Saying goodbye to Lois and Clark was hard but it also gave Chloe the privacy she needed to work on the piece of paper Oliver found at the empty warehouse. She'd managed to figure out what book it was from and was flipping through it now. She was reading the page that had been torn out and left at the warehouse but nothing was popping out at her. As much as she wanted to believe it was a clue she was going to have to admit to herself that it was more likely someone had accidentally torn a book and someone just missed it in the cleanup.
"What's that?" Elizabeth picked up the torn piece of paper.
"Just a piece of a book." Chloe ran her fingers through her hair.
"I can see that." Elizabeth said to her and then pointed to the bottom of the page. Chloe looked closely where Elizabeth was pointing. The very last line of the book was made up of a bunch of random letters.
"A typo or something?"
"It's handwritten." Elizabeth said confused.
Chloe looked at it again and sure enough it was painstakingly written on the paper in ink, not printed. "Let me see that." She compared the torn page to the book in her hands and the writing was not in her copy of the book. "But it's nonsense, no words." Chloe mumbled more to herself than Elizabeth.
"Maybe it's a secret code." Elizabeth smiled and walked away.
Chloe froze and looked up. Elizabeth was joking but something she said clicked in her head. She scanned down the torn piece of paper, she'd read it through a couple times but before it didn't mean anything to her, now it did. She excitedly moved to her computer and typed away. She worked straight through to lunch and the end of the day. She quit only long enough to take it home with her and finish there.
She was still working on it when Oliver showed up, she didn't even notice him however, she was so engrossed. "Chloe?"
"Oliver." She said looking up at him with this shine in her eyes that he'd only ever seen when she was digging into Lex on JLA business. "Oh my God, you're never going to believe this."
"Believe what?" He walked to her desk and leaned over her shoulder. The pages in front of her were filled with grids of random letters, random words, and a lot of things scratched out.
"The paper." She said going back to the pile of things on her desk and searching for the torn piece of book. "The one you found at the warehouse. You won't believe what it means."
"It means something?" Oliver's interest was piqued.
"I didn't think so at first and then Elizabeth noticed something and then it all fell into place, well not all, not yet."
"Ok, start at the beginning." Oliver told her to try and calm her down.
"Right, sorry." She took a deep breath and smiled. "The book itself doesn't mean anything, it's some really boring story about a guy moving back to his hometown but the page, well the piece of a page that was torn out had this on it." She showed him the letters at the bottom and Oliver shrugged.
"It doesn't mean anything." He said. "It's gibberish."
"It's code." Chloe smiled at him. "Elizabeth said it a little jokingly but then I remembered something I'd read. One of the characters in the book was reading something, a book called Rebecca's Code. It's a real book, I looked it up. Rebecca's Code is about a girl who is kidnapped, and using a code, a cipher, leaves messages for the people who are looking for her."
Oliver processed that for a second and turned to Chloe. "You think Cassandra's using a secret code to communicate with us?"
"Yes." Chloe smiled.
"How does she even know about us?" Oliver asked.
"They must have told her. Think about it not only can she see the future, so she probably sees us coming, but at the same time, they've probably told her to look out for us."
"Did you figure out the code?" He asked.
"I think so, I haven't finished yet. I used the code the girl, Rebecca's uses in the book." Chloe pulled at all of her papers and explained what she was doing to Oliver and he tried as best as he could to follow along but this was way over his head.
"How in the world did you ever figure this out?" He asked amazed.
"Trust me, it wasn't easy. This is the twentieth time I've gotten to this point, it could turn out to be nonsense and I'll have to start over but I think I've got it." She continued looking at her chart and writing letters down and when she was finished she looked up at Oliver with a strange look on her face.
"So what's the verdict?" He asked.
She looked down and re read it, as if she still couldn't believe it herself. "Watchtower let Susan come up."
"What does that mean?" Oliver asked. "Who is Susan?"
"I have no idea." Chloe said. "Maybe I did it wrong."
She went back to her papers and was about to start again when her buzzer went off. She looked at Oliver and then got up and walked to the intercom. "Yes?"
"Miss Sullivan. There is a woman here, she says her name is Susan and that it's very urgent that she come up and see you."
Chloe turned to Oliver and he looked back down at the paper. "Let Susan come up." He whispered.
"It's ok, send her up." Chloe said and looked at Oliver more confused than she'd ever been in her life. "I just need a minute to think about this." Chloe said taking a deep breath and closing her eyes, her preferred method of working through a problem. "So it's obvious now that she did send us a message, that she can see into the future, and that she knows who were are."
"Yes, I agree with each of those statements." Oliver said.
"But why?" Chloe asked. "Why did she send us this message, why did she let us know all this?"
"Because she wants our help?" Oliver asked.
"Maybe." Chloe said. "Then why didn't she just tell us where she was going to be and how to get into her."
"Maybe she didn't have that much time, plus you said it yourself, it took you a while to figure all this out, maybe she wanted you to figure out the code, learn how to do it a little more quickly before she sends us any more information." Oliver said.
"Ok." Chloe said waiting by the elevator doors. When they opened there was a woman standing there, she looked as nervous as Chloe felt, and just as confused. "Susan?" She asked and the woman seemed to remember where she was.
"Chloe Sullivan?" She stepped out of the elevator, clutching her bag.
"Yes." Chloe smiled, trying to calm her down.
"I know you don't know who I am; I didn't know who you were until she told me to find you." Susan babbled. "I don't even know what I'm doing here."
"How about we start at the beginning." Chloe led her into the room. "You are…"
"Susan, Susan Rafferty." She took a deep breath and calmed down.
"Susan, can I get you some coffee?"
"That would be great." She smiled and Chloe nodded at Oliver who went to the kitchen. "Let's sit down."
Susan followed her to the living room and sat in the chair. Oliver came up and handed her a cup of coffee and she smiled. "Thank you."
"This is Oliver Queen." Chloe introduced him.
"Yes, I know who he is." She laughed.
Oliver just smiled and sat down next to Chloe. "Who told you to find me?"
"My sister." Susan said pulling out an envelope. "Janet Rafferty?" Chloe showed no recognition. "Right, she told me to tell you, Cassandra?" Chloe's eyes got huge and she turned to Oliver. "So you know her?"
"Yes." Chloe said slowly.
"I guess I should start at the beginning. Janet is a genius, she's always been smart and we had her tested when she was a teenager, she skipped grades left and right and passed me up before I made it to high school. She's only two years younger than me but she was getting her Master's in biology when I was going to the junior prom." Susan chuckled. "When she was about fourteen she went to this academic summer camp and she started this thing where she would write to me in code. It was just a fun thing we did to pretend that what we were writing was more important than it was. She knew when she was five that she wanted to go into medical research, finding cures for diseases and stuff but she was always really interested in Codes and puzzles." Chloe nodded to tell her she was following.
"About six years ago, she got a job with LutherCorp, what she'd always wanted to do and she moved to Metropolis. She told me that her work was so top secret that she was only going to be able to talk to me through letters. We've been writing back and forth ever since. A few weeks ago I got a letter from her, it was written in the same code we used to use when we were little. It said that I had to come find you that I had to come meet you and give you this." She handed Chloe a piece of paper. Chloe opened it to see a very long string of letters that didn't make any sense, another code.
"She gave you this to give to me?" Chloe asked.
"Well, she left me a code to create that from her letter." Susan said.
"Did she say anything else?" Chloe asked.
"No." Susan said. "Just that. I wasn't going to come but I got another letter a few days ago, telling me that it was important that I get that to you. So I drove for two days and here I am."
"Thank you." Chloe said.
"Can I ask, I just don't understand this, what's going on?" Susan said.
Chloe froze what could she tell this woman? That her sister could see the future and because of that was being held hostage by Lex Luther and Chloe along with a secret group of superheroes were trying to rescue her? That wouldn't go over well. "You said you didn't know who I was until she told you to find me?" Chloe asked. "I guess you googled me? You know who I am now?"
"Yeah." Susan said. "You're the Heir to the Standish Communications Empire."
"Right, well five years ago I was a reporter working in the classifieds department of the Daily Planet in Metropolis." Chloe smiled. "Your sister, Cassandra was the name she used with us; she came to the paper, trying to pitch a story, an expose about Lex Luther."
"Janet?" Susan said astonished.
"Yes, no one wanted to take it, she had no proof and I know from experience that getting anything about Lex published is hard work." Chloe chuckled. "I guess that's why they sent her to me. I believed her, I wanted the story but we needed more proof." Oliver was staring at Chloe wondering just where in the hell this whole thing was coming from. "When my Uncle found me and brought me to England, I kept in touch with her, I'd been working with her for a year and even though I wasn't really a reporter I was as invested with this story as she was. She wanted to keep going, I wanted to keep going, I was now the owner of quite a few national and international papers so getting it published was not going to be a problem. We've been working on this story for five years now, gathering evidence, and timelines, everything we need." Chloe said. "The thing is Lex is getting paranoid, she can't risk sending things straight to me, I was wondering how we were going to communicate, but I guess she took care of that huh?"
"Wow." Susan smiled. "I can't believe…I mean this is a big deal."
"Yes it is." Chloe smiled at her.
"Can I ask, what is Lex doing?" Susan leaned forward. "What is she investigating?"
"The less you know the safer you are." Chloe told her.
"Is it dangerous?" Susan asked scared. "For Janet?"
"No." Chloe assured her. "Trust me, if I thought it was dangerous I would put a stop to it right away. I really appreciate you doing this."
"No." Susan stood up. "I mean, if she's trying to expose Lex Luther for doing something illegal, I'm just happy I can help."
"We're happy you can help too." Chloe smiled and stood up. Susan stood up to and Chloe led her to the elevator and handed her a card that she wrote something on. "If Janet sends you anything else, send it here. This is a secure address."
"Of course, no problem." Susan smiled at the both of them. "It was really nice to meet you guys."
"It was nice to meet you too." Chloe said and Susan got in the elevator and left.
"Whose address did you give her?" Oliver said.
"Bart's P.O. Box in Chicago." Chloe said. "If Lex is tracking the mail, he won't think anything of her sending stuff to a Wally West."
Oliver chuckled. "Where did you pull that story from?"
"My ass." Chloe sighed. "I had to think of something."
"We have a name now." Oliver said. "Janet Rafferty."
"You get Victor on that, I'm going to work this out." Chloe waved the page with the new message at Oliver and he nodded pulling out his phone.
After two hours Chloe had the message decoded. "Angel Bay, Sinner's Statue, Find Bendis."
"That's it?" Oliver asked.
"That's it." Chloe shrugged. "There is an Angel Bay in Southern California but I've looked it up, I've pulled the satellite images, there's nothing there, no facility that could be used by Lex, it's a tourist trap on the beach."
"I'll send Bart and AC down there." Oliver told her. "Tomorrow. It's late and we both could use some rest." He kissed her forehead, more out of habit than anything, and left her alone for the night.
The next day Chloe had a hard time concentrating at work, Bart and AC had left early that morning, Bart by land, AC by water and they should have gotten there by now. Her cell phone rang and she practically fell out of her chair trying to answer it. "We're here." Bart said. "You were right; the place is a tourist trap."
"What about the Sinners Statue?"
"I didn't see anything but AC's asking some of the locals." Bart said.
"What about Bendis?" Chloe asked. "Is there a street or a hotel or something?'
"Nothing in the phone book." Bart sighed. "Nothing that I saw when I was walking around."
"You think it could be a person?" Chloe wondered out loud.
"We're supposed to find come guy called Bendis in this place?" Bart asked. "It's full of people."
"Just do your best." Chloe sighed and then called Oliver to relay what Bart had found and then just waited. She tried to keep occupied with the quarterly reports but just couldn't seem to keep her mind on them. Her cell phone rang and she quickly answered it. "What did you find?"
"Bendis." AC said to her. "Right where the note said he'd be, at the Sinner's Statue."
"Bendis is a person?" Chloe asked.
"A very drunk person." Bart screamed through the phone.
"We're gonna sober him up and then bring him back home." AC said. "It may take a while; we'll have to fly back."
"Ok." Chloe said. "I'll let Oliver know."
When she got home from work she found a very smelly man sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee. She walked past him cautiously to where AC, Bart, and Victor where having a discussion in the living room. "What's with the hobo?"
"That's Bendis." AC said. "I think he's made up of about 50 pure alcohol because he's still not sober."
"We had a hard time getting him on the plane." Bart said.
"How did you find him? Where was he?" Chloe asked.
"I was asking around, trying to find if any locals knew anything about Bendis or a Sinner's Statue. They all said they had no idea what the Sinner's Statue was but we could find Bendis down on the docks, by a local street performer. A lot of the locals knew him; he shows up at the bars around 10 in the morning and leaves around 10 at night, if they don't kick him out sooner. When we got there he was attacking a man completely painted in silver. He was one of those guys that stands there all day and doesn't move, a human statue." AC said. "We broke up the fight and asked what was going on. Bendis said the statue guy had stolen his wallet, sure enough we checked the guy's pockets and we found more than just his wallet. Apparently when tourists stand in front of him to get their picture taken, he lifts their wallets."
"Sinner's Statue." Chloe mumbled to herself.
"Sinner's Statue." Bart nodded.
"Have you talked to him? Has he said anything?" She set her bags down and took off her jacket.
"Nothing, we were waiting on the boss man before we did anything else." AC shrugged.
"It was weird, I mean he didn't even ask us any questions, we told him we were taking him to Star City and he just wanted to know if you'd have beer." Bart said.
Chloe looked over at the man then nodded. She walked over to the table and sat down on the other side of him. "Mr. Bendis?" She ventured and he looked up at her, she could see slight confusion in his eyes. "Can I get you more coffee?"
"No thank you." He said then looked back down into his cup.
Chloe looked over him and sighed. "When was the last time you ate something?" He looked up at her confused. "Are you hungry?"
"I don't know." He shrugged and Chloe smiled getting up.
"I'll fix you something to eat. If you don't want it, no problem." She moved to the kitchen and started whipping up something that would not only fill him up but hopefully sober him up faster than the coffee.
When Oliver arrived at the Penthouse, Chloe was setting a plate of steak and eggs covered in salsa in front of the man who seemed to realize when finally confronted with food that he was indeed hungry. The boys filled Oliver in on how they found him as he devoured the plate in front of him. "Thank you." He said with a slightly smile at Chloe as he pushed the plate away.
"No problem." She said. "Can I get you anymore?"
"No ma'am." He shook his head. "I'm full. It was very good, I appreciate it." It was as if the food had somehow rejuvenated him, possibly sobered him up. "If I could ask though, where am I?"
Chloe looked over at Oliver and he nodded and went to sit next to her at the table. "Mr. Bendis, a woman told us to find you, to help you."
"Help me what?" He asked confused.
"We're not sure." Chloe admitted. "Does the name Cassandra mean anything to you?" He shook his head. "What about 33.1?"
"What's that?"
"Nothing." Chloe sighed and then noticed that he was holding something in his hands, a set of dog tags. "Were you in the army?"
"No." He paused; it seemed as if he was getting choked up. "My son was." He opened his fist to reveal the tags. "He was a Marine."
"Was?" Chloe asked.
"He was a Major, stationed in Afghanistan." He took a deep breath, just trying to hold it together. "There was an accident three months ago; he was hurt by a roadside bomb but he was alive, they patched him up really well. They were going to send him home to rehabilitate." He looked up at Chloe and Oliver. "Then one day we got the call, complications they said, he died in surgery. But they never sent his body. We never got a funeral." He stared at them hopefully. "Is that how you're going to help me? Are you going to find my son?"
Chloe looked over at Oliver as the old man broke down again and nodded her head for him to follow. They walked away from the table, back to the guys. "Project Ares resurfaces?" Chloe asked.
"But what does that have to do with Cassandra?" Oliver asked.
"Maybe nothing." Chloe said. "Maybe this was never about finding her, maybe this wasn't even really about finding him." She nodded to the old man. "Find Bendis, what if we've got the wrong one?"
"You mean Cassandra is sending us out to find the son?" Oliver asked.
"Maybe, she can see the future, she knows what we do, and maybe she's trying to help us out with this, because she can't help us find her." Chloe said.
"Ok." Oliver ran his fingers through his hair. "Victor I want you to get this guys file, figure out who he was, when he supposedly died. AC, you and Bart start going through all the old stuff we have on Ares ok?"
"On it." They all left to their respective duties and Chloe looked at Bendis.
"What do we do with him?" She asked sadly.
"I don't know yet." Oliver said. "Mr. Bendis." He walked back over to the table. "We're gonna put you up in a hotel tonight, tabs on us so don't worry about it. How about you order some room service, get some rest and we'll talk more in the morning."
"So you'll look into it?" He asked. "My son, something isn't right." He told them. "We got this letter, a day before he died. He was talking about coming home, about getting his appetite back and trying to talk his doctors into letting him take a walk."
"We'll look into sir." Chloe said. "We'll find out what we can."
"Thank you." He clutched Chloe's hand and nodded at Oliver.
"Let's go." Oliver said leading him to the elevators.
Chloe was going over Bendis' file when Oliver got back. He was a great soldier, decorated with top marks, the perfect candidate for Project Ares. "What have you got?"
"It fits." Chloe said. "This file basically reads as a carbon of Wes'. If he had the chance, Lex would have swiped him in an instant. He was scheduled to come home to recuperate, all the notes in his medical file say he was getting better, that they had high hopes for him. There was no explanation for his death. Well the coroner said a blood clot but they'd been real careful, watching out for them, giving him blood thinners."
"So you think that's what this is?" Oliver asked. "Project Ares? Have any other soldiers gone missing?"
"It's hard to say whose gone missing and whose dead." Chloe shrugged. "I've been thinking though."
"Uh oh." Oliver joked with her.
"If I remember correctly." Chloe pulled something up on the computer. "When Wes was taken, it caused a lot of questions, because there was no helicopter accident, there was nothing to explain why he was gone and it caused more harm than good. But Bendis was in an accident, he was hurt, pretty bad, but he would have lived. I think they learned from their mistakes and took him from the hospital, where it would have been easy enough to say there was a complication, that his injuries were just too severe."
"Makes sense." Oliver said.
"But Wes was there for a year before he was sent out to be tested, that makes the think the process is really involved and I don't think Bendis' is recovered enough to undergo it. Lex may be impatient but he wouldn't risk jeopardizing the whole thing just to speed it up a bit."
"So you're saying it's possible that nothing's even happened to him yet?" Victor said.
"We all know that once Lex creates these guys, there is no turning back, there's no way to stop them, besides death. I don't think Cassandra would send us through all these hoops just to kill this guy, I think she wants us to save him." Chloe said.
"You're putting a lot of faith in someone we've never met and quite frankly I'm not even sure we can trust." Oliver pointed out.
"You gotta put your faith in someone." Chloe shrugged. "She led us to Bendis, he led us to Ares, I've got to believe that's so we can stop Lex from killing him, so that we can save him. I have to."
"Ok." Oliver said after a minute. "Let's see what we can find."
Finding the other Bendis wasn't as easy as the first. Chloe had to catch herself from cursing at the seer; couldn't she have given them a little more information to go on? It wasn't until two weeks later that they caught a lucky break. Victor saw it first, a massive shipping order, almost identical to the inventory of the first Project Ares facility. He ran it by Chloe to get a second opinion, to make sure he wasn't just seeing what he wanted to see.
All of them had been eating, sleeping, and breathing Project Ares since the day they spoke to Bendis. Seeing the look on his face when he talked about his son, seeing a grown man break like that spurned them on, and they all knew that they didn't have a lot of time. They knew that as soon as John was healed Lex would start his experiment and then there would be no turning back. It would change from a rescue mission to a search and destroy and none of them wanted that.
"Oh God." Chloe smiled up at Victor then flung her arms around his neck.
"So I'm not just seeing things?" He asked hopefully.
"No." Chloe said. "I'd stake my company on it." She told him. "Call the others."
Within twenty minutes everyone was situated in Chloe's living room. "We found him." She said. "Well we found the facility where we're pretty sure he's going to be." She laid everything out to them, the supplies that Lex ordered, the relocation of his top geneticists.
"Good work." Oliver smiled proudly at Victor and Chloe. "All right, we're going in." He turned to the guys. "No recon, we might not have time. If he's setting up the lab, it means he's ready to go forward."
"No problem boss." Bart jumped in, always ready for action.
"Wheels up in two hours." Oliver told them. The all nodded and went their separate ways to pack the gear they would need. "I want you to monitor the whole time we're in the air." He told Chloe.
"Sure." She smiled at him. "I had Victor get me the blueprints of the building and I'll go over them before show time."
"You're the best Watchtower." Oliver kissed her forehead and left to pack his own gear.
"Hey." Chloe called after him. "Can you do me a favor?"
"Sure." Oliver pushed the elevator button.
"Can you blow it up a lot?" She asked, her voice joking but her tone serious.
"I'll throw in an extra pound of C4 with your name on it." Oliver told her and then left.
Chloe had familiarized herself with every aspect of the building, it was small, Lex was trying to be discreet, unfortunately he had managed to order every piece of equipment on the evil villains shopping list for genetic manipulation and that was sort of a red flag. She felt more anxious, sitting in front of that computer, waiting for everyone to check in than she had on any other mission before. "Watchtower we are in position."
"All right." Chloe said cracking her knuckles and getting to work. "We're in luck, looks like they've just moved in and haven't finished setting up their alarm system."
"I love it when things go my way." Green Arrow said. "What entrance?"
"Looking at the blueprints, the most logical room to hold him in is in the far right corner, and I've got a heat signature there. If you take the back entrance it'll put you practically right on top of him."
"Ok, moving out." Green Arrow said and Chloe switched from blueprints to the infrared satellite image.
"You've got two guards once you round the corner. The only ones on the outside. There is another directly outside the door to what I'm hoping is the holding cell. There are two more signatures in the main room, but I think that's the lab so I want to say you've got doctors but I can't be sure."
"Impulse, you check that out." Green Arrow said. "If its security come back for Victor, if it's Doctors you know what to do."
"Get them out of the building, no problem." Impulse said.
"I want visual." Chloe said and Oliver complied by turning the camera on his glasses.
The wind was blowing too hard so they forwent the poison arrows and instead opted for hand to hand combat. The guards were well trained but Oliver was better and Victor was stronger and within five minutes the fight was over. Victor and AC took the bodies and dragged them away from the building to get the clear of the blast site. "We're going in." Green Arrow said as he opened the back door. They were so stupid; they figured because they had guards on it they could leave it unlocked.
"Impulse, straight ahead to a set of double doors."
"Got it." He said and Chloe watched a blur of red from the corner of Oliver's glasses.
"Green Arrow, take the next right, don't forget about the guard." She reminded him.
"On it." He peered around the corner and contemplated using another arrow, but the space was so tight and he didn't want to risk not only himself but John falling victim to the gas. He needed the soldier in good enough shape to be able to get him out of there.
"Two Doc's in the lab, scurried like roaches when I told them the place was gonna blow." Impulse said over the coms and Chloe checked her screen, sure enough the heat signatures were gone.
"Good job." Green Arrow said. "Meet Cyborg and Aquaman and set the charges."
"Will do."
"What's the plan?" Chloe asked as Oliver took another look at the guard.
"I think I'm gonna wing it." He said before stepping out into the hallway opening. The guard scrambled to his feet and looked scared as Chloe saw an arrow fly forward and hit his shoulder, pinning him to the wall.
"Sorry." Green Arrow said. "I really need to get in that room." The guard went to reach for his gun and Oliver shot another arrow, trapping his hand against the wall. He walked up and pulled the gun out, tossing it to the end of the hall. "Do you happen to have the keys?"
The guard put a shaky hand into his pocket and handed the keys over to Oliver. "Don't hurt me."
"I wouldn't waste my time." He scoffed as he turned around and headed to the door. He tried the first key with no success and moved onto the second which was also a bust. After the seventh key Chloe couldn't help the giggle that escaped from her.
"Don't start." Oliver grunted trying the seventh key.
"Sorry." Chloe said. "I'm sure you look very intimidating, fumbling with the lock."
"You're such a comedian." He said and then threw the keys over his shoulder. "Screw it." He banged on the door. "If you can hear me, get as far back from the door as you can." He said.
Chloe watched the heat signature shrink into the back corner of the room. "You're clear." She told him, knowing what was coming as he shot of a smaller arrow from his cross bolt and it landed in the door right above the knob. He moved back down the hall before it exploded and then laughed. "I love that arrow."
When the smoke cleared Oliver saw the door swinging open. There was a man standing there looking confused. "Somebody call for a pick up?" Oliver walked forward.
Chloe rolled her eyes. What was with superheroes and cheesy lines, it was almost as bad as the thing they had for rooftops. "What's going on?"
"John Bendis?" Green Arrow asked.
"Yes, I've been, I think I've been kidnapped. I'm a United States Marine."
"We know." Oliver said. "We're gonna get you out of here."
"Charges are set." Cyborg said.
"I've got the package." Green Arrow replied. "Meet back at the rendezvous point."
"Roger." Cyborg said.
"Can you walk?" Green Arrow asked John who nodded numbly. Green Arrow walked over to the guard and pulled the two arrows out of the wall. "This place is gonna blow in about two minutes, I suggest you get as far away as you can, and then you remind your boss that I'm always watching him."
The guard just nodded and took off running as Green Arrow led John out of the building. "I want to see it blow." Chloe said to Oliver and he obliged turning around to look at the building when they'd reached a safe distance.
"Green Arrow to Watchtower." He said. "Mission accomplished."
"Let's get this soldier home." Chloe smiled. "He's got family waiting."
"Roger that." Green Arrow said.
Chloe took out her ear piece and seemed to breathe out for the first time in weeks. John was safe, Lex was thwarted, and her guys were coming home.
Oliver and company walked into the Penthouse later that night with John in toe. He insisted he didn't want to see a doctor or a lab and considering where he'd been the past three months they were inclined to listen to him. "What's this?" Oliver asked.
"Where's your…" Chloe mad a motion that Oliver took to be hood and he laughed.
"It was hot, and he's military, he's not going to tell anyone who we are." Oliver said.
"I won't ma'am." He stood perfectly straight and still at the entrance. "You can trust me, I'm just happy that you guys got me out of that place."
"Come in." She said waving him past the threshold. "Sit down. I thought you might be hungry. I didn't know if he was feeding you or well if he was feeding you good food." They all looked down at the table and were shocked to see the amount of food there.
"She cooks when she's nervous, or happy." AC said.
"Or when we get back from a mission." Victor added.
"Or you know when it's Tuesday." Bart pointed out sitting down and digging in with no further ado.
"I guess I went a little overboard." Chloe smiled sheepishly.
"No ma'am." John smiled at her. "This all looks real good."
"Let me get you guys some drinks." Chloe said running to the kitchen.
"I'll go talk to her." Oliver laughed. "Save me some of that chicken Bart, I mean it this time."
"I should have gone to the store." She mumbled as she dug in the fridge. "Oh Oliver." She smiled. "Go and see what Victor has in his place, I've only got beer and wine and Cokes and Dr. Peppers, a few Sprites, some Gatorade."
"I think you're good to go."
"What if he wants milk?" Chloe asked. "I used all the milk when I was making the gravy."
"John, do you want milk with your dinner or can I get you something else?"
"A beer if you have it." He called back. Victor, AC, and Bart called out their drink orders to and Chloe smiled sheepishly while Oliver grabbed the drinks.
After everyone had stuffed themselves on Chloe's buffet and relaxed a little bit John leaned forward. "I really appreciate what you guys did, but could someone explain to me exactly what that was?" He looked around the table. "What was going on?"
"What do you remember?" Oliver asked.
"I was in an accident, roadside bomb in Afghanistan." John said. "But they fixed me up. Doc said I was going home to rehab. Suddenly these MP's are taking me away in the middle of the night, they bring me to this…place, it looked like a hospital but not."
Chloe looked over at Oliver then at Bendis. "Do you know where that was?"
"No ma'am." He shook his head. "I wish I did."
"Was there anyone else there?" Oliver asked. "Any other…patients?"
"No." He sighed with relief. "None that I could see anyway. The Doctors there kept telling me that as soon as I was healed, they were going to help me to serve my country better. I thought I was serving it just fine."
"You were." Chloe smiled at him. "Did they do tests on you? Take blood, give you anything?"
"They gave me this cocktail they called it." He tried to remember exactly what happened. "Once a week at first then once a day. They said it would help with the transition. They wouldn't let me talk to anyone, my parents, my wife."
"They think your dead." Victor said stonily. He knew what that was like.
"They told them I was dead?" John leaned back in his seat.
"Yeah well your dad didn't believe it." Chloe smiled at him. "He knew something was wrong when they didn't get a body."
John smiled slightly. "After my wounds were healed, they gave me physical therapy and then they started running me through these tests, endurance test. Treadmill miles and laps in a swimming pool. Then a few days ago, they moved me, doped me up in the hospital and then I woke up in that room, that cell. And then you guys showed up."
Oliver processed his story and tried to fill in the blanks. This man was a decorated Marine, he had an inherent since of Justice and right and wrong and he wasn't going to take some made up story like the one Chloe had given Susan. "Have you ever heard of Project Ares?" Oliver ventured.
There was some recognition on his face. "There were rumors about it. Stronger, faster soldiers." Oliver nodded. "We all thought it was bull, some six million dollar man crap."
"It's not." Oliver said. "The project ran for three years before it was shut down when the test subjects went crazy and broke away from the army's control."
"You mean to tell me they did it?" John asked. "They created super soldiers?"
"A few." Oliver said. "But they weren't soldiers anymore. Not after what was done to them."
Chloe jumped in. "They basically wiped their brains and reprogrammed them, made them forget who they were, that they had family, the only thing they gave them were orders and that's all they knew."
"What happened to them?" John asked.
"Killed." Oliver said. "Before they could kill anyone else." John just nodded, he was a soldier, he understood.
"Look, I know the last thing you want to see is a lab or a hospital or a needle but we really need to make sure that they didn't…" Chloe trailed off.
"Turn me into one of the super soldiers?" John smiled. "It's ok. I understand."
"It should only take a day, a few blood tests." Oliver said. "I can set it up for tomorrow."
"Then what?" John asked. "If I've been changed, I understand what you have to do but what if I'm fine?" He looked around the table. "My family thinks I'm dead. The government thinks I'm dead, what happens to me then?"
"What do you want?" Chloe asked him. "We could get you a new name, a new identity, set you up somewhere."
"I want to go back." John said. "To see my wife, my mom and dad, to my job."
Oliver looked at Chloe who just smiled. "Let me see what I can do." She got up and walked away and Oliver turned to Victor.
"Can one of you guys set him up for the night?"
"No problem." Victor said. "He can stay at my place."
John nodded and followed Victor, Bart, and AC out of Chloe's apartment as Oliver put the food away. "Do you really think you can get him back to his life? Is it even safe?"
"Lex wouldn't take him again, that would be suicide. A guy goes missing once, happens, a guy goes missing twice, people ask questions."
"How are you going to do it?" Oliver asked her.
"Leave the heavy lifting to me." Chloe smiled up at him from her spot in front of the computer. "You just stand there and look pretty."
Oliver smiled. "I should be insulted by that, but you know what? I'm really not." He said his goodnights and left.
The next day John was given a clean bill of health from Oliver's lab. The only thing they managed to find in his system were trace amounts of the sedative that was given to him and increased vitamin levels. "So how do I go home?" John was pacing in Chloe's apartment as Bart and AC played Halo in the living room. "The army declared me dead, how do you even start to fix that?" Chloe just smiled and nodded behind him.
"By having friends in high places." Martha Kent smiled as she got out of Chloe's elevator. "Chloe, my god, you look so great."
"Ms. Kent." Chloe stood up and gave the woman a hug.
"Did I hear what I think I just heard?" Bart super speeded into the room and practically knocked her down trying to give her a hug. "Hey Ms. K."
"Bart." She brushed the hair out of his eyes. "You staying out of trouble?"
"You know me." He shrugged.
"That means no." Martha laughed.
"What can I say?" Bart shrugged.
"Hey Ms. Kent." Victor walked in the room and hugged her. "How are you doing?"
"Fine." She smiled. "You know everyone here has cleaned out my fridge at some point in time." She laughed.
"And now they clean out Chloe's." Oliver said from behind her. "It's good to see you again Senator."
"Oliver." She waved him off. "It's Martha, please." She surprised him by giving him a hug but he recovered quick enough to hug her back.
"So." She looked around the room. "Let's figure this one out." She sat down at the table and Chloe followed her with stacks of printouts from her computer.
"She's a Senator?" John asked.
"Chloe's pretty resourceful when she wants to be." Oliver said.
"Hey Oliver." Chloe called. "Why don't you make yourself useful and start a pot of coffee. It's gonna be a long night."
After working well into the morning Chloe and Martha still hadn't managed a way to get John back to the Marines without immediately getting him discharged for going AWOL. "It can be done." Chloe said. "I'm positive."
"You got anymore friends in high places?" John chuckled.
Chloe looked up suddenly. "No." She smiled bigger. "But I've got family."
The next morning Chloe paced back and forth in front of the penthouse and drove everyone crazy. "Get your feet off the table." She slapped AC and he glared at her as he took his feet off the coffee table. "Did you brush your hair this morning?" Chloe asked licking her fingers and heading for Bart who super speeded to hide behind Oliver who was holding a cup of coffee for Chloe. "Is that plain, regular, every day coffee, because he hates fancy coffees and especially vanilla flavors."
"Chloe you need to relax." Oliver laughed.
"Dude she's out of control." Bart said. "She tried to do the mom hair fix on me."
Chloe looked down at the hand she had licked and sighed. "I'm sorry guys, I just…I want him to…"
"He's gonna be proud of you Chloe." Oliver said. "How could he not?"
"Cause I haven't spoken to him in five years and I'm calling him to drop the mother of all problems in his lap?" Chloe offered. "Did you shave with a dull rock this morning?" She grabbed his face and twisted his head back and forth.
Oliver just raised his eyebrows and backed away. "You guys are on your own." He raised his hands as if he'd given up on her.
The elevator bell rang and Chloe's back went rigid. Everyone looked, anxious to see who had Chloe, one of the most bad ass people they knew, basically shaking in her boots. "Where's my little soldier?" A booming voice asked and Chloe seemed to turn into a little girl. She squealed, she actually squealed and ran over to the man in full uniform.
"General." Chloe hugged him and he laughed as he spun her around a little. "I'm so glad you could make it, can I get you coffee?"
"Love some." He looked around. "Nice place." He whistled then looked concerned for a minute. "You don't live with all these men do you?"
Victor chuckled and Chloe glared at him. "No, they work with me." She handed him the coffee and seemed to relax when he took a sip and smiled. "I'm just, so glad you came."
"You called and said it was an emergency." He grunted as he sat down at her table. "Last time you said that, I had to sneak you out of an exploding building."
"Those were the days." Chloe laughed uneasily and sat down waving John over. "General, I want you to meet Major John Bendis."
John snapped to attention and saluted. The General nodded at him. "At ease soldier." He looked the man up and down then turned to Chloe.
"We kinda need your help." She smiled sheepishly and told the General about Lex's lab and where Bendis had really been and hoped that he could help them.
"It's not Lois, it's not even Lucy, though God knows she tries, it's you, you're the one that keeps raising my blood pressure." The General looked at her. But he didn't call her crazy, he didn't tell her she was being ridiculous, because he knew, he'd heard the rumors when Wes went missing, truly one of the few good men he knew. Chloe smiled at him sheepishly and Oliver nodded as if he was in the same boat, blood pressure wise. "Major." The General stood up. "Is this what you want?"
"I want to do my job." John said. "I want to serve my country, and I want to see my family."
The General looked between Chloe and John and sighed. "I can work something out, say I commandeered you for something, deep cover, black ops, I'll figure it out." Chloe jumped up and hugged the General and he looked uncomfortable. "You need to have letters you wrote to home or something, three months worth, back dated, if you can fake an address mix up and get some postage stamps on them that would be even better." This was directed at Chloe.
"No problem." She said.
"I'll take care of the transfer orders and the leave orders. You'll go home, be completely surprised and shocked that your family thought you were dead and call your Commanding Officer. Give him my name and I'll work the rest out." The General turned to Chloe. "Have you got someone that can take care of the bureaucratic end of this mess?"
"Senator Kent." Chloe said.
"I'll give her a call, we'll work on it. You just fake ignorance. I'll have to up your security clearance so you can say you aren't allowed to talk about where you were, so there won't be any awkward questions."
"I really appreciate this sir." John nodded at the General. "Ma'am." He nodded to Chloe.
"Give me a few days to get this stuff processed and lost ok?"
Chloe nodded. "No problem, it'll give us time to set things up on our end." Chloe smiled. "Thank you." Chloe smiled sincerely at her Uncle and walked him to the elevator. "I really appreciate this."
"You uh…doing ok?" He looked around her Penthouse. "Need anything? Money?"
"No." Chloe smiled.
"You still got some of those Smoke bombs I gave you? Running low?" She shook her head. "How about the Flash Grenades?" Oliver and company looked on in amusement.
"Right." Chloe scoffed. "Like I'm gonna get my Flash Grenades from the US Army, do you have any idea what your mark up is on those? I got a guy in Budapest, ten cents on the dollar."
"I don't need to hear this." The General smiled. "Take care of yourself."
"Will do." Chloe smiled. The General left and Chloe went to the kitchen to whip up some lunch. She found Oliver and the guys staring at her. "What?"
"You've got a guy in Budapest?" He asked with his eyebrows raised.
"Yeah he's great." Chloe said. "Why? Where's your guy? Is he closer, because I've been trying to find someone local, but they're all a little shady."
"I don't have a guy." Oliver said astonished.
"You should have a guy." Chloe told him popping a carrot in her mouth as she cut up the vegetables. "I'll get you the number for my guy. He's really good." She smiled and went back to her chopping.
A week later John sat impatiently in front of his house as Chloe fussed with him. "You got the letters?" She asked.
John held up a stack of letters that looked to the outside observer as if they'd traveled all over the world and back. Which apparently they had. Lucky for them, John and his wife Mary were working on a move when he was taken and she'd gone ahead with it after she found out he was dead, so realistically he could have been working special ops and sending his wife letters to the wrong address for three months. They were all stamped return to sender and even had different Military Postage stamps on them, with the dates sent and returned.
"You got your passport?" Chloe asked.
John nodded. The kid, the one who ran fast, went everywhere John would have gone on the flight plan Chloe had made up for him and gotten the official passport stamp. And amazingly, the kid did it in two hours. "How about your souvenirs?" John held up the bag full of gifts that the kid had dropped at his feet when he came back with the passport.
"You didn't think you could just come back home after being dead for three months without bringing gifts did you?" He smiled and was given praise from Chloe for his quick thinking, something it was obvious the kid was always pinning for. He'd gotten a few things for his wife and some for his parents and even a few things to make it seem like he bought himself some stuff to remember the trip by.
"I think he's good Chloe." Oliver smiled at her.
"I'm just…I want to make sure." Chloe said.
"Ma'am." John grabbed her hand as she moved to fix straighten another pin on his uniform. "I'm fine." He smiled at her and she relaxed a little. "I'm better than fine thanks to you guys. I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay you."
"I do." Oliver said looking out the window. "How about you go give your wife a hug."
They looked over and out the window to see a woman walking cautiously onto the front porch with a phone in her hand staring at the car that had been parked in the front of her driveway for twenty minutes now. He nodded at Chloe and Oliver, grabbed his bags and opened the door. The driver started to pull away but Chloe stopped him.
"We never get to see this part." Chloe said and she and Oliver leaned closer to the window to watch as the woman froze in mid step and then, when she recognized him, dropped the phone to the ground and ran to John, jumping in his arms as he spun her around, tears in her eyes. "Ok." Chloe turned away from the scene. "We can go now."