Chapter 10
Clark found himself breathing heavily as he made his way to the Planet, a sensation he was not used to. His speed had given out on him on his way over from the Luthor mansion, so he had to jog the rest of the way there. Clark was thankful the ride down to the basement on the elevator provided him some time to catch his breath.
Chloe would never let him live it down if she'd saw him gasping for breath like that, he could just hear her snarking, "you need to get in better shape" or "should we sign you up with AARP?". Yup, he was grateful to have caught his breath by the time the elevator doors opened to the basement.
Going through one of the double doors that led to the bullpen, Clark spotted Chloe on her way back from the coffee station. Seeing Clark enter the bullpen, looking wiped out, Chloe quickly made her way over to him. She put a comforting hand on his arm, as she led him back to her desk.
"Clark, I never imagined hearing myself say this, but you don't look so good."
"Well, I don't feel so good. My speed gave out on me around 8th Avenue and I wound up hoofing it the rest of the way here."
Moving a chair from the side of her desk around so it was situated beside her own chair, Chloe motioned for Clark to sit down. Clark, grateful for the gesture, quickly took the seat with a sigh of relief.
"No wonder you look like you just finished a portion of the Ironman Triathlon. Just lean back and take it easy for the time being." Chloe then leaned in closer and said in a low-tone, "Just make sure you vacuum-seal your face should you have even a remote feeling of a sneeze, alright?"
Clark nodded in understanding and Chloe then took her seat beside Clark. She began to call up the information she'd been collecting on Lucas' past business dealings. While waiting for the files to open she turned to Clark asking, "So how did the visit with Lana go?"
"It's amazing, I really thought I knew Lana, but I guess all I ever saw was the mask she wanted me to see. Chloe, it's like I went to see a complete stranger. I told her about our change in status."
"How did she take the news?"
"Better than I expected, she made an off-handed remark about me finally growing-up and getting past my hang-ups. With everything you two have been through, I told her I didn't want this to affect your friendship. She assured me that our going out would not cause any problems, and that she was happy for you."
"Wow that's better than I imagined her reacting to the news. I know it must have been awkward for you Clark, I wish I could have been there with you."
"I'll admit it was a conversation I wasn't looking forward to having Chloe. But we agreed that telling Lana about us was my responsibility. I know you went through a lot of pain from the way you found out about Lana and I years ago when we first got together. I don't want to see anyone ever get hurt like that again. With how much Lana claims to value honesty, maybe being honest with her about us will allow her and me to try rebuilding a friendship."
Chloe's computer chimed in with its familiar beep, letting them know it had finished opening the research files she'd called up. Both of them turned to look at the computer screen.
"What were you able find out about Lucas and Lex?"
"After getting past all the LuthorCorp firewalls, I found that Lucas has had numerous dealings with LuthorCorp, although they have all been through their branch offices in Star City. There are a myriad of case records from various meetings that Lucas had with Lex, but all of them were relating to standard business manners – quarterly reports, stock forecasting, and filings with the FDA for pharmaceutical products."
"What about Lex's research into Milton Fine? We know he had search teams all over the globe, was Lucas involved with that?"
"No, it appears Lex played that endeavor pretty close to the vest. All the e-mails I hacked into with links to an encrypted blog titled 'Project Mercury 2.0' were limited to a very select group of scientists and security personnel. However, this is interesting, remember the run in we had with Victor Stone?"
"The Met High wide receiver infused with a ton of bionics? Yeah, I remember him, what's he got to do with Lucas?"
"I hacked into Cyntechnics' servers and found multiple encrypted e-mails logged between Lex, Lucas, and Dr. Alistair Kreig regarding Victor and his progress from the experiments."
"Wait a minute; I thought Dr. Kreig was overseeing the Machina Project back then, not Lucas."
"You're right, Dr. Kreig was the lead scientist for the project, but Lucas was acting as 'the Luthor in charge' when it came to day-to-day management of the project and the company. Lucas made sure that he had secured plausible deniability as those encrypted logs were the only thing that associated him to the project."
"So, do you think it's safe to presume that Lucas is involved, or at least has knowledge of, what's going on with Lex's experiments on people that are meteor-infected?"
"If I was still a betting person, and I can promise you I'm not after our run in with Mikhail Mxyzptlk, I would double-down on that presumption."
"That's good enough for me. With all the information you had access to; were you able to find anything that might explain what Lionel said about Lucas knowing about Lex's actions on Dark Thursday?"
Turning her head to look at Clark, Chloe exclaims with mock-disgust, "Clark, it's me remember, don't I always have something up my sleeve!?!"
Both of them grin, and Clark chuckles and shakes his head at Chloe's little joke.
"I'm sorry Chloe, I guess this head cold has dulled my normally astute mind, can you ever forgive me?" Clark replied in a humorous mocking tone, and gave her his best 'puppy-dog' look.
"Awwww, okay, okay I forgive you….that wasn't a fair move though."
"What?"
"You know what! Even after all this time, it's amazing how far that Kent charm will get you."
They stare at each other a moment, sheepish grins on both their faces. Although no words are spoken during this time, volumes are conveyed through their eye-contact. Then turning back to Chloe's computer, she continued with her exposition.
"As I was saying, I ran across several files which, after decrypting them, connected Lucas to a company called Artemis Global Consortium, ever heard of it?"
"No."
"Well, I did some checking and it turns out that Artemis Global Consortium is a subsidiary of Queen Industries. Queen Industries is an electronics manufacturing company headquartered out of Star City, which coincidentally, is where Lucas has been all this time. Now, I was not able to get access to it, but it turns out that Queen Industries had a satellite that stayed online during the events of Dark Thursday."
"Hold on a second, I thought Milton Fine's virus took out all of the satellites on that day, any ideas as to how they managed to keep theirs working?"
"Not a clue, their CEO, an Oliver Jonas Queen is either some kind of an engineering marvel or he has people working for him that worked-up some kind of special trade secret. Here's an interesting tidbit though, I did some checking into his background and it turns out he attended Excelsior Academy."
"That's the same boarding school Lex attended, okay, so is there any record of Lex and this Oliver having businesses disputes?"
"I had the same question but everything I checked into turned up a dead end. And speaking of Lex, even with everything I was able to pull from my hacking escapade into LuthorCorp, I couldn't find any records of recent threats made against him. What did Lana have to say about Lex's Houdini act?"
"Not much, as I was leaving she made a phone call. The call went to an answering machine for the office of a Robert Pontius."
"Clark, Robert Pontius is the highest-paid Sherlock Holmes in Metropolis."
"Then it sounds like Lex might have already suspected he was in trouble. I want to pay this guy a visit and see what he can tell us."
Chloe closed out all of the research data she'd collected. While waiting on a query for Robert Pontius' address, Chloe turned to face Clark and made the following observation. "I imagine after escaping the Kryptonian version of Alcatraz, you did not figure on being sentenced to be in charge of a preverbal man-hunt for Lex all the while fighting a head cold, right?"
"Let's just say it did not make it to my top ten list of things to do when I made it out of there, no."
"I guess the benefits of being a hero don't include time-off for when you're under the weather."
Looking away from Chloe as he felt a measure of guilt wave over him from her words, Clark sighed to himself, and looked back up. "I don't suppose so, but then again heroes don't endanger people on what seems to becoming a yearly occasion. Of all the things I am, or may be, I am certainly not a hero Chloe."
Chloe's computer beeped, letting them know it had completed the address query, and served to break the moment of silence between the two. Clark looked to the computer screen and was the first to speak, "There we go, 515 Grant Street."
Chloe stood up, gathered her things, and looked at Clark saying, "You ready? Let's get going."
Clark looked at her quizzically saying, "Chloe, we don't know what we'll run into there, I don't want you getting hurt."
Chloe smiled empathetically at him saying, "I know Clark, I'll be careful, and there's no way I'm sitting this out. Besides, you need to rest up as much as you can since your speed quit on you getting here."
Clark nodded in agreement saying, "Well, when you put it that…that….that…wa…wa….."
"Oh no, not again! Clark!"
Clark quickly brought his left arm around to cover his face as he sneezed. A wave of relief passed both Clark and Chloe's face as she commented, "Nice save Clark! You're starting to get the hang of that."
Once he was sure that another sneeze was not going to follow the first, Clark got up and they left the Planet for Robert Pontius' office.