Unsupervised

"Ooh, what does this button do?"

It had been decided that Lena and Lois would move their investigations over to L-Corp, across the city because they could use one of the labs, and they would have a lot more privacy to work in, without the prying eyes and ears of a hundred curious journalists watching their every move.

On the way, Lois used the last of the money J'onn had provided to buy a cheap phone - a burner cell - that she could use to make calls without the government agents or anyone else knowing it was her or tracking her calls.

Once at the huge skyscraper building, she and Lena stepped into an elevator, and Lena used a thumb pad to scan her thumb print and grant her access to someplace that was apparently top secret.

Or at least Lois assumed it was - people didn't make a habit of installing fingerprint recognition for no reason, after all.

After a couple of moments of awkward silence whilst they waited for the elevator to ascend, the two women stepped out into some kind of laboratory, or workshop area. Lois was surprised - she'd been assuming Lena would take them to her office and do some technical stuff on an iPad then command other people to do the dirty work for her. But no, this looked like Lena's own personal lab where she did her own hands on work.

This became especially obvious when Lois noticed the desk over in the far corner, near one window that looked out over National City. And judging from the view, Lois guessed they must have been about halfway up the massive skyscraper. Yet another shocker. If Lena was going to have a secret lab that only she could access, Lois was going to have placed it at the top, near her office, for convenience if nothing else.

Crossing the room to the desk, Lois sat herself down in the swivel chair to observe the contents.

The desk itself was a clean stainless-steel design, sleek with rounded edges. The pen holder, stapler, tape dispenser, even the pens were of a matching stainless steel look. All very uniform and downright boring, compared to Kara's myriad of rainbow colors in her desk. Even Lois' haphazard desk at the Daily Planet had more charm than this one did.

It was possible the stationary was all ordered from the same place or as one unit. Also on the desk was a monitor that dwarfed the set up, easily 32" across, but set far enough back that it didn't dwarf the viewer. There were no plants, no family or friends photos, and the only mug was plain and black, sitting on a matching silver drink warmer that was powered off. The entire scene would have been without any touch of mirth or whimsy except for the dotting of gadgets off to one side. These stuck out like a sore thumb, and Lois was immediately drawn to them. There was a Rubik's cube, all six sides solved, an abacus, a 3-D star-shape puzzle made up of interlocking pieces of wood, a robot that stood about eight inches tall, a miniature wooden catapult, a small bust of Albert Einstein with paperclips on his head like hair, and a miniature Supergirl figurine floating maybe half inch above its base. Lois picked up the star and turned it over a few times, quickly dropping the pieces as it fell apart in her hands. Brushing them to one side, she slid a few beads of the abacus about, poked Einstein's nose, waved a hand under the Supergirl figurine to try and work out how it was floating, then took the Rubik's cube, as Lena finally came over.

"You're in my seat," she said haughtily, one eyebrow rising as she made a shooing motion with one hand. Lois evacuated the seat but took the Rubik's cube and Einstein with her. Lena rolled her eyes.

"Put them back."

"I'm just looking," Lois replied, turning her back on Lena. As Lena flicked on the monitor and brought her PC to life, Lois set the Einstein back on the desk, minus the paperclips. Then she set the cube back beside him, completely muddled and in no sense of order at all. She hadn't even attempted to make any kind of pattern.