Supernova: Premiere Issue

[imaginarystories]

There was nothing official about Nova City's media district, just a cluster of news sites and traditional media with their offices on the boundary of Downtown and the Novasector tech hub. The centre of the district off Broadway held the headquarters of Nova City TopPod Newsgroup, 24Global, and RENN World, all on the same block. None of them were in the Big Five of news companies, and RENN World and TopPod Newsgroup were both owned by the same media group, but they were conveniently located and had decent reputations in the industry. Journalism student Laurel Jordan decided that was good enough.

She cut thrust about thirty metres above a plaza and let herself drop to the ground, landing next to a fountain shaped like a concrete boomerang. At just over 50 kilos and a velocity of 24 metres per second she didn't hit hard enough to crack the pavement. Laurel still absorbed the impact by flexing her legs a bit, to stay in habit.

She would have thought that dropping out of the empty sky would draw attention, but there were only three people in the plaza and they were all absorbed in their phones. None of the cars going by stopped either.

 

RENN World and TopPod Newsgroup both had their offices in a building that looked a bit like a 1950s movie theatre marquee stretched eight stories tall. A few buildings down stood the headquarters of 24Global, built like the prow of a cruise ship covered in glass. Laurel didn't see anyone going in or out of either building.

It was all very anticlimactic. She kept a burner phone in a small pocket in the back of her belt, along with some cash and a few other items. Wondering if she should try calling someone to let them know she was here, Laurel looked around the plaza to see if she'd been noticed yet.

Yes. Two people were on their phones, one talking quickly while staring at her, the other texting with half a sandwich hanging from her mouth. She walked up to the one who didn't have lunched stuffed in their face, watching the man's eyes go wide as she approached.

"Good morning," she said. It was still morning, yes? Yes. Good, she hadn't embarrassed herself. Yet. "Excuse the interruption, but are you — "

Car brakes screamed behind her. Laurel spun quickly, arms up. The danger wasn't close and it wasn't coming at her. Halfway in the road a crowd of journalists fought traffic, trying to run across the middle of the street. Horns blared and drivers swore. Swearing back or yelling insincere apologies, the crowd continued to push across the road.

Laurel smothered the urge to roll her eyes. That was a habit she'd picked up from Evelyn and Holly, and if she was going to make this secret identity shtick work then she needed to keep things like that hidden.

"Okay," Laurel muttered, her stomach starting to churn. "Let's make this easy on them." She wore zaffre blue tights and a deep chrome red cape, all trimmed with gold — Laurel called the whole look hot rod retro — and you wouldn't think anyone would be able to miss that, but somehow the people in the plaza had needed a moment to spot her. Laurel hopped up onto the edge of the fountain, trying to be as visible as possible.

Traffic had come to an angry halt, with what looked like every employee in two buildings streaming across the street. No need to ask if this bunch was with the media. Half of them had expensive cameras, the rest had digital recorders or phones with conspicuous cameras. No sign of Elsie Bly though.

She'd fought killer robots. She was the next best thing to indestructible. It was ridiculous for her to be sweating now. Keeping her chin up and her breathing steady, Laurel watched as the reporters swarmed towards her. Making sure to keep her voice away from the lower end of its natural range, Laurel greeted the crowd.

"Good af-morning." Leaning into the accent of her mother tongue was easy enough. She let the distinctive tapped-r work itself back into her speech, and the rest followed. "I prepared a speech."