Chapter 10

Early the next morning Chloe, Clark and Jonathan went to Lois' apartment. Chloe and Clark asked her to take care of Jonathan. Lois was supposed to work at the Daily Planet, but after they explained that they were in trouble, she managed to take the day off, to be able to help them. Also Chloe explained to Lois that she had used her computer the previous night.

Two hours later, Clark and Chloe walked into the office of one of the ambulance services where Davis worked before moving to Smallville. A young and very petite receptionist with a friendly smile asked how she could help them. Clark said they were police officers and would like to talk to her boss, if possible, about Davis Bloome, a previous employee. She asked Clark if he had any identification and he showed her the police badge.

"The boss is out for a little while. If it helps you, you can talk to Michael Brown; he was Davis Bloome's last partner."

"Thank you, that might help," answered Clark.

Chloe and Clark introduced themselves to Michael as police officers.

Clark talked to him in what he hoped was an authoritarian police like style, "Mr. Brown, we are investigating Davis Bloome. According to our information he was fired some time ago from this company. The receptionist told us that you were his last partner."

"What do you want to know about him?"

"Any strange facts related to him, or if there were some indications of a mental illness," explained Chloe with the same authoritative tone.

"Well, he frequently vanished for days and no-one knew where he had been. Also, he didn't arrive with any kind of punctuality for his shifts. I always advised him to stop doing that but he was very reluctant to explain anything about himself. Finally, the boss fired him. And even though I don't know if it's true, I heard that he had some complaints from female patients who he had visited without reason; you know, buying flowers for them, things like that, but it's only a rumor."

"Did you see him exhibit any violent behavior?" asked Clark.

"No. In some situations he was a little angry, especially when he was fired, but nothing more. I wanted to be his friend but he was a very private person; kept to himself. He never wanted to have friends. Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"We can't really give out that kind of information. For the moment we can tell you he is believed to be an eyewitness to a very serious crime, nothing more. But we are investigating him because there were some inconsistencies in his statement," explained Chloe.

"It's not anything specific; we are only getting some background information to check out his story," assured Clark.

"It would be hard to believe that he was involved with something serious," said Michael, surprised. "Even though he didn't want to be friends he always was a nice person and always treated the patients well. I was very surprised when I heard some patients complained about him; if the rumors are true, of course."

"One more question," asked Chloe, "Do you remember a situation where he became ill for no apparent reasons and somehow healed quickly without any explanation?"

"I remember one incident, when we arrived at the scene of one accident near Victoria Ravine. When our ambulance arrived there he turned suddenly very ill. I had to call the company to send another ambulance. But the minute we left that place he became instantly healthy again. All of us were very surprised and advised him to get a checkup but he said it had happened to him before in that place."

"Thank you for your time, Mr. Brown. We will call you if we have more questions," said Clark and then they said goodbye.

"What do you think Clark? Davis is Kryptonian?" asked Chloe as they were walking to their car.

"Victoria Ravine is full of Kryptonite. Maybe he is one of Zod's people that came in the spaceship and had never been revealed, like a backup plan. And for this reason he has control over Doomsday. Somehow he recognized us for some reason when he met us and sent Doomsday to kidnap Jonathan. But I can't understand why he returned him to us without asking for anything."

"I don't know either, Clark. But I keep thinking about one thing: why Jonathan? And if Doomsday was the killing machine you explained it was, why didn't it kill or injure me when I was fighting with it?" asked Chloe.

"I don't know, but one thing is certain; we need to watch over him with extreme caution. If he is Kryptonian, has powers and controls Doomsday, he could be a very dangerous enemy."

"Okay, maybe we can go to an orphanage that he listed as a reference on one of his job applications. If it is true that he stayed there, then he didn't come in Zod's spaceship. We should go there and investigate."

"But they won't tell us anything. You know how difficult it is to obtain information about minors, even for the police, without a warrant or some kind of court order."

"Clark, this orphanage is closed; it was damaged in a flood last month. Maybe we can get in somehow and search for the files if they weren't ruined and if they are still there. If we're lucky they probably haven't had time to remove everything yet."

"And why didn't you tell me before that you knew about this?"

"Sorry, I got a little distracted last night practicing my new criminal career," said Chloe with a smile.

Chloe parked the car near the orphanage. After learning from the Daily Planet news stories about the fate of the orphanage, they feared that maybe the files might already have been relocated to another safe place. But since they only had this thread to follow, they had no other option but to check it out.

Clark and Chloe got out of the car and walked to the orphanage. In front of the building there was a small garden. They cautiously approached the building. Clark looked inside through one of the windows on the ground level.

"It seems abandoned," he commented.

"Go in," answered Chloe.

"I can't break these bars," he protested.

"But on the second floor windows there are no bars," observed Chloe looking up. Just near the building a big tree gave them the possibility to climb to the second floor level.

"Okay, but then, how do you come in?"

"Hey Clark, I am not a damsel in distress; if you can climb this tree, so can I," Chloe protested with indignation in her voice.

Clark climbed the tree until he was close enough to the windows and covering his hand with a piece of Kryptonian fabric punched through breaking the glass. Reaching inside he unlocked the window and opened it.

Clark stepped inside the open window and then turned to help Chloe, who was climbing in behind him.

"Could you see? I did it!" Chloe bragged in protest against her husband's low faith in her abilities.

Clark smiled and said, "Every day you surprise me more," and kissed her quickly.

They were in a room that had dust everywhere with random things scattered on the floor amidst some old furniture.

"Seems that no-one was worried about recycling things," commented Chloe looking around.

"I hope it was because they haven't started to repair the damages and move things to another place. And maybe we will find some files."

They walked out of the room and advanced with apprehension through the dark corridors with the only light coming from their flashlight. After searching for a little while, they discovered the file room was on the street level floor. So they walked down the stairs and searched through it.

The file room was full of disorganized files, some with water damage. Some papers were completely smudged or erased from the flood damage.

Chloe and Clark spent several hours searching through the papers and finally found an index. It helped them to search the files. Even though there was a lot of disorder, there was still some order amongst the apparent flood-caused chaos because originally the papers were quite efficiently organized.

Finally they found the file, mostly undamaged, that contained Davis' records. They opened it and read it quickly with only the light from the flashlight.

"Wow, his life hadn't been easy," exclaimed Chloe.

In the file there was information about the foster homes he'd stayed at during his childhood. He never remained more than a few months in any one of them, and there was so much information about his behavior problems. He had been a difficult child with some violent behavior. The more recent information was not in the file and there was a reference to a computerized file. Chloe searched through the computer disks in the file room and when she found the one she needed, she put it in her laptop that she always carried with her during their "missions." But the files were encrypted, so Chloe copied them to the hard disk so she could try to hack them later in a safer place.

Clark helped Chloe climb out the same window they had entered through. Cautiously they descended down the tree and returned to their car and drove out of there.

Some hours later, Chloe was typing frantically on her laptop at Lois' apartment. Jonathan was playing on the floor next to her. Clark was preparing something to eat and drink for them. They hadn't eaten so much in the last few hours they'd spent in Metropolis.

Clark carried the food to Chloe and sat down next to her.

"Are you making some progress?"

"Clark, I am able to do it. I only need some more time," answered Chloe impatiently.

"What do you think about what we know of Davis?"

"Well, being him isn't easy. But I'm asking myself if we had grown up in foster homes how would we be?"

"But Chloe, if he changed foster homes so often, it was because he was a problem child."

"Yes, I know. And from what we discovered he is still a problem as an adult, but it doesn't mean he had some connection to Krypton. Clark we don't have any proof of his origins. In the orphanage file it only explained that someone found him abandoned in the street. There are a lot of children with the same story and they aren't Kryptonians."

"But if the Kryptonite affects him… it's proof."

"I agree, but we are not sure of it. That he turned ill at Victoria Ravine could be a coincidence. I want to find something more definitive," said Chloe.

"What is certain is that our theory about him coming with Zod's people in the spaceship is wrong. We found he existed before that happened."

Finally Chloe was able to decrypt the computer files and there was only one report.

"I have it," said Chloe after reading the report.

"It's only one piece of information from when he was a teenager stating that he vanished for some days and no-one was able to find him. When Davis reappeared, he claimed he didn't remember anything. The report said that he didn't explain what happened," Chloe continued.

After talking about it, Chloe and Clark made a decision: they would wait for Lois to come home to ask a very important favor of her.

-tbc-