never been good at that."

Hammond simply folded his arms across his chest. "Ah, the spider girl."

"No, Spider-Girl is trademarked by Marvel, you can call me Arachnya." I was smirking under my mask, even though I knew they couldn't see it. "I'm totally different, and in no way resemble Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, Spider-Pig, Spider... anybody else." I used my webs to pull the guns away from the goons. "I've never gotten along with these things. Granted, I'm just a kid, so what do I know about guns."

"You're doing very well, Ms. Arachnya. You seem to have forgotten one thing, however."

"What's that? Oh! You mean your teleporting guard dog! No, I hadn't forgotten about her, actually." Just as she reappeared behind me, I hit her in the face with the back of my fist. "She should really learn some new moves, like maybe sit, or roll over." I weblined back up to the ceiling and back into the vent, but before I left, I poked my head out. "Oh, and by the way, you have the dirtiest vents I've ever crawled through! Couldn't you at least clean them once?"

***

"Charlie... Charlie... Charlie... My baby, my daughter, the light o' my life, can you please. Tell me. You didn't antagonize a multi-billionaire with ties to the mob?" Dad asked/shouted when I got to his office.

I shrugged, pouted. "Well, antagonize is a pretty strong word." I took a sip of the soda I bought downstairs. "I maybe surprised him. Intimidated, even. I'm pretty sure I made him piss his pants."

Dad rubbed at his forehead. "Kiddo... When your mom and I said you could be a super hero, somehow, I didn't think pissing off the mob and telling me I've got bent cops in my own precinct was gonna come three days later."

I shrugged again. "Sorry, Dad. If it helps, I used all that detective stuff you inadvertently taught me to figure out that he was a bad guy."

He sighed. "Sadly, sweetie, all those pictures you took can't be admitted into evidence when our only lead comes from somebody wearing a yellow and black mask with googly eyes."

I blushed. "They're not googly eyes!"

He raised his hands. "Calm down, Charlie." He sighed again. "Look, the bent cops thing I can take care of with random testing, maybe get between three to five of 'em out here, that'll give us pretty good hints at the others, but I doubt we can get 'em all." He stood up and jabbed his finger at me. "Don't you go stirring up trouble with Hammond, okay? By virtue of being the new money on the block, he'll already be the subject of a minor investigation soon, anyway." He sat back down. "Head on home, honey, your mom's probably worried."

I smiled. "Okay, Dad. See ya later."

***

Of course, little did I know that I'd accidentally be stirring up more trouble the following day, when Ms. Adamsen and I were sent in to get a statement from him about the 'break-in' from the night before.

"Mr. Hammond, a word?" Ms. Adamsen said, walking up to him with a tape recorder in her hand. This time, my camera was confiscated by the on-duty officer before I got inside the building, so I was pretty much just there to be Ms. Adamsen's.... sigh... sidekick. Good thing that cop forgot that smartphones can take pictures. "This was a pretty intense break-in, rumor on the street is that Arachnya was involved." Hey, I was making a name for myself.

He waved his hands. "Not in the robbery, itself. She attempted to stop the criminals afterward, but they were a little too fast for her." That's not how it happened. I punk-slapped your bitch and humiliated you in front of a couple of mob goons. "I considered myself lucky, actually. The fact that Arachnya just happened to be swinging past this building of all buildings."

"And was anything of lasting import stolen?"

He shook his head. "No, simply the money out of my personal safe. It only totaled about nine thousand in marked bills, they should be easily traceable." A phone rang. I checked my phone, but it wasn't mine, it was his. "Excuse me," he said, "I have to take this."

"Of course," Ms. Adamsen said, then she shut off her tape recorder. "C'mon, Charlotte, we've got a story to go sell to the Chief. Hey, where'd your camera go?"

"Cop downstairs confiscated it."

"Okay, first we have to get your camera back. Too bad you didn't get any pictures."

I held up my phone. "Who said I didn't get any pictures?"

She smiled. "You're turning into quite the little news hound, sweetie. We make a pretty damn good team."

I smiled, then followed her downstairs.

***

The one thing I didn't like about Timmy: He won't stop trying to impress me by telling me how frickin' pretty I am. I get it, I look good! Just shut up once in a while!

I spent the rest of my shift sitting at my computer in the photography department printing out all the pictures I snapped with my phone. Timmy was trying to tell me about some job he just did with Mr. Cabot, but I was barely listening. Hell, I was barely awake, thanks to my late-night visit to Hammond's office the night before.

"And see this one?" Timmy asked, holding out a photo. "I took it at the docks this morning, Mr. Cabot and I were staking out, watching some freighter from that one Eastern European country. Um..."

I remembered it for him. "Losvina? The place we have a trade embargo with?"

"Yeah! That place!"

I leaned back in my chair. "Look, Timmy, I'm sorry, I'm just not paying much attention. I could barely sleep last night, and I've got all this stuff to do for Ms. Adamsen."

He waved his hands. "No, no, it's cool."

My phone rang. "And to top it all off," I checked the caller ID, "my dad's calling me." I answered it. "Hi, Daddy."

"Charlie," his voice came over the phone, "I thought we agreed you'd only call me that when you give me an extremely feminine hug."

"It slipped out. What do you need?"

"When you get home tonight - and I mean get home tonight, no late night wall-crawling - tell your mom I'll be at the office all night. I tried to get a hold of her just a little bit ago, but then I remembered she's at her yoga class, and she can't answer the phone and..."

I giggled. "Okay, Dad. I'll tell her."

"Good girl. I expect a hug when I get home."

"You'll get it. Bye, Daddy."

"Bye, baby." He hung up, and then so did I. Timmy was sitting there, looking at me with a smile on his face.

"What?" I asked.

"I've never heard you talk to your dad before."

"He usually doesn't call me here, but he's working late tonight and needed me to tell my mom." I slipped my phone back into my pocket. I looked at the clock, it was getting close to quitting time. I sighed. Timmy liked me, he wasn't a bad guy on his own, plus Frank had absolutely no interest in dating me.

And there I was thinking about getting a boyfriend. Stupid, stupid, silly, silly me. I'm a girl barely a week, and one of the most important things I can think about is this? I had weird priorities.

Still, I had to ask. "Hey, Tim, you wanna go get a bite to eat after work?"

He smiled. "Sure."

***

And so, of course, getting a bite to eat still meant working, because there was Timmy and me, just minding our own business and actually talking, and in comes those two goons from the night before. I was a little afraid that they could tell who I was, but there was no way they should have been able to. I still kept my eyes on them, though, all through the painfully quick Big Mac and fries that I ordered.

"So, your dad's a cop, right?" Timmy asked me, drawing my attention away from those goons.

I turned back to him. "Uh, yeah."

"Bet he's got some great stories to tell you."

I smiled. "He does. Like the first time he met Guardian." I shoved a couple fries in my mouth. "I met him, once, after Ms. Adamsen and I were sent to interview him and my dad last week." Twice, actually, I met him the same day my dad did, though I couldn't tell Tim that. "That was my first day at the Brigade, actually."

"She told me about that the next day, when you didn't show up for that orientation."

I sighed. Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. "I was dealing with some... well... personal stuff."

"I'll bet! You were one of those two that that weird robot attacked. Did your friend make it out okay?"

Oh, great, he knew about that. "Yeah, he did. Bruised neck, but nothing substantially bad."

And then those two goons finally did something to stop me from saying something embarrassing or in danger of outing myself as Arachnya: they decided to rob the place. Really. I'm not joking. Two mob hitmen decided to rob a McDonalds five blocks away from a police precinct. Real frickin' geniuses, these two.

"Shut the hell up and give us the cash, dumbass!" one of them - the cigarette smoker - shouted, drawing his gun. He hadn't managed to clean the web gunk off of it, I noticed. It made me giggle, lightly.

The other one was aiming his gun at all the rest of us in the restaurant. I was about to get up and do something about it, but - much to my surprise - Tim beat me to it.

"Hey! C'mon! There's gotta be better places to hold up at eleven o'clock at night! Leave this place alone!" He held his hands up.

The other guy walked up to him and put his gun to Tim's temple. "Shut up, kid, and put your wallet in my hand!"

Tim pulled his wallet out. "You want this? Three old hand-me-down GI Joe cards, a nickel, two dimes and six pennies? You want this?"

Thank God Tim was distracting him and the other guy was busy emptying the registers, because I pulled my phone out and quickly texted the police. About six seconds later, sirens could be heard. The two goons looked surprised and angry. "Which one of youse pansies called the cops?!" He fired a bullet at the ceiling. "I wanna know which one of you little bitches called the cops!"

I got up from my seat and walked up beside Tim. "Me. I did," I said calmly.

The goon with his gun to Tim's head suddenly pointed it at mine. "I get it," he said, "you had your boyfriend here distract me!"

"Boyfriend?" Tim asked, looking at me.

"You've got a shot at it," I said.

"Nah, I'm taking the shot!" the goon said, and then he pulled the trigger. I didn't even need my spider-sense to know to duck and pull Tim down with me. By the time the goon lowered his gun to shoot at us again, the cops got there, and we were saved! I wiped sweat from my forehead that I didn't even know had accumulated, gave my statement to the police, and then headed home after grabbing my backpack from the office.

It was time to pay someone a visit.

***

I told Mom about Dad staying at work, then I made my back to Hammond's building. I couldn't get in through the same vent, thanks to Hammond having increased security, but it didn't matter. Hammond wasn't there. I could see his desk from the window and saw that he had a late night dinner with none other than "Big Mike" Richardson. Delminio's, nice place. Dad took Mom and I there a couple days ago, in belated celebration of his promotion as well as my first successful outing as Arachnya.

Delminio's was a pretty high-class place, and had a nice balcony with the 'good' tables. Lucky me, Hammond and Richardson were having dinner there. I shut off my camera's flash, adjusted the zoom, set the timer and webbed it to a nearby building that was overlooking the balcony. I turned on a tape recorder, stuffed it in my bra (no pockets on my costume, sadly, because a rectangular plastic device between your breasts feels so freaking awkward I can't really describe it now). I swung past and landed in the third seat at the criminals' table.

"Hey, guys! Nice to see two upstanding citizens having a late night dinner at the most up-scale joint in town." I turned to a very surprised waiter. "Hey, can I get some pizza in this place?"

Hammond smiled, Richardson scowled. "Nice to see you again, Arachnya," Hammond said.

I propped my feet up on the table and took Hammond's drink from him. Dad probably wasn't going to be happy that my first taste of alcohol just happened to be at the time I further antagonized a multi-billionaire with connections to the mob, but I still took a drink. "Oh, by the way, nice touch, telling the papers that you were robbed and I tried to stop the robbers. It was the first time I ever read the front page and thought it was the funnies."

Richardson was still scowling, but what mob boss doesn't? "What's this bitch doing here, Gustav?"

"Oh, Gustav? You guys are on a first name basis? I didn't know that, Big Mike! Say, do you exchange gifts at Christmas, too? Do you pull names out of a fedora and then go rob a toy store to get that one special doll that your buddy wants?" I took another sip. "That would be so cute if you did."

Hammond's smile was practically ear to ear. "Tell me, young lady, are you old enough to drink?"

"Not really, but I didn't pay for it." Much to my surprise, that waiter came back with a pizza from a local pizza joint. I took it from him. "Hey, thanks, I wasn't expecting that. I'll swing by later with the money to pay for it."

Hammond took out his wallet. "No need, I'll pay for it now." He pulled out two hundreds and handed them to the waiter. "Give one of those to the man downstairs and keep the change."

Realizing that that was probably my cue to leave, I handed Hammond back his drink and hopped up on the table, sending Big Mike's drink flying in his face. "Sorry, boys, gotta run. I'll see you some other time, though, probably with a can of whupass to lay into you." I shot a webline and started swinging away. "Thanks for the pizza!" I shouted back at him. He was gone by the time I grabbed my camera.

***

"I brought pizza home!" I said, landing in my bedroom. Mom didn't look too happy. "What? I didn't steal it."

"You didn't tell me that you were at the McDonalds that was robbed."

I stuffed a slice of pizza in my mouth. "Sorry," I said, though a full mouth. "I was getting a bite to eat with Tim."

Her eyebrow raised. "Tim?"

"He's a boy who works at the Brigade with me, in the photography department." I grabbed for my camera and held it up. "Which reminds me, I've gotta head out there quick, I've got a lead on a big story that I want to get to Ms. Adamsen."

***

Thankfully, Ms. Adamsen was still there, still working when I arrived. I walked up to her desk and placed both the photos and the tape recorder in front of her. "What's this, Charlie?" she asked.

"You can thank Arachnya for this stuff. I was walking home after work and she grabbed me and told me about a big scoop she had for me. She dropped me off on a roof and had me take pictures while she got Hammond to incriminate himself."

Ms. Adamsen's eyes lit up. "You're joking! That's what's on this tape recorder?"

I shrugged. "I assume. I didn't listen to it."

She stood up and pulled me into the Chief's office. "We're gonna find out now."

***

"MULTI-BILLIONAIRE CHARGED WITH MAFIA TIES!

"By Anna Adamsen

"Thanks to evidence given to the Brigade's news team, multi-billionaire Gustav Hammond was charged with mafia ties, and now sits in city jail until his upcoming trial. The East City Police Department is currently performing a massive investigation of the business giant, who recently moved to East City from the Midwest."

***

I read the single paragraph and set the paper down. "That's all you could write?" I asked Ms. Adamsen.

"No, I wrote plenty, but Barry wouldn't print it all, thanks to that Losvina story that Keith and Timmy were on top of. We pull up this big story about a billionaire with connections to the mob, and we get pushed to one-paragraph sidebar!"

I waved my hands. "It's okay. At least he's behind bars for now."

She leaned back in her seat. "Yeah, but you can bet he's got the best lawyers in the city on his side. He'll be out again, soon, but now he's got the public spotlight on him." She held out her coffee cup. "We're gonna get this guy, kiddo."

I tapped my own coffee cup against hers and then sat back and smiled.