Disclaimer: None of this is mine
Spoilers: Sleeper, Arctic, Odyssey
A/N: This actually has nothing to do with Homer's epic, it's just a play on the episode name.
A/N 2: This was originally posted on my blog right after the episode Odyssey first aired and I decided to put it up here too after I set up an account.
"Oliver, I need your help."
"Now's not a very good time Clark." Oliver said into his phone as he turned his head slightly and watched Dinah and AC move into position. Catching a red blur out of the very corner of his eye, Oliver knew Bart had arrived and should now be at his position waiting for the signal from Victor. Waiting for Clark to respond, Oliver hid a grimace at the thought that his team was down a man for the evening's mission. And even though it was only a data raid, they had had to infiltrate a high society charity fundraiser to gain access to the building and Oliver would have felt better having 'Cyborg' and his 'guns' present in the event that something went wrong. But Chloe, though being more than willing to put her hacking skills to use getting 'Deanna Landers' and 'Anthony Curtis' on the guest list, had said she was in the middle of something really important with Clark and so couldn't play Watchtower for them when the time came. And since neither AC nor Bart had the computer skills Victor did--
"It's important Oliver." Clark's voice again, cutting into Oliver's train of thought.
Oliver sighed. "Okay, but make it quick Clark, the mission clock's counting down."
"I think Lex has found a way to control me."
"What?!" In his shock, Oliver had spoken louder than he'd intended causing several heads to turn in his direction. Muttering something about 'the damn score' as an explaination he moved over to an unoccupied corner of the room; Clark continued on as if he hadn't spoken.
"It was my father's way of trying to protect humanity. I don't know what it is, but I still seem to be in control of myself so I don't think he's used it yet. I'm heading up north to try and stop him, but Oliver, I need you to promise me, that if I can't, if the worst should happen, you'll do what you have to to stop me."
"Clark, I..." Oliver felt dazed, the mission forgotten, as just what his friend was asking him sunk in.
"You know how right?"
"Uh, yeah" Oliver answered mechanically. "The meteor rocks."
"Promise me Oliver." Clark's tone brooked no dissension and Oliver sighed his aquiesence.
"Okay Clark, I promise."
The ringing of his cell phone jarred Oliver Queen from his thoughts. He glanced at the number that came up, expecting the head of his legal team calling to give him an update but instead saw Victor's number flash across the screen. He answered on the second ring.
"Queen."
"Hey boss, thought you'd like to know LutherCorp's launched some kind of excavation up north."
"Excavation?" And up north. Oliver added silently. Clark was headed in that direction when he went to confront Lex.
"Yeah, official story is they're looking for some kind of fossilized shellfish for use in medical research but their equipment list doesn't match up with that kind of dig, not to mention the fact that that kind of shellfish was only found in the southern hemisphere. I'm emailing you the details now."
"Good work Victor. Call the guys, er team." Oliver said, correcting himself as he remembered Dinah and how she hated it when he used that generic term when she was included. Victor snorted but said nothing, which Oliver thought was better than Bart or even AC would have done.
"Already done boss. See you in fifteen."
Oliver hit the end button and took a few minutes to skim over the information Victor had just sent him. He steepled his fingers under his chin and let his thoughts drift again as he waited for the guys (some habits just couldn't be broken) to arrive.
The last week had definitely been one of the strangest, and stressful, in recent memory -- and considering his 'side' job, that was saying something. The data raid mission had gone off without a hitch -- despite Clark's interruption and Oliver's subsequent distraction, and the team had been back in the States the next day.
At which point Oliver tried to get a hold of Chloe (to find out just what the hell was going on) only to end up talking to Lois who explained that Chloe had been arrested by the DDS for hacking government databases. (At least Lois was too distracted by that to wonder why he had been calling her cousin in the first place.) For a minute Oliver had been afraid that Chloe's arrest stemmed from something she had done for him, but a quick check with Victor laid that fear to rest. Nothing she had done for them lately would have attracted government attention, meaning it must be related to that mysterious project she and Clark were working on. A project that wasn't quite so mysterious anymore, Oliver thought without any trace of humor. Despite not being responsible for her arrest, Oliver had gotten his army of lawyers mobilized and on her case within an hour of finding out.
When two days had gone by with no word, good or bad, from Clark, Oliver had decided to get Victor to step up his monitoring of LutherCorp activities. And that's how they learned that Lex was also missing. Oliver still wasn't sure if Lex had simply dropped out of sight to get his 'Clark-bot' ready for unveiling or if something else had happened -- to the both of them. This northern excavation that Victor had discovered was their first hint that Lex's people thought something was wrong too.
His team's arrival at that point ended his contemplation. Oliver stood up and came around his desk as they walked into his penthouse's office space. Leaning back against the desk, Oliver crossed his arms over his chest as he regarded them levelly. As usual Bart was the first to speak.
"So what's going on boss?"
Oliver cut right to the chase. "Clark's missing and I think he's in trouble."
"What?!" "How?" "Are you serious?" "What kind of trouble?" Everyone was talking at once but Oliver held up a hand for silence.
"And I think LutherCorp's involved."
Victor nodded in understanding. "That north pole excavation. So are we suiting up to go take out Santa's workshop?"
Confused, AC, Dinah, and Bart looked first to Victor then to Oliver for clarification but Oliver just continued on.
"No, at least, not yet. They just got up there so they probably haven't had time to do much more than verifiy there are no bodies on the surface."
He ignored everyone's shocked look at the mention of bodies and continued speaking. "Going up now would be a waste of our time, not to mention it would tip our hand. We'll keep an eye on them but we'll let them dig in the snow for a while, see if they can come up with anything before we go up there."
"So dude," AC said "what are we doing then? We're not just going to abandon Clark to Lex's people are we?"
"Not at all." Oliver responded. "So here's what we're going to do..."
* * *
"I want my phone call."
Chloe Sullivan spoke those words to the man seated across the table from her. He had walked into the room about five minutes ago, a file folder tucked under his arm, and, except for the guards who had escorted her from her cell to this room, was the first person she had seen in a week. The man stopped his perusal of the folder's contents and looked up at her.
"I'm afraid you won't be making any phone calls today Miss Sullivan." He said in a condesendingly curteous tone.
"Excuse me?!" Chloe said, his condesension setting her off. "Ever hear of a little thing called the Bill of Rights? I know those rights. And I want my phone call; and a lawyer."
"You want to talk about rights Miss Sullivan? What about the government's right to protect confidential information from hackers and terrorists?"
"I'm not a terrorist." Chloe responded. "And as for the hacking charge, I just, sort of, took a wrong turn down the information superhighway."
The agent raised his eyebrows at that. "A wrong turn? And I suppose you just, stumbled into a secure building when you took this wrong turn?"
"I..."
The agent cut her off. "You were caught in the act by Agent, ah" he paused and turned a page in the file he had been looking through, searching for the correct name. "Webber."
Chloe glanced down at the papers as the Agent turned another page and continued speaking to her about her crimes and her lack of rights. She tuned him out though as she stared at a bunch of squiggles and nonsense words that made no sense to her. But then, in less than a moment, something changed, her mind picking up on patterns where she hadn't seen any before, and then--
"Why is my cousing in that file?"
Well that managed to shut him up from going on about her rights, or lack thereof. "What?"
"My cousin, Lois. Why is her name in that file?"
"Your file contains information on all your known associates" the agent said as he flipped the file closed so Chloe wouldn't be able to see any more. "In all likelihood one of them is..." He stopped talking abruptly, a strange look on his face, and Chloe knew she had somehow said something wrong.
"How did you know that?"
"Know what?"
"How did you know this file mentions your cousin? It's written in a shorthand encryption."
"Um, lucky guess?"
The man stared at her for a few minutes, unblinking, as if that was enough to make her crack and confess what she had done. But it wouldn't work because she couldn't explain what she had done, because she honestly didn't know herself. Although she was starting to get a little uneasy about possible doing something he was making out to be impossible. He stood up abruptly, walked over to the door and rapped on it twice. One of the guards opened the door and they spoke in whispers for a minute before the agent walked out of the room. He didn't look back. The guard walked farther into the room, followed closely by the second guard. They stopped in front of the table and the first guard inclined his head slightly in the direction of the door. Chloe stood up, deciding she'd rather take the hint and cooperate rather than take a chance on having them manhandle her back to her cell. They hadn't gotten rough with her, yet, but considering they way they had beat up poor Jimmy when she had been arrested, not to mention the fact that they wouldn't even let her make one phone call, Chloe didn't want to put that to the test.
Back in her cell, Chloe was left alone with her thoughts, as she had been for the last week. The only difference as that she had something new to think about (or worry about) than Jimmy's proposal or Clark's situation. What happened in there? How did I do that? When the guards came back, hours later, she was only just starting to piece together a possible answer.
The same two guards (did they seriously not have any more than those two?) escorted her down the hall to the same room she had been in before but it had undergone a few changes in the meantime. The table that had been in the center of the room had been pushed off to the side and was now covered with what looked like several thousand dollars worth of computer equipment. In the center of the room was a large chair with what looked like a large computer moniter in front of it. Chloe looked around in confusion.
"What's going on? What is all this?"
"Chloe, why don't you have a seat."
Chloe turned at the unexpected voice and saw a new person walking into the room as her guards walked out. He was different from the man she had met here a couple of hours ago. He couldn't, exactly, be called a geek, but there was definitely a different aura about him. While the other agent had seemed almost dangerous, this man seemed as if he was more at home around the computers spread out on the table behind him.
"Are you my lawyer?"
"Lawyer?" He seemed confused for a second. "I'm sorry I thought, ah, Agent Dole had explained you wouldn't be getting a lawyer."
"But my rights --"
"Were forfeit when you hacked into a government database." The man said, his voice suddenly hard. He paused and took a deep breath. When he spoke again, his tone was once again polite and curteous. "But that's not why I'm here. I'm here about that little trick you pulled this morning with that encrypted file. Now it could just be that you were able to read it because you're a hacker and you're used to working with code. But then again, it might not. Can you tell me anything about how you were able to do that?" He paused but Chloe didn't say anything. "Look, cooperating with me on this will only make things easier for you with your hacking charge later."
Chloe sighed. "I honestly don't know. I've never done anything like that before. I, I did have an accident before I was arrested. I lost consciousness and when I woke up, I guess I was like this."
"Hmm."
While they were talking, one of the guards had come back into the room carrying what looked like a first aid kit. Pulling out a cotton swob and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, he started to wipe her temple. Chloe jerked back in surpise and a little fear.
"What are you doing?" The guard didn't answer, he just grabbed her chin to keep her from jerking away again and swobbed at her other temple. That done he applied a couple of medical sensors to her temples.
"Relax Chloe, he's not going to hurt you. We're not going to hurt you. I just want to run a couple of tests. Those are just to see what's going on in your brain during the tests."
"What kind of tests?" Chloe asked hesitently, not really wanting to participate but knowing there wasn't really anything she could do since they had decided to (somewhat politely) force the issue.
"Have you ever played sudoku before?"
* * *
A/N: I couldn't actually think of a really realistic way of how they could find out about Chloe's new power without tipping her off that she was in 33.1. That's why her section came off the way that it did