The Legacy Project

It was an extremely long day of moving furniture and unboxing belongings she boxed up not even an hour ago. The sun was dipping into the lake now, and various windows down throughout the hills lit up, few by few. Lou and Sammy sat curled up in the living room sectional that Lou's father bought her at the beginning of the summer.

Lou browsed through current events and news articles for what felt like hours. Things were boring in the world, especially this summer, Lou thought. "I have no idea what to do for this dumb project, Sam. I'm gonna lose it. I literally don't have it in me to pull a whole 15 page article out of my ass before the semester begins."

"I dunno why you had to pick journalism for your major, honestly. Like, what are you gonna do with that degree?" Sammy jested.

"Okay, I honestly like writing, but like, give me some time to put a good story together at least." Lou explained.

"Bitch, didn't you have a whole summer to finish that shit? Don't give me that 'not enough time' bullshit!"

Lou let out a frustrated sigh. "Okay, fine. I'm sorry I didn't wanna spend my summer break doing schoolwork."

"Damn, Lou, I'm just playin'! Chill out. You gonna find something. You're good at pulling assignments out of your ass. Why you so tense anyways baby girl?" Sammy watched Lou closely, and Lou could feel it.

Another sigh. "I'm sorry... I don't know. I think I'm just weirded out by the fact that neither of us have heard from Claudia, along with other things going on. Stressing about this project, my mom is mad I'm not living at home once again, also I'm pretty sure my period comes this week."

"Hey, I get it," Sammy gave Lou a little squeeze. "Adulting fucking sucks bro. But you don't have to do it alone."

"Thank you Sammy. You're an amazing roommate."

"And," Sammy jumped up and trotted to the kitchen. "I'm a good ass cook. Chicken 'n' potatoes?"

Lou smiled. Sammy made amazing fried chicken and mashed potatoes. "You have no idea how much I missed that."

Lou scrolled down the long feed of stories. She saw a strong, tanned face framed by the longest, straightest dark hair you can imagine. She knew that face.

Koko Ironbear is talked about so much amongst the journalist majors that Lou almost felt like she personally knew her sometimes. Ironbear has done so many undercover stories that the whole globe had almost shut down their media sites. No celebrity or politician was safe from her. She was most famous for her overseas investigations in the years 2019 and 2020, but she's really done all of this for years even after all of the crazy happenings back then.

Lou took a second longer to read the caption, wondering what the sneaky journalist was up to, only to find the dates 01/01/2000-08/14/2036. Lou's mind was blank for a moment, wondering what both of those dates could be. Did she retire, Lou wondered? She clicked on the link. The title: Rest In Power, Koko. Wait... Lou read the title a few times more. Then she read into the article.

"Koko Ironbear was confirmed dead on Thursday night by correspondents in Washington D.C.. Cause of death- brutally beaten and throat cut open. It is suspected she bled to death."

Throat cut. Beaten and bled out. Koko was sort of an idol for Lou, just some aspiration to attempt to live up to. Lou knew she would never rise to her level, but Lou was fine with reaching a comfortable position at best on the journalistic ladder. This was a story that hit close to home— literally and figuratively, as Koko was originally from Fond du Lac which is only 20 minutes away from Duluth.

Lou went on to read more. "This was obviously an intentional murder. Though no prime suspect has been publicly reported, Ironbear's peer who wished to remain anonymous claimed that she was working under cover investigating Congressmen in the Capital at the time. If this is the case, this would have been the late journalist's first domestic undercover investigation."

Lou was dumbfounded. Koko Ironbear spent 16 years overseas calling out the faults of other countries and the criminals in them as the U.S. was on the verge of a civil war back in 2020. She knew that she could distract Americans from fighting each other by baring other nation's sins and secrets which, sadly, brings these citizens together to condemn the rest of the world. Lou understood this well when Koko Ironbear explained this ugly truth in an interview shown in a Humanities class she took in high school.

This being said, Lou was confused as to why she was investigating at our nation's capital. Whatever the late journalist was looking for would do anything but unite Americans. And how ironic that the story she was after that had gotten to her first was on our own soil...

Lou looked up an official obituary for Ironbear without really knowing why, but once it was pulled up she realized she could use this for her project. Lou read through the obituary, writing down names of any relatives that came up and forming a list of questions that she thought would be interesting to ask them. After reading over these questions, Lou saw a theme. She wanted to ask everyone about everything she left behind. She wanted to form and tie together Koko's legacy.

Lou went down the list of family members that she found in the obituary. She started with Koko's brother; no answer. Then her father; phone line disconnected. Her other brother; no answer. Then Lou called her mother. A gravelly yet still feminine voice picked up. "Who's calling?"

"Ms. Ironbear? A...ngeeni Ironbear?"

"It's Angeni. Who are youse." she whined sharply.

"I'm sorry, Angeni. My name is Louise O'Reilly and I'm calling you today to see if you could help me with an article I'm writing on Kok-"

"Bah! I'll be damned if I hear that child's name one more time."

"But..." Lou gaped at Sammy who was staring at her. "she died recently, no?"

"No! She's fucken' lying. That shit funeral was a whole fucken' scam. Go ask her yourself." Angeni raged.

Lou didn't think of anything else other than to end the call there. She hung up, and stared at Sammy as if she would have all of the answers Lou was searching for. She was in shock. Angeni was a whole rollercoaster of emotions that Lou did not want to ride so quickly, as she was just starting to piece together her work. Lou scanned her list of people and list of questions once more. There had to be a way to get her story. She was going to get that story.