Chapter Three - Evasion
I'd made deals before with LuthorCorp representatives.
Not as much with Lex, at least nothing I thought was shady. Lionel needed to be brought to justice, and I think all three of us-Clark included-realized that someone who murdered their own parents needed to pay for it. Again, Oliver, the legal way. You can't just go around blowing people up. I mean, you can, but that definitely makes you just as bad as Lionel and Lex.
The last time I'd made a true deal with a LuthorCorp scion, it was back after everything had happened with Clark and Lana in the loft. I was young and petty and stupid, and I folded bad to everything Lionel was offering me. I'm still ashamed of it, and that's a big reason I sit on so many stories. Don't get me wrong, I've died for Clark, even if it was only eighteen hours. I was willing to run away with a monster. Still, every time I was ever tempted to write about things like the Green Arrow and what I knew, I thought back to how much I hated myself after the Lionel deal and how I never want to be that greedy or underhanded again.
I've made a ton of mistakes in the five years since, but betraying my friends and allies wouldn't be one of them ever again.
Still, sitting there in Tess's office in The Daily Planet, I couldn't help the flashbacks to my biggest mistake, at least the biggest one I'd made until I harbored Davis. It felt so similar. She even had that smug look on her face that Lionel had worn, that gloat that screamed "I've won."
Clark would kill me when he got back, but he'd be back. That was what I had to keep focusing on.
"So," she said, sitting down at her desk and offering me a glass of water. I declined; who knew what she put in it. "Here we are."
"You could act less happy about all of this."
Tess shrugged and pulled the glass back towards her. "Look, it's like what I told Clark a couple weeks ago and even before that with the plane crash. It's not like I didn't know about Veritas. Lionel's journals allowed for that much as well as Lex's own records in his last year in Smallville. It's also not as if Clark's been discreet."
I frowned back at her. "Did you bug the basement?"
"No, but I can do the math. Big emergencies happen and he's conveniently gone until they're over. Jimmy Olsen had a theory going too, even if he couldn't prove it. I'm not stupid, Chloe."
"But you never bugged anything."
"After I found out about Lex using me as his eyes and ears without my permission, I'd hardly do that to someone else. I just wanted you or Clark to come to me."
"Because, what, you want him to be a savior or something?"
"Because, only a complete idiot like your cousin wouldn't put the pieces together and figure out what he can do. I didn't want to force the proof out of anyone. Trust only works if you offer the olive branch and wait."
"I don't know how much I can believe you."
She shrugged and drummed long nails on the desk top. "Clark hasn't reported to work for a month. I had to fire him two weeks ago, which we both know isn't like him. If he could be here, he would be."
"True."
"He hasn't been visiting his mom in D.C. There'd at least be a few small bits in the Post about that, a few pics of him at fundraisers especially with her immigration work."
"Maybe."
"You wouldn't be here if you had any other option, so spill, Chloe. I can't help you if I have no idea what I'm up against."
I sighed and paused for a minute, remembering clearly when Clark had told me everything in the arctic. I promised him then that I understood how loose lips sunk ships.
"I do have other appointments."
"Not like this. I...fine, I said almost as much on the phone. Clark's the Traveler Veritas was looking for. He was sent away from the planet he was born on, Krypton, because they had a war there and they ended up destroying himself. The Kents found him and reared him. Hell, they didn't even tell him about any of it until Lex hit him with his Porsche freshman year."
Tess leaned across her desk and focused her sharp attention on me. I figured that was as close as I'd get to her tells. Lex had trained her well before he'd been lost in the arctic and then ill.
"Thank you. That helps fill in the blanks. Lionel had some facts, but he didn't include the name or the fact it was completely gone. So Kara too?"
"That's a bit more complicated. Stasis and malfunctioning ships, but yeah, she's biologically his cousin. This is going to sound nuts."
"Nothing does anymore."
"But she's off looking for any possible remains of the planet or surviving colonies. She's not available because she's off-world."
Tess's eyes glittered at that. "So she can fly? Can Clark?"
"He wishes he could," I replied, shaking my head despite the seriousness of the situation. "He's crap at it. Kara tried to teach him, and she couldn't do anything about it."
"See then he needs help. Encouragement."
I bristled at that. Tess had a spotty record at best, and was at best stained grey if not a full out black hat. Encouragement was my department, even if I'd been distracted with my infection, memory loss, and then Davis's bullshit. I'd fallen down on my job this year, but I was trying to make up for it the only way I knew how.
"Mrs. Kent and I do the best we can. I guess Lionel and Lana did too before they left. I can explain the little details later."
"is that your way of diverting from the full disclosure. Hoping that I'll take the barest tidbits and let it lie?"
Actually, I hoped that to an extent. I wasn't so desperate that I'd gone crazy or naive. There was no way I'd ever explain about the caves or about the Fortress. Tess could never know it existed. Hell, with the way it collapsed on Lex and had tried to freeze me to death, Jor-El wasn't exactly fond of humans anyway. Even if Tess found it on her own some day, I doubted it would do anything more than try and kill her.
Small consolations.
"No, I just feel there are some things that are more relevant than others right now. This is the important part and why I was hoping you might have artifacts left over from Lex or geniuses on your payroll."
"Because?"
"Because Clark's biological father created this prison dimension called the Phantom Zone. Clark had a way to access it with a crystal he took with him," I was willing to hedge that much. "So he has the only way out, but I need to help him. I need to find a way in and he doesn't have any other crystals or artifacts left in his possessions that can open it again."
"Prison dimension?"
"I guess his father thought exile to a desert wasteland was better than the death penalty. Personally, I think that's debatable. I just have tried all my resources and research for a month, and I've gotten nothing."
"Well Clark's, obviously, extraordinary. He should figure his own way out. There's hardly anything out there as strong."
"Usually, sure, but the Zone takes his powers away. He's mortal there and the longer he stays, the better his chances run of bumping into prisoners with an axe to grind against his birth father and are more than happy to take it out on him."
"How would they know?"
"They always seem to. He had a run in with the Zone twice before, and it never goes well. Prisoners escape. It's why I'm worried he won't even try to leave. The aliens there are the worst things you can imagine from all over the universe. His screwed up sense of honor might just leave him there."
"That's a waste," she said, disdain clear in her voice.
I nodded. "Now you're seeing it my way."
Five months.
Four months of working with Tess and dodging her incessant questions. There were things I was never going to be dumb enough to explain, like the Fortress or his weaknesses. I don't know if Tess would believe me anyway about magic, but she surely had more than enough access to different types of Kryptonite. I had no doubt that Lex had at least the red and green in his possession, possibly black from earlier experiments.
No, she got what I gave her, and I hoped her own curiosity never put together the other holes in the story, about times when Clark seemed able to be injured.
Still, while I thought that four months of working with her technology and also of pouring through Lex and Lionel's records would help, I'd been wrong. We were no closer to narrowing in on any way to get into the Zone than I'd been the first day yelling at J'onn.
Why did Clark have to be so damn stubborn? All he had to do was get to the portal and open it. I knew that time moved differently there, but this was too long. If he had decided to be a full martyr like Kara, then he'd have a lot of explaining to do with me and Mrs. Kent, when he returned.
I wouldn't let my mind dwell beyond that.
I wouldn't let myself assume that the Beast had found him or some other prisoner and made short work of him. That wasn't possible. Clark was stronger and more resourceful than that, even without his powers.
He'd come back to me. It was what he did.
My cell rang while I was working on some of my case files. Tess was slaving away on the problem this afternoon. I'd swing by LuthorCorp today at five to stare at useless printouts. I wish that whatever bits of knowledge had been left to me by Brainiac that they'd help. It had the first time, but I had no idea how to open anything, especially without any crystals to do it.
I sighed when I read the caller I.D.
Mrs. Kent
Perfect.
"Hi, Mrs. Kent," I said, feeling like a jerk for having lied to her for four months. She didn't know I'd gone to Tess, and I didn't want her to know that either. "How are you?"
The voice at the other end of the line was hesitant and haggard. "Long days. I almost have enough votes for everything to pass, but it's been an uphill battle. Besides, I'm not sleeping well."
"I can imagine."
"Are you sleeping, Chloe? I know you've been trying to work with J'onn to figure something out, but I know you also tend to run on coffee and the occasional muffin if no one looks after you."
Translation: Clark looked after me as much as I looked after him.
"I'm fine."
"And the last meal you had?"
"I think I had a nutrigrain bar for lunch?"
"You should visit me more. I know a certain speedster who'd be happy to get you out here."
"Bart?"
"Yeah, he visits weekly. I think he feels bad for me...and loves pie." There was a small bit of relief there, a bit of cheekiness that I never heard from her in other calls. Mrs. Kent had always been good at taking in orphans, hadn't she? "Come out this weekend. You can't work forever to solve this problem, not 24/7. Everyone has to crash some time."
"I can crash when he's home. You never know what evil will hit Metropolis next, and the Zone's the worst. I can't leave him."
"I know, but you can't help if you burn yourself out. You're only human now with Brainiac out of you."
"He's counting on me, and I let him down with all the Beast stuff."
"No, you didn't. You tried to protect him. Maybe you didn't do it the right way, but I've been there. Some days I think things would have gone better for him if we'd eased him into his heritage, told him before he had such a dramatic example. I don't know, but I do know what it's like to protect him so hard it backfires, believe me."
I laughed, and it was a shrill, bitter sound. "Backfire" was an understatement.
"Chloe?"
"I'm fine. I'll come out soon, I promise. I just need a bit more time."
"Alright but you know I'll check in tomorrow."
"I wouldn't expect anything less, but I have to go right now."
"Chloe-"
I clicked my phone off. Mrs. Kent's tone had changed lately. It was still sad, still labored, but it was resigned too as if Clark would come back or he wouldn't. If I listened to her too long, I might lose what resolve I had left. I wouldn't allow that so it was better to sometimes let my phone ring and pretend that I was busy with clients.
Sighing, I started organizing my files back into the heinous pink file cabinets that Lana'd picked out. Where anyone could even get that, I'd never know. My phone rang again, and I flinched. I didn't need a motherly lecture from Clark's mom, not now.
"Mrs. Kent, really, I'm fine."
"Chloe, I found something, and it's not what you think," Tess said, her tone terse. "Get to the penthouse and I'll show you what I have."
It was times like this I wish I had Clark and Bart's speed.
**
"Craters?" I asked, looking at the readouts.
Tess nodded. "I cross referenced. It's like the same indentations that happened around the world after Dark Thursday. You said that's when Clark was sucked in the first time."
"Yeah, and the craters each had a different phantom in them and the one in Smallville was Clark."
"We have five. There's one in the Outback, one in England near Cardiff, one in Tanzania, one in northern Canada and the final one's in Peru, outside of Lake Titicaca."
I closed my eyes and chased the fear and nausea away. Clark was back, and I was glad, but it meant we had Zoners again to hunt down. Considering the mess they'd made all over, especially Bizarro, that would be a dangerous set of criminals to catch. He'd beat himself up over it too, considering that was what Clark was best at.
By far.
"So is there a way to tell which one is Clark?"
Tess started pouring over her stacks of paper readouts. "The signals are all the same and only happened within the last hour. My satellites went nuts processing them. Your guess is as good as mine. Was anything different about where he landed post Dark Thursday?"
"Not that I know of, and-"
My phone rang and this time it belted out the chorus to "Here I Come to Save the Day."
Tess smirked at my choice of ring tone. "Mighty Mouse? So tongue-in-cheek, Chloe."
I narrowed my eyes at her as I clicked on my phone. "God, you're late!"
"I'm glad you can mock my punctuality," he said, and I tried to ignore how badly he was wheezing. His words were labored and hsi voice sounded almost thick and gurgly, like he was fighting off congestion. Stupid fucking Phantom Zone. it always messed with him. "Uh, Chloe, can you talk to Oliver. I might need a ride home."
"Powers out?"
"Yeah, I think my cold's not cooperating. So, how do you feel about coming to South America?"
**
