Ch 8
Pete hurried into the Torch seeing Clark sitting behind Chloe's computer. The message had been short ' meet me at the torch .' The tone in Clark's voice had given away that whatever was going on was serious. He looked around and didn't see Chloe anywhere, which struck him as odd. Whenever something strange was going on, she was normally right in the middle of it using her sources or researching things on the internet to find out what was really going on.
"I got your call, what's up?"
"Its Chloe." Clark answered, looking up from the computer screen. Pete immediately became worried that she had become part of the mystery rather than helping with it.
"What happened?" Pete quickly pulled up a chair sitting in it backwards, resting his arms across the top.
"She was kidnapped, Pete." Pete's eyes grew wide with worry, but he also saw the same in Clark's eyes.
"How did find out about it?" The thought occurred to him, since Chloe was normally the first to find out about the weirdness around town.
"Chloe and I went to see a movie last night and…" Clark words were cut off by the Pete waving his hands furiously in front of his face.
"You and Chloe went out on a date last night?"
"Yeah" Clark cheeks flushed slightly as he answered.
"Way to go man" Pete smiled punching Clark in the shoulder causing him to wince. Pete noticed Clark's pained expression and immediately became worried again. "What's going on with you? Something happened while you were out last night, didn't it? That's how you know about Chloe being kidnapped?"
Clark nodded slowly, pulling the neck of his shirt over to one side to reveal part of the bandaging covering his shoulder.
"Oh, man. This is really bad. Are you okay?"
"Yeah, other than a headache and a sore shoulder I'm fine." Clark really was beginning to feel better. His headache was now just a dull throb instead of the intense pounding it had been earlier when he had first woke up.
"What about all the extras?" Pete asked lifting an eyebrow.
"They're all off-line at the moment."
Pete exhaled slowly. The situation had just gone from bad to worse. "Do you have a guess at who would have taken Chloe? Who would know how to take you out, man? I didn't think that was exactly common knowledge?"
"Yeah, I have a guess at who did it, but I don't really believe it." Clark answered shaking his head.
Pete's face darkened with anger. "Lex." He leaned backwards and began practically shouting at Clark. "You told Lex. I can't believe you told him. As worried as your parents are about you telling anyone and you told Lex. Man, I just don't understand you. He is not the person to be telling things to, this proves it."
Clark sat there stoically listening to Pete rant. He waited for him to finish and gave him a second to calm down before answering. "I didn't tell Lex anything really. He saw me do something."
"So how much does he know? He's has to know about the kryptonite to have been able to take you out? How'd he find out?"
"As far as I know he just knows about some of my abilities. He may think I'm like these other people on the wall." Clark gestured toward Chloe's overgrown collection of articles. "He confronted me about what he saw, and I tried to deny it. He forced my bluff." Clark lowered his eyes thinking about what happened.
"He used it on you?"
"Yeah, he said Eric had told him about it."
"And still you don't believe he is the one behind this." Pete shook his head disgusted. "What is it going to take to make you see what he really is?"
"What is that Pete?" Clark snapped back.
"Someone who can't be trusted. Someone who can not handle knowing stuff like this. Someone who is only out for himself. Someone who will not have your back when you need it."
"Pete, I've never tried to replace him with you." Clark answered genuinely. "You've always been my best friend."
"Why don't you think it is him?" Pete asked changing the subject.
"Why would he go after Chloe like this? She told me she had been snooping in his computer in the security videos and found something." Clark said turning back to the computer.
"Well, there's your motive right there."
"I want to find out what it is she saw. I don't know if that would be enough of a motive." He then turned back to Pete. "Where would she keep something like that. I can't seem to find it anywhere on here."
"Try reviewing the last thing she watched in her video player."
Clark clicked and brought the video player back up that he had minimized before he began looking for the file. Clark watched with disappointment in his eyes as the video began to play. Lex had told him that he wasn't experimenting with the meteor rocks anymore. He watched as Lex and a scientist stood and talked about the experiment they were working on.
His disappointment turned to confusion and worry as he continued to watch. He watched as panic began to fill Lex as the experiment began to go horribly wrong. An explosion rocked the area shortly after that knocking the camera sideways. It was still filming though the picture was now distorted.
What came next, Clark was not ready for. He saw Lex get up and walk over to the scientist and they hobbled from the room. The camera then caught another Lex slowly rising up from behind a table towards the back of the lab before the screen finally went black.
Clark sat in stunned silence for a moment before turning to Pete. "What do you think about your old evil twin theory now?"
Pete blinked his eyes several times making sure he really had just seen what he thought. "Yeah."
Alexander sat in his office sipping on his drink. A sinister smile spread across his face. He was looking at the computer screen showing the same video that was being played in the Torch. "Come into my lair said the spider to the fly."
