Lauren hung up the phone for the 47th time. Three more, she told herself. Then I can take another break. She was bribing herself to keep this up the way she always did with the tedious parts of her job. The odds were good that she would get nowhere with this. One time, she had spent two days talking to every building contractor in the city willing to answer the phone trying to get a lead, with no results.

She flipped to the next entry in the phone book, read the ad twice, and dialed.

“Good evening, Lisa.”

Lauren blinked. “Uh, my name isn't Lisa.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Is it Laura?”

“It's Lauren, actually.”

“Ah. Almost. Sorry. What can I do for you?”

“Is this—?”

“Cassandra Starbow, yes. You seem tense. Do you need a minute?”

Lauren blinked hard and deliberately. We've got a live one, folks. “I'm fine, thank you. I'm calling to inquire about your powers. Do they work over the phone?”

“No, only over cable modems.”

Lauren barely managed to keep from snorting with laughter.

“Perhaps if you told me what you need, dear.”

But you were doing so well, Lauren thought amusedly. She cleared her throat. “Well, to be quite blunt, I'm looking for the most powerful psychics I can find. Would you consider yourself a skilled psychic, Ms. Starbow?”

“Well, those are two different questions, now, aren't they? Am I powerful? No, I wouldn't say that I have any great power. But do I have skill? I think I do. So do my clients. But what powers or skills do you need, Lauren?”

“I'm actually looking for information.”

“Well, then, there are many people who can help you. What kind of information?”

“What time?” Lauren concentrated.

“Ah.” There was a pause. “My dear, I'm terribly sorry, but I can rarely read minds and it doesn't work on demand.”

Lauren sighed. Another dry well. An entertaining dry well, but still. “Well, then, thank you for your—”

“I wasn't finished.” Something in her tone made Lauren pause despite her skepticism. “You asked for a time, not a random number. Was it a request, or just a test, I wonder? No matter. The time you are asking for is 3:41 p.m. this afternoon.”

Lauren froze.

“I presume that I just answered the question I thought I was answering.”

“Um.” Lauren blinked, stared at her notes, gathered her thoughts. “What can you tell me about what happened at that time?”

“Not much, I'm afraid. I had a moment of dizziness. There was a sensation I call ‘mind wind’, though that likely means nothing to you. It was a strong sensation, as if the world were changing around me. I've felt it before, but never as strongly as today.”

Lauren wrote down the words mind wind and asked, “And what did you do?”

“I did what I could—again, hard to describe to one who is not a practitioner of the Art. I noted down the time and the sensations in my psychic diary when next I had a moment, and checked with my friends.”

“Your friends are also psychics?”

“Not professionally, in most cases, but yes. Some of them felt the same thing. Some did not.”

“Ms. Starbow, could I make an appointment to come see you tonight or tomorrow?”

“Will you be in a professional capacity?”

Lauren sat up straighter. “Excuse me?”

“You're investigating what happened. That means you're either a scientist, a reporter, a psychic, or a debunker. You feel like a skeptic to me, so I'm guessing you don't have the Gift, but I don't feel hunted, so you're not a debunker. So which are you, Lauren?”

“Does it matter?”

“If you're just going to pick my brains and leave, then you can pay for the privilege of my time like anyone else. My rates are $80/hour and my next free appointment is two weeks from Thursday.”

Lauren paused, wary. “What do you want?”

“For heaven's sake, Lauren! I want what you want! I want to know what happened this afternoon, and if you have information, I want you to share it with me.”

“I'm a reporter, Ms. Starbow. I've been calling dozens of psychics, looking for the most talented ones I could find, because I thought magic might be involved in what's going on with the Superman story.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“You mean you're trying to find the real ones among the fakers and charlatans. Lauren, dear, I don't know what the Superman story is, but I'd be delighted if you would fill me in.”

Lauren raised an eyebrow, and smiled. “Very well, Ms. Starbow.”

“Oh, call me Cassandra.”

⛉ s ⛉

Clark found that he couldn't speed read this, not with comprehension, anyway. Every page or two he would have to stop and absorb some new shock or strain to his expectations. One doesn't speed read one's own fictionalized biography. So he bought several comic books and collections that seemed the most accurate to examine later when he was in a better mood. Besides, he needed the writing and publishing information.

Outside again, he took a deep breath. That was disturbing. He headed over to Harvard University, where he found that the libraries were not open to the public. Clark tried using persuasiveness and charm to get a few minutes at their computers, but all his skills as an investigative reporter came to naught against the librarian guarding the entrance. He approached a few students, but they all seemed highly suspicious of him for asking a favor. People didn't seem to be as trusting here as they were back home, and given Metropolis, that was saying something.

Eventually, he found his way to the local public library, which gave him some information but not all that he hoped for. He needed a university library, and found that the MIT libraries were open to the public. Shortly thereafter, he was examining their shelves and discovering that their occult section was nigh unto nonexistent. What was there did seem to somewhat resemble a few of the shelves in Murray Goldberg's apartment, so Clark decided to speed read a bit and get a feel for the topic.

Next, he hit the computers and searched for Goldberg. He found several philosophical articles written by the man, and read them all carefully. They were difficult to follow, and didn't quite seem pertinent to his predicament. Clark made copies and took them with him, anyway.

Then he ran errands, establishing an identity. A Post Office Box gave him an address in Boston. The purchase of a cell phone took longer, especially as he left briefly to stop a nearby mugging and had to go to the back of the line again. With contact information, he left a rush order for some business cards. At this point, the shops were closing, so there was little else he could do about his predicament today.

“Calvin Ellis” checked into a hotel in Boston, making sure that the room had windows that could be opened onto an alley. He changed, left his suitcase, notes, and suit there, and flew out to run the other kind of errands for a while.

⛉ s ⛉

Lauren leaned back in her chair, tea still untasted. Cassandra sat across from her, lips pursed, staring off into space, whether trying to pick up celestial vibrations or simply thinking hard Lauren couldn't tell. Neither spoke while the psychic absorbed what Lauren had told her. The reporter glanced around at the gaudy drapes, candles, and paraphernalia set out for show in this warm, dimly lit room. She could imagine the lovelorn sitting where she was now, asking for advice, and based on what she had seen of the woman so far, she was guessing that the psychic was primarily a counselor or therapist to many of her clients.

“There are two sources.”

Lauren blinked and looked over at Cassandra, who was sitting up and looking more alert now. “I'm sorry, I don't follow you.”

“There are two magical sources for what I'm sensing. One has been moving around, varying in strength during the day; I think it is Superman. The other is stationary, strong, and far to the east. I think somewhere near Boston. When it began, the two were together, and you say Superman was in Boston then, saving the airliner. I think he is there now.”

“You can tell where he is?”

Cassandra smiled, looking a bit surprised at herself. “You know, I think I actually can.” She set down her own cup and placed her palms flat against the table. “This is a very exciting and unusual day for me, you know. I haven't ever felt anything this strongly, this clearly, before. I actually want to try this, see whether I'm right…It's so rare that I get confirmation. I have to go on faith, faint impressions, sifting meaning out of vague feelings and intermittent perceptions. I haven't been in the position before of being able to do something simple, straightforward, and reliably enough to make it obvious to a skeptic that I'm not faking anything. I want to thank you, for telling me what it was that I've been feeling all day. Everything you've tracked makes sense with what I've felt.”

“What about this other source?”

“As I said, it is strong, and near him now. Far to the east, presumably in Boston. I don't know what it might be.”

“Can you describe the sensation? Give me any idea?”

Cassandra paused, sighed as if being handed an impossible assignment, but closed her eyes. “You won't have words for this. I'll try to translate.” Lauren leaned forward to listen more closely.

“Do you ever get the feeling you're being watched, but no one is there?”

“Sure, sometimes. It happens to most people.”

“Did you ever get the feeling that some thing was nearby that you couldn't see or hear? A sense of a presence you couldn't explain?”

“Not really.”

“Well, try to imagine it. Imagine having a faint, dim sense, like being nearly blind or nearly deaf, only being able to see colored blurs or hear only a few notes if they were very loud. Imagine having that, but only when you concentrate in a particular way, or in odd moments of chance. As if you ignored your vision as useless most of the time, because it was so bad, and occasionally a bright flash would get your attention. You still wouldn't know what it was, just that it was there, and possibly a sense of direction.”

“Okay.”

“That is what the Art is like for me. Only occasionally do I get anything clear. But because I have trained myself to listen, to look, to sense whenever I can, my life is filled with faint impressions drifting through my rooms, through my days, through my life. Most of them make no sense. Many of them make sense to me too late. Sometimes, by luck and perception and careful analysis, I understand what I am sensing, enough to give advice, to see the Path. My clients know this, by the way. The Art only gives me serious material help one time in ten.

“I'll get feelings of danger, or love, or accomplishment, or fear, perhaps with part of an image or impression of size or color, or cold or dampness. When I use Tarot cards, or tea leaves, I'm pulling out patterns for comparison, not reading the tools themselves. The sensations in my mind are the real knowledge.”

Lauren digested this. “And the second source? The stationary one? What do you sense from that?”

Cassandra seemed to consider, or listen, then shrugged. “I sense…everything. I sense chaos. A powerful jumble that changes constantly. A…a world in a nutshell.” She shook her head. “I don't know. I can't make any sense of it yet.” She stood slowly. “Lauren, I have to make some phone calls.”

“To whom?”

“My clients. I'm canceling all of my appointments for the next two days.”

Lauren was startled. “Why?”

Cassandra raised her eyebrows as if she thought that that was a silly question. “I'm flying with you to Boston in the morning.”

Lauren was amazed by the presumption. “What makes you think that I'm…?”

Cassandra simply stared at her, daring her to finish the sentence. Lauren considered, and realized that she was at least going to try to talk Ryan into letting her fly out there.

“Give me a little credit, Lauren. I hardly need psychic abilities for that.”