Free Her Hero by Helen McNeil

Chapter 1
     
    Stacy adjusted her seat for the third time. Pump up, down a bit. Just a bit further, she thought a millisecond before the damn thing went too far. With a sigh she let, the too low, seat remain as she stretched and felt her muscles complain.
                  This was her third week at Harper and Son and she was thoroughly bored. Looking around, she made sure no one was passing her little cubicle, tucked away at the far end of the office. Ignoring the smell of the toilets she had been placed next to, she pulled up ‘youtube’ and clicked straight on restore.
                  Smiling Stacy adjusted her skirt. The pencil tight monstrosity was a mistake purchase, she thought, hiking it up so she could scoot closer to her screen. She had bought it on a whim yesterday and now she knew it would be the last time she would wear the torturous thing.
                  With her close proximity to the screen, she could just barely hear the words murmured from the back of her monitor. She was getting more daring she knew as she increased the volume. Once again she scanned the area making sure she was alone.
                  This was what life should be like, Stacy thought while watching enraptured at the scene she had viewed a thousand times before.
                  “Hmm, Smallville or The New Adventures Of Superman?” Her fingers wiggled over the keys as the kissing scene from Spiderman ended.
                  “Have you finished those letters Tracy?” The sound of her supervisors voice sent her heart into her throat but she was a seasoned pro.
                  Clicking the minimizer Stacy had the letters in question displayed, just as the old battle axe rounded the corner.
                  “It’s Stacy.” She corrected but her voice petered out towards the end, noticing her supervisor’s impatient expression. “Just putting the finishing touches on.”  Stacy rushed on.
                  She held her breath as the rotund lady hovered for a moment giving Stacy her, it’s about time, expression. Clicking youtube back up Stacy noticed the related advert at the side and her heart palpitated as anticipation and glee took over. The new superman film ran like a beacon of light across the top of her screen. Searching endlessly she was only momentarily disappointed as the teaser, instead of the much anticipated trailer, popped up. Stacy couldn’t wait for the new film to be released but for now she contented herself with Dean Cain clips.
                  Wrapping the cling film around her half eaten peanut butter sandwich, she put the gelatinous lunch into her Vera Wang knock off and slipped unnoticed from the multi media building. Harper and Son was not the worst place she had ever worked but like all the others it was just a hiatus for her, until she found her true calling. At least that was what she told herself while she headed to the tube station and waited with the masses to go home.
                  Home was an attic room in an apartment shared with like minded people. Like minded, as in they worked during the day at dead end jobs. Kept themselves to themselves in the evening and disappeared at the weekends. Stacy had barely uttered two sentences to the three other occupants in the last month. Brian was some kind of computer geek, as for the other two Claire and Rebecca, well, she didn’t know what they did for a living but they seemed disturbingly similar to herself. Early thirties, single, with a rather nondescript look, she hated to admit.
                  Stacy stood in front of the mirror in her room and wondered if she was made in a lab with Claire and Rebecca. Her hair was a nondescript brown. Her mum had said it was blond, but if it was, then surely her hair was the dirtiest blond ever. Her features, not pretty or ugly, they neither stood out symmetrically or possessed any