After Agent Johnson left, Clark quickly excused himself, as Lois watched him leave she admired his backside. Clark, what are you up to? She thought, warily rubbing her thin chin. His lame excuse this time to Lois was that he had been instructed to gather office supplies for the newsroom by Perry White.
Lois noted that Clark walked in the opposite direction of the stockroom. She checked her watch, marking the time that he left. Cat Grant sauntered by, noticing the agitated Lois had begun tapping her foot impatiently. "Something wrong, Lois?" Cat probed.
"No! Not a thing, Cat!" Lois snapped. "Okay! Okay! No need to bite my head off!" Cat put both hands up in resignation. "I just saw Clark heading across the street…" Cat said in a smug tone. "Did you send him on a Starbuck's coffee run?" Lois was mortified.
Cat had caught Clark in a bald faced lie. Lois swallowed her pride. "No, I think Perry sent him on assignment." She lied to Cat, startling herself. Now, he's got me lying for him! She mused angrily. "Oh!" Cat smirked. "I thought maybe you two had a lover's quarrel."
Lois fumed. "No, Cat, everything's fine." She forced her voice into a calm tone. Cat smiled brightly. "As long as you're okay." She added, getting the last word in again. Lois punched some keys absently until Cat was out of sight. She then put her head in her hands and sighed deeply. Patience, you must learn patience, grasshopper, she berated herself.
Clark headed straight for Watchtower Base, and sped into the high tech facility to visit Chloe. The familiar breeze blew newspapers and copy paper all over the room. "You know, Clark, you can certainly help me keep this place clean." Chloe snapped before turning to face him.
"Sorry." He said as he quickly gathered up the mess and sorted it as best he could. Chloe glanced at him and chuckled. "What's with the shades?" Clark had forgotten to remove his fake glasses before hitting hyper speed. "Oh. It's one of my new lame excuses for Lois." He replied.
"Besides, I was thinking that in lieu of a costume or disguise, maybe people wouldn't recognize me as the Blur and Clark Kent." Chloe scoffed. "Glasses aren't going to help, Clark, only an idiot wouldn't notice the similarities between a visible Blur and a mild mannered reporter."
"Still, it was an interesting idea." She added. "What can I do for you, and how's my nosy cousin Lois, nowadays?" Clark shrugged. "Lois is getting closer to finding out my secret. She's suspicious of everything that I say and do. I wonder if it might be time…" He rambled.
"You should tell her the truth, Clark." Chloe suggested. "I was going to say, it might be time to break it off…before we get much closer." Clark glanced down, speaking in a depressed tone. "What? No way, Clark!" Chloe nearly shouted, making him wince.
"You'd never forgive yourself if you dumped Lois. Frankly, having lived through the Clark and Lana saga, I can't handle another bout of you mooning around, depressing everybody, and going stalker on Lois. You know that you'd do exactly that, Clark." She concluded.
"Yeah, but if I told Lois the truth, it would immediately put her life in danger." Clark whined. "We discussed your super whining ability, Clark." Chloe criticized. "Newsflash, Lois is going to put her life in danger on a daily basis anyway. I know her better than you do." She sniped. "Its who she is. That'll never change. She's nearly as stubborn as you." Chloe smirked.
"Wow! That's harsh!" Clark frowned. "Yeah, tell me where I'm wrong?" Chloe challenged. "Take her out, explain it to her, and give her a world tour, starting with your ice castle." Clark sighed. "I don't know, Chloe. It's a big step." Chloe shook her head. "Whatever!" She said.
"What else are you here for?" Chloe finally turned towards a nearby monitor. "We had another impromptu visit from Agent Johnson." Clark began, happy to change the subject. "Really? What is his deal?" Chloe asked absently, as her hands flew across the keyboard.
"I'm still not sure." Clark explained. "He believes that he works for our government, and at the same time works outside of it. He seems harmless, but Johnson also knows a lot more than he's been letting on, especially in front of Lois. Today, his shtick was to give us a research puzzle."
"Can you pull up these three titles: Behind The Curtain, The Emerald Wizard, and As Darkness Falls?" Chloe quickly used multiple screens to decipher the information. "That wasn't too hard." Chloe commented. "They're titles of articles in The Washington Examiner." Clark was skeptical. "Newspaper articles? What do we know about this publication?"
"It's a conservative think tank publication." Chloe responded. "They're not given to a huge amount of far right wing conspiracy theories. Here are the articles now. The op-ed articles tend to be longwinded, but readable." Chloe said as she quickly perused the opinion pieces.
"From Behind the Curtain, I get a sense that our government is hiding something…something big." Chloe analyzed. "From The Emerald Wizard, the writer seems to want to name names, but is afraid of retribution. Those two seem to be related, with a Wizard of Oz analogy being one thing that they have in common. As Darkness Falls, is a depressing piece about…world destruction! Talk about right wing paranoia!" Chloe commented.
"So Agent Johnson is a quack?" Clark guessed. "Not necessarily, Clark. He went out of his way to point you and Lois to these articles. Maybe he wrote them?" Chloe added. "He's trying to get us to publicize his articles?" Clark continued to speculate. "What are the authors' names?"
"All articles are contributed by Hit Quest One." Chloe read the accreditation. "Hit Quest One? That sounds more like a website." Clark offered. "Let's check it out." Chloe punched in the Hit Quest site, and immediately it offered her one choice. "Here it is." She announced.
"It seems normal enough for any right wing website." Chloe analyzed. "Let's see…UFO's, Space Aliens, Black Helicopters, Disappearing Government Employees, Conspiracy Theories…" Chloe read the subtitles for the site. Suddenly she gasped. "Oh my God!" Chloe exclaimed.
Clark reluctantly read over her shoulder. "No!" He winced. There was first of all, a picture of Kara, flying casually over Metropolis. It was obviously taken from an airplane window. Below a short article and some blogs titled: 'Who is this girl? A flying alien from another world?' was a link titled Kal El. Clark was about to press it, when Chloe grabbed his hand.
"No!" She slapped it away. "If you click on that link, this guy will have access to Watchtower's mainframe, and he'll know that we're interested in Kal El." Clark scowled. "Okay, I'll click the link from the Daily Planet's computer. He can't find out much from that."
"It stands to reason that the Daily Planet might be interested in his website, if only just to debunk any information he has." Chloe grimaced. "This guy knows too much, Clark. I would say that he's definitely not a nut ball." Clark groaned. "Maybe he's one of Tess or Lex's operatives?"
"Why confront Lois and I?" Clark wondered aloud. "He mentioned that he was interested in the Blur, Gold Wing, and Meta Humans." Chloe shook her head. "It doesn't make sense. He had to know that we'd check out the articles, and they would lead us to his website."
"He's got to be setting a trap for Kal El." Chloe guessed. "I've got to get back to the Planet, Lois was already growing suspicious of me leaving in the middle of the day." Clark said. "I'll check out Agent Johnson's website and let you know what I find." He turned to go.
"Hello! What's this?" Chloe gazed at a nearby monitor. Clark reluctantly returned to Chloe's desk. "Isn't this your errant cousin?" Chloe pointed to an obvious view of Kara flying low over a heavily wooded area, which led out of Metropolis towards Smallville.
"She just doesn't seem to want to be careful." Clark complained. "I'll have to talk to her." Chloe watched Kara focus like a hawk on something below her, diving sharply downward. "What the hell is she doing?" Chloe exclaimed. "It looks like she's hunting something…or someone."
"I'll head out there." Clark volunteered. "What about Lois?" Chloe reminded him. "She'll just have to wait." Clark said over his shoulder, as he zipped away. (The scene switches to the Daily Planet.) We see a thin, well-manicured finger clicking on a mouse button. The appropriate web page comes up.
"Kal El? What's that mean?" Lois mutters to herself. A story about a person called The Traveler, appears, complete with pictures of Dr. Swann, his deceased daughter, Lionel and Lex Luthor. A chill runs down Lois's spine. Most of this occurred before she came to Smallville.
Once again, Chloe and Clark had underestimated Lois. The intrepid Daily Planet reporter read every story from start to finish, occasionally glancing around the room to make sure that no one was watching her.
