"What a waste of time," she said to herself, under her breath. She paused under the awning, thanking the doorman. She decided against a taxi, so she began to walk. She headed the general direction to Chloe's apartment, with plans to hail a cab in a few blocks.
She needed to clear her head. It wasn't worth the effort she was putting into it. Let Lex wallow in his own poison, she wouldn't let his unemotional attitude cause her pain. Lex had always walked the line between empathy, and complete cold-heartedness. Lana had thought that Lois would have softened him. But, apparently not towards anyone other than Lois herself, Lana thought.
Lana walked on, her mind replaying the conversation with Lex over and over. She turned the corner, and didn't think anything of the fact that the sidewalk ahead of her was deserted on either side of the street.
She was preoccupied with her thoughts, so she didn't hear the footsteps that approached from behind her. She had little time to react when a hand holding a heavy, cool, wet cloth clamped over her mouth from behind. She started to struggle against it, but she felt her strength dissipate almost immediately and her vision blurred. Whatever was in the cloth started burning her throat. Lana involuntarily closed her eyes and the hand was lifted from her face. She tried to call out, but no sound could escape her, as she could barely form any words.
Lana sensed, more then felt her body being lifted. She was placed rather roughly on the floor of a vehicle.
The last thing Lana thought about was Clark. Would he find her this time? Then there was nothing; Lana lost all consciousness.
Clark, Chloe and Lila headed to Chloe's apartment, which was only a few blocks from The Daily Planet. It was the safest place to have an uninterrupted conversation. Chloe was trying to come up with a cover story to get Lana out of the apartment, but when she used her spare key to open her apartment door, Lana wasn't there.
"That's odd," Chloe remarked.
"What," Clark asked, his eyes slowly scanning the whole apartment.
Lila stiffened; her nerves were frayed and starting to get to her.
"Lana said she was going to head straight back here after she left The Planet-but it doesn't look like she's been here at all," Chloe observed, walking through the small, tidy apartment. She looked for any sign that Lana had been there. No notes on the table, no messages on the phone. Chloe began to look concerned.
Lila relaxed when the concern turned to Lana's whereabouts.
"Maybe I should call her cell, just to be sure she's ok," Chloe said. All this talk of kidnapping, murder, and half human robots had Chloe a little on edge.
"Give her a little time, Chloe," Clark said, not as concerned as Chloe. She looked at him incredulously.
Clark Kent wasn't rushing out the door to Lana's aide? Things must really be different, Chloe thought.
"Well, maybe she went to the store, or maybe she stopped by Nell's? There are many reasons why she's not here right now. It is only," Clark looked at his watch, "Three twenty. She wouldn't be expecting you back 'til after five."
Chloe relaxed a little. That was true, she thought.
Lila watched the exchange between Clark and Chloe, still wondering why the two of them were so cryptic about things.
"Fine, I'll give her until four o'clock, then if she still isn't here, I'm calling her," Chloe set down her phone, and placed her bags on the kitchen table.
"I did some more thinking, and deducing about this, situation, that you're in," she looked at Lila, getting back to business and motioning for them to pull up chairs.
Clark grabbed two of the chairs from the small kitchen table and carried them around to the side where Chloe was sitting down. They each sat on either side of Chloe.
Chloe pulled out the hand-drawn diagram. Clark and Lila both looked it over.
"My suspicion lies with this Katherine Trumpet person," Chloe announced.
"Katherine was upset, Lionel had basically dumped her in the cold, left her for you," Chloe looked at Lila, "it's not a stretch to think she could have hired some guns to pull off this kidnapping, and even the murder."
"But?" Clark questioned.
"But, she couldn't have done it alone. She would have needed someone with a lot more power and resources to pull off such a scheme and not get caught, or leave evidence," Chloe added, looking back at her diagram.
"Katherine is a dedicated worker, but I can't imagine she'd do this," Lila finally spoke. She looked across Chloe, to Clark, who raised his eyebrows in question.
"Well, you know her better than we do," he added.
"Right, so my idea is that we head over to Luthorcorp, and see what we can find there," Chloe piped in, her head moving between the two of them.
Clark leaned back in his chair, so his face was obscured from Lila's view.
What are you doing? he mouthed to Chloe. He would be much better off going alone to Luthorcorp, and Chloe knew that.
"Trust me," she smiled in return, "besides, we'll need Lila to get us in without suspicion," she said. She silently dared Clark to argue the last point with her, staring him down smugly.
Clark looked at Chloe for a moment. He then looked past Chloe to Lila. Lila smiled and shrugged in agreement.
Clark shook his head in defeat, and they all stood and prepared to make their way to Luthorcorp Plaza.
"I'd better try calling Lana now," Chloe remembered, as they were headed out the door. She looked at her watch, it was three forty-five.
Chloe returned to her kitchen and removed the phone from the cradle. She dialed the number Lana had written on the piece of paper before she had left The Planet. It rang four times then went to voicemail. Chloe hung up and looked at Clark questioningly.
"No answer," she said as she dialed another number from memory.
"Daily Planet, Lois Lane," Lois answered her work phone distractedly. She was trying to perfect the last section of her article.
"Lo'," Chloe said through the line, as she heard Lois typing away on the other end.
"Can you do me a favor? Lana's not at my apartment, and I'm a little concerned, so I was hoping you would stop by here after you leave work, and make sure she's here and she's ok."
Lois stopped typing.
"Sure...but where are you going?" Lois asked, confused by her cousin's request.
"Oh, Clark and I are going to take Lila to her lab," Chloe said, hoping she sounded nonchalant. She looked back at Lila and Clark, who were watching her on the phone. She shrugged. Clark knew she had a hard time lying to Lois.
"Okay," Lois said slowly. She wanted to ask why Clark couldn't go alone, but she got the feeling Chloe was purposefully not telling her something. She decided to let it go for now. She didn't want to pressure her. Lois knew she was working on the story about Lionel Luthor and his murder, and Lois didn't really want to be a part of that, for Lex's sake.
"Well, be careful," she added, "and I'll call you later."
"Thanks Lois," Chloe responded, relaxing her body. She hadn't realized she was so tense.
Chloe hung up her phone, and the three of them left her small apartment.
Back at The Planet, Lois pulled the receiver away from her ear, and looked at it questioningly.
"What are you up to now, Chloe," she said to the empty room. She promised herself she would try and leave by four thirty, and she turned her attention back to her article.
Lila led the way through the atrium of Luthercorp Plaza, fumbling in her bag for her ID card. She found it and held it up for the security guard who was watching them, to see.
"These are guests, I'm showing them around," Lila vaguely implied. The guard nodded, and motioned for Clark and Chloe to sign the guest register.
"Since the offices are closed today, all visitors are required to sign the log," he added, when Lila looked at him questioningly.
Clark and Chloe stepped forward. Chloe took the pen first, and wrote Susan Woods. Clark watched and slightly raised his brows when Chloe handed him the pen. Chloe responded with a wry smirk. Clark took the pen, and wrote Jonathan Ross. It was the first alias he could think of. Clark set the pen down, and gave the security guard a polite nod. The guard didn't seem to remember Clark from this morning. Or if he did, he chose not to say anything.
"Thank you, have a nice visit," the guard replied automatically, taking the register back from them.
Lila led Chloe and Clark to the elevators. Using her ID, she opened the elevators and they entered.
Things at Luthorcorp Plaza are not always as they seem. The building itself holds many secrets; some are known, but most are not.
The top floor of the building is Lex Luthor's office. If one were to examine the space, and compare it to the blueprints of the building, they would discover there is almost one thousand square feet of missing space.
Part of this seemingly missing space includes a private, express elevator to the parking garage, and a large floor to ceiling safe. These two amenities take up close to two hundred square feet.
In addition, there is a hidden room. In this room are hundreds of artifacts and pieces of Lex's life since he'd lived in Smallville.
When Lionel went missing, and Lex was named CEO of Luthrocorp, he converted his own small top floor office to a large penthouse office. At this same time, he moved these particular artifacts from the mansion in Smallville, to this hidden room, adjacent to his office.
Among other things, in this room were various pieces of meteor rock, the only surviving Nicodemus flower, and a perfectly preserved parasite from the caves. Also in this room was the map to the stone in China that Lex almost had in has hands all those years ago, as well as all the information he'd collected over the last year on Lana (he had been amused at the relationship she had developed with Pete Ross). He also had files on his father, Adam Knight, Genevieve and Jason Teague, Dr. Crosby and Virgil Swann, General Lane, Desiree Atkins, and Helen Bryce, among others. He also possessed all his medical history he was able to "purchase" from the doctors at Belle Reve and Summerholt. Lex should have had extensive information about the Kent's and Clark as well, but some years ago his files mysteriously disappeared, along with many of his sources of information.
Lex was the only person who knew of the existence of this room, or so he thought.
In the basement level of Luthorcorp Plaza, were the research labs, not quite Level 3, but close. The square footage of the basement level was almost three times the square footage of the building directly above.
Each of the four branches of research had their own quarter of the available space; Zoological Research, Agricultural Research, Geological Research, and Technologies Research. Each of these Research Labs had, in addition to the main lab at the basement level, more labs and areas for research below the basement level. Technologies Research was were the I.O.N.A. project was located. Technologies consisted of the main lab, which was primarily where most of the work was done during what were considered regular business hours, and this was the lab that Clark had visited earlier in the day.
But directly below this lab was another lab. Lionel had created this sub-level lab just before starting the I.O.N.A. project; and only Dr. Hines and Katherine Trumpet knew of its existence.
It was in this secret lab that Lana started to regain consciousness.