Chapter 09 – "Breaking and Entering"

Lois was considerably more talkative on the drive back to town. She seemed relieved to have escaped that awkward dinner. Clark felt sorry to burst her bubble again, but he felt the need to urge caution. He began, "about the folder on Griffith…", and Lois immediately put on a grim face.

"Like I said, enough to make him look bad, but not enough to connect him to the Oliver Queen story."

"But the blueprints of his office?"

"Well, Elaine knows this is the real deal, and we know it, but will the police believe that we did not simply shuffle incriminating evidence in there ourselves?" It was obviously a rhetorical question. "Not a chance. The fact that Elaine has to meet me in a back alley is telling."

Clark looked worried. "I.. I don't think breaking into his office will improve matters, Lois."

"Oh, come on, Clark! We're already on the way and now you tell me? Besides, it's not like we're just walking up to the GyroCorp Metropolis branch. Here, take a left, we're going to East Metropolis."

Clark managed to change lanes just in time, and glared at her, annoyed. "You couldn't have told me the details earlier? Where are we going then?"

"According to Elaine's files, there is an office rented to a Griffith subsidiary in an otherwise conspicuously unimportant building down there," Lois said and rifled through the envelope in her bag. "It isn't specified as fulfilling any kind of purpose in the company - it's not even public for what reason it has been rented in the first place. Electronic equipment and many boxes found their way there, though. Still not interested?"

Clark allowed himself a smile. "Well, L-Lois, I guess that does sound like it might be a screen for something. But remember," he added quickly, "it might just be another of Griffith's shady dealings and have nothing to do with Oliver after all."

"Right, of course," she said absent-mindedly. And then, rather quietly to the window, "We've got to do something!"

Clark knew exactly what she meant. He wanted to see the place for himself, but not to see whether there was any further connection between Griffith and Oliver Queen – that was obvious. He rather worried that they might find proof of the connection between Queen and the Green Arrow.

After another twenty minutes or so, they parked Lois' car in a random backstreet and walked the rest of the way. Clark shot her a quick warning glance. "Lois, at the first sign of trouble, we're out of there, you hear me?"

"Oh shush. They're hardly gonna have hundreds of guards securing an 'unimportant building', are they?"

"No, but cameras, locks and… you don't know how many guards as well," Clark finished lamely.

"Cameras can be turned off, and you know I'm quite handy with locks; we'll just have to be sneaky about the guards."

Clark was once more fascinated by her brazen disregard for her own safety where a story was concerned. In this case, he guessed that she was also trying to avoid thinking of other things. As they made their way through dark, dank alleys, he felt a terrible sense of foreboding. What are we doing here? We should be looking for Lex Luthor. Or looking after Jason. Or talk, to begin with. There's trouble ahead, and we're chasing after some businessman. Oliver can take care of himself, can't he? Where was he when they risked their safety and probably their careers on his behalf?

But just as he was about to say something, his phone notified him of a message. From Oliver – think of the devil:

will be there tonight, take care

So he was not doing nothing, after all, Clark thought. Lois eyed his phone. Clark quickly stuffed it back in his pocket and smiled. Ollie and him had fought back to back before, and while they had not always agreed on everything, he considered the Green Arrow one of his closest friends and allies. Covering for each other had often meant avoiding exposure in the past, and it would prevent Clark from having to do any unnecessary stunts tonight. Or so he hoped.

"Here we are." Lois stopped in an alleyway and turned towards a fire escape. "This way," she said and began to climb before Clark could protest. He looked left and right and made to follow her, listening intently.

He could hear a few people inside the building, walking steadily. There were a few computers running, a cat on the roof… but it was otherwise quiet. On the second storey, Lois stopped and stepped onto the landing. She began to rummage through her pockets, for lockpicks, Clark surmised. As her back was turned, he glanced through the door. The security guard for this floor was in a room on the other side of the building. A quick heat burst from Clark's eyes took care of the lock. He smirked and tried the handle. "Lois, look, I think the door wasn't locked!"

"What?" She turned, looking a little indignant. But Clark preferred this to go down as quickly as possible. If Lois couldn't use her mad lockpicking skills she'd just have to get over it.

"W-what a stroke of luck, eh?"

She slid stealthily into the corridor and Clark followed. He checked again where the guard was. His heartbeat was still a few rooms away.

"Clark! What are you standing around for, come on!" Lois hissed. She sneaked on to the first door on her left. But Clark grabbed her shoulder and shook his head. His behaviour was becoming suspiscious, he wagered, but their safety was paramount. He would not follow Lois through every single room until they found what they were looking for!

"Why don't we try a room more towards the, um, inside of the building," he ventured.

Lois raised an eyebrow.

"W-well, you know, the sensitive files or whatever…" he trailed off.

"Whatever, Smallville, lead the way," she said rather sarcastically. "I, of course, would prefer going through this systematically, but if you have a hunch, Clark…"

He just smiled and led the way. She seemed somewhat flabberghasted with his nonchalance. She was right, though, it was only a hunch. But in his thorough x-ray sweep of the building, he had noticed a room with rather large monitors in them – and experience showed that the rooms that have giant monitors in them tend to be important. As they softly tip-toed through the narrow corridors, Clark tried to steer them away as much as he could from the one security guard. It was baffling, really, but Lois had been right – the place hardly looked like it was important at all. On a few corners, there were cameras, and Clark ripped off their cables as quietly as possible. He made a quick wish that whomever was watching these feeds was either tired or did not take their job seriously enough to go checking on faulty cameras in the middle of the night.

Before they reached the computer room, Lois took a detour into an office. At first, Clark was going to protest, but in the light of her torch he quickly saw what she had noticed: it was large, and contained a rather expensive-looking desk and a safe. This was the big one, if anything. Lois triumphantly pulled out her lockpicks again and went for the desk. Clark quickly listened for the guard, then glanced around the room. The safe in the wall drew his attention. He walked behind the desk where Lois was kneeling and had a closer look. As far as he could tell, there was nothing but a folder in there. It looked thick and stuffed to the brim. He examined the lock, then leaned his head against the safe and began to turn it slowly…

He looked up when he heard a suppressed giggle. Lois looked at him from the floor.

"So what, you gonna crack that safe now? Earlier you didn't even want to come here, and now you're Arsene Lupin?" she whispered.

Suddenly, her fiddling finally produced the desired 'click', and she pulled open the drawer, smiling gleefully. Clark continued turning the lock until he, too, heard a faint latching sound. Lois rifled through a few folders and gave a little desperate sigh. "Not much here, just travel cost sheets, holiday pictures, that sort of thing."

"Holiday pictures?" Clark whispered. "That seems…unlikely."

"Take a look!"

True enough, there were what looked like airline flight schedules, cost tables, and, strangely, pictures of a beautiful beach with palm trees. Lois stuffed them back and continued her search. She was apparently more successful, and pocketed a few documents without so much as a guilty look on her face. She was already rummaging through the rest of the office when Clark finally let out a little sigh and opened the safe on the last faint clicking sound. Lois stared at him, in what he allowed himself to believe was awe. She stood up and shook her head, bemused. "Clark… after all these years, you still manage to surprise me..." He couldn't do stunts like this too often, he realised. He quickly jerked his head forward to bang it 'accidentally' on the safe door just to be sure. "…or not!" Lois finished and peeked into the safe. Clark pulled out the folder, but before he could open it, his hearing picked up the guard's footsteps, coming closer.

"Ooh, that looks significant. Let's have a…" – "SHH," he managed and softly closed the safe. They ducked behind the desk. Lois immediately switched off her torch and was listening intently. She shook her head, frowning; naturally, she didn't hear anything. When she peeked around the desk, Clark flicked through the folder. His heart beat a little faster. Bingo. He closed it again quickly. Now he only needed to find a way to keep this folder from his partner's curious eyes… Christ, how would he ever convince her that this folder wasn't worth her attention when it clearly was?

Well, first they needed to hide, in case the guard actually checked the inside of the rooms. Clark quickly sneaked behind the door to the corridor, beckoning Lois to follow. She spotted something on the desk and pocketed it before joining him. "How can you…" – "SHH," he went again, and grabbed her hand involuntarily. Lois gave him an even more annoyed look than before. Then she suddenly tensed. The footsteps were coming closer, she heard them too.

They stood behind the door, Clark clutching the folder and her hand, Lois' and his shallow breathing the only sounds. He saw through the wall how slowly the guy moved along the corridor. Every second seemed excruciatingly long. What if the guard just decided to look in? And bumped the door right into two burglars? In his mind, he went through several possibilities of how to get them out of there. All of them ended with him revealing himself, again… He glanced down at Lois. He could just make her out in the faint gleam of light coming through the cracks of the door. She looked up now, and pulled a face. He smiled back, and for a moment, he felt he could not care less about security guards or folders or billionaires… Her grimace disappeared and was replaced by a certain wondering frown once again. The guard's footsteps moved slowly past the door. They both almost held their breaths now. Clark felt himself stare at her, not daring to move. He could hear her heartbeat in the stillness. Her eyes were obscured in the dark, but she looked like she was trying to remember... and for one second, he did not even care if she finally put the pieces together.

The faint light grew fainter still as the guard moved around the next corner. Lois finally broke eye contact and let out her breath. She opened the door as slowly as possible and they both left the office. Clark made for the fire escape. Lois pulled on his sleeve and nodded in the other direction. He was going to protest, but she was already off. Really, wasn't it enough to get almost caught once in one night? He hastened after her. One picked lock and disabled camera later, they had found their way to the largest room. It was almost square and filled with humming server towers, many strings of cables, and a few very high-tech looking computers. Chloe would absolutely love this, Clark thought. Shame, really, that she wasn't there – she would have been really into breaking and entering, too. He was beginning to wonder about his choice of friends, and smiled slightly to himself. As Lois began fiddling with the security, Clark listened in on the security guard again. But another sound mixed into his perception range: leather boots on a roof, and something that sounded suspiciously like the twang of a bowstring.

Lois hit a security lock in her first hacking attempts. As far as Clark was aware, Lois was a great reporter, a decent burglar, and a passable computer user. What she was not, however, was a hacker. Instead, she triumphantly pulled out the small object she had picked up in the office. It was a USB stick. She plugged it in, and waited. Clark grinned a little. "Honestly, if this works..."

She looked over her shoulder. "Why shouldn't it?"

"Well, who just leaves important things lying around?!"

"Maybe Griffith's just messy," she said.

The resulting beep nearly made him jump. "A-Ha!" Lois whispered exitedly. "This is just too good to be true."

Apparently, the stick had actually disabled the security lock. Lois pulled out her own flash drive and began copying whatever she came across. Meanwhile, Clark bent over one of the filing cabinets, away from her. He began carefully looking through the thick folder again. It contained, flight schedules, some cost tables, newspaper clippings, and, most of all, photographs. This time, however, they were a little more to the point: Green Arrow on a roof, fighting, sustaining a few blows. Injuries on Oliver's face which were officially dubbed the result of bar fights. Oliver Queen, in shady parts of town, looking tired. Close-ups of Green Arrow's face, next to Oliver's. Clark first thought he was just biased, since he knew the truth, but a few of them were just too obvious to ignore. Eventually Clark had to concede that this folder left no doubt as to the identity of the Green Arrow.

Clark quickly bound up the folder again and furiously tried to think of a way to keep this from Lois – would he 'accidentally' drop it in the trash? No, it would pobably be found, and the 'proof' still in Griffith's hands. Could he seriously pretend to be so stupid that he lost it? He was spared further musings by Lois' rather loud "Yes!". It seemed she was finished. Clark x-rayed the corridors. They still had a few minutes before the guard came this way again. He turned to her, "Now can we get out of here?"

She demonstratively stuffed the two sticks back into her bag and gestured. "Lead the way!"

They stepped into the corridor. Clark checked behind them turned a corner, and rain straight into Lois. She stood rooted to the spot, since they now found themselves face-to-face with a hooded figure, bow and arrow in hand.

"Good evening," he said in his dark, manipulated voice. Clark thought he saw Oliver smirk. Directly over his head was the open grate of a ventilation shaft.

Lois overcame her surprise and stepped closer to the newcomer. "You're a little late. We were just leaving."

Suddenly, Clark heard steps in the corridors. Light flickered on the wall. Green Arrow raised his bow, arrow notched. Clark inhaled sharply. For a second, it took him a great amount of willpower not to superspeed in front of the shots. In quick succession, two arrows hit their targets with a soft *thud*.

Lois and Clark wheeled around. Two security guards lay on the floor – only unconscious, Clark hoped. So the meddling with the cameras didn't go as unnoticed as he had hoped.

"What the hell?!" Lois hissed.

"I assure you, Miss Lane, they will merely get mild headaches. Now, what are two intrepid reporters doing in a place like this at this hour?" His mocking voice was so familiar, Clark thought. Actually, it was generally a little too familiar. As he had just seen how easily someone had figured out who he was, he wondered how nobody else had ever put two and two together before. He hoped Lois was too preoccupied to notice.

"I could ask you the same thing!" Lois' eyes flashed. "Now would you kindly move aside?" She made a few steps.

Clark stared intently at Oliver, willing him to look. When Green Arrow's eyes flickered to him, Clark slightly raised the big folder and stared at it meaningfully, then back at his friend… who seemed to understand.

"Just a moment, Miss Lane," Green Arrow said, less assured this time. She stopped. He finally lowered his bow a little. "I think I'll take that package off your hands, Mr. Kent. It looks a little too interesting to be left… lying around."

Clark nodded maybe a little too frantically.

Lois turned, surprised, just in time to see Clark trying to look frightened again. He was getting nervous. Hopefully, Lois wouldn't try anything stupid, like make a run for it…

She stared at him, raised eyebrows, trying to communicate something. Clark knew exactly what she was thinking, but refused to play along. He frowned and shook his head. Suddenly, everything happened really quickly. The Green Arrow took a step towards them, Lois lunged at Clark to grab the folder, and a light was coming from the next corridor. Another security guard had run up to the corner, his torch on one hand, his walkie-talkie in the other. He quickly barked a few instructions into it, and turned away to run. An arrow hit him square in the back. Before she could grab the folder, Lois stumbled in surprise. Clark steadied her and said "Let's go!" She stared at the Green Arrow for a second, then rushed past him back towards the fire exit. Clark quickly stuffed the folder into Oliver's arms and ran after her.