Lex stood for a moment. He would not allow the look on his face to betray the feeling of shock that he felt at her comment, just incase she turned around again. How could she possibly know about that? Suddenly, Lex regarded her much more seriously than he had. At first, he assumed that she was just into the authority she had from this job. He now knew that she was not what she seemed.
He left the room and got himself a scotch. When he returned, there were two files on the table, the artist's tube, and her computer. She stood to the side of the table, obviously waiting for him. Lex walked over to the table. He started to say, "Would you mind telling me…."
"These are hard copies of some of your invoices that I found of interest," she interrupted, holding one of the folders up. "These purchases take place at staggered dates, since you took over Plant Number Three. Here is a graphical representation of when these purchases occurred over approximately the past year," she continued, opening a file on her computer to show him graphically.
"I don't see your point, Rhone," he put his glass down and his hand in his pocket.
As though she didn't hear him, Rhone turned to her artist's tube and opened it. She pulled out a long rolled up piece of paper and walked a few steps over to a clear spot on the table. She removed the rubber band that bound the paper and put it around her wrist. He noticed her unusual watch. It was silver and the face was completely digitized. Then she unrolled the paper onto the table. "These," she began, "are the blue prints for a particle accelerator."
Lex froze. Shit, how could she possibly know that? How could she have figured that out from some…?
She interrupted his thoughts, "As you will notice, all of the invoices in question contain materials to build this device. Some serve no other known purpose on this earth, except to construct this device."
Lex stared at the blue prints. Holy shit, who was this fucking broad? How could she put this together? Did she just know how to construct a particle accelerator off the top of her head? Where did she get the blue prints anyway? Lex's physical appearance never betrayed what he was thinking. He looked at her and she looked at him. What did she want from this?
He picked up his drink, "What do you want?"
For the first time, he saw her eyes betray a second of confusion. Hesitantly, she said, "I don't understand."
There was agitation in his voice, "What do you want; money, power, real estate, a piece of Luthor Corp.? What do you want?"
Rhone was shocked at what he just said. That thought had never occurred to her; he thought she was going to blackmail him. She thought that some of that shock was translated into her mannerism because she saw a look of confusion wash over Lex's face.
"Is this some sort of twisted sex thing?" Lex asked with a not-ruling-the-idea-as-a-bad-thing look. She wasn't bad looking after all. Her build and features made her exotic, like a small-breasted Amazon. Far different than any of the other women he had ever been with.
A look of mild disgust crossed her face as she regarded him. The soldier in her briefly crushed all other emotions that lived in her. She eyed her artist's tube for a split second. She thought that she should just kill him and be done with it. This was potentially a matter of national security.
Then she looked at the other file that sat on the table, his file. It was very thick, very thorough. She remembered reading about his mother, the life he led after she had died, how he took the wrap for Club Zero, other good things among the not so good. If Griffin ever found out, or any of her men for that matter, she would be shamed into retirement. Could it be that her -- compassion was beating the shit out of her trained soldier emotions? She decided not to use that folder against him.
The disgust on her face had softened into one of just seriousness. "All I want, is for you to tell me something," she said in a monotonous voice.
He lifted up his eyebrows in a quizzical way, imploring her to continue.
She walked up to him slowly and stood about a foot in front of him. It wasn't seductive, she didn't mean it to be; it was unnerving, she meant it to be. He wasn't being looked at; he was being – studied. Lex didn't like this; he was supposed to be the one that was scaring the hell out of people with his presence.
At the same time, she grabbed the wrist of his free hand and placed two fingers on the side of his neck. He was shocked; no one ever touched him. All he wanted to do was jerk away, but he also wanted to know what the hell she was doing. Damn his curious nature.
"Are you a terrorist?" she asked after a moment, looking into his eyes and keeping their hands in their positions.
He looked at her unbelieving for a moment and smiled, almost laughing, "No."
She didn't move for a long moment. She studied him, analyzed what she perceived from her eyes, hands, and ears. She -- believed him. Damn it. Finally, she nodded, let go of him, and backed up to an average distance from him. "Alright," she said lightly as she began to roll up the blue prints.
That was it? He just answered her question and "alright." He was surprised when he should have been insulted, a terrorist? He was relieved not to be under that kind of scrutiny anymore. He noticed that she had taken the blue prints into the other room. She returned; he turned to watch her, the blue prints were gone. She packed the invoice folder into her laptop case. She said, "I'll return them tomorrow."
Lex was startled by her voice amid the silence. "I have to know," he started, "How in the hell did you ever put that together?"
"Let's just drop it," she brushed off his question, putting away her laptop.
No one brushed off Lex Luthor. "Who do you…" he started as he walked angrily toward her.
"Let's just drop it, because I could ask you what you are really using it for," she clarified with a sideways glance. He stopped, because she was right. That was definitely something he didn't want to talk about. "Besides," she began, "there are other problems to discuss."
Lex silently thought if he was doing anything else as questionable as the particle accelerator. "What is that?" he was almost afraid to ask, if Luthors could be frightened.
"You received a -- visit from my co-workers today?" she accented the word visit.
This was a better line of conversation. He gestured toward a sitting area in the large room. She grabbed her artist's tube and followed him there. He thought it odd that she would take that and not her obviously expensive laptop. He sat on one of the plush leather couches and set his drink in front of him. She sat directly across from him on an identical couch and set her artist's tube on the table. Her whole mannerism had changed after she had deemed him unthreatening to national security. She was much more relaxed, pleasant to be around.
Lex thought back to the meeting with the three invoice checkers in his office, that's when she was probably digging up those particle accelerator plans. God only knows how or where she got them. "Visit is a pretty nice word for it," Lex said, relaxing slightly.
She nodded, "I know, they're ghouls."
He was surprised at her candor. She was relaxed where she was sitting, leaning back, sinking into the couch, legs uncrossed in front of her. It was like watching one of those skater types make themselves at home in his castle. She was growing on him fast, her honest nature. It didn't seem like she was the same person that walked through his office door.
He couldn't help but let out a crooked smile. She returned it. "Whatever they said to you," she began and looked around as if looking for someone else, "is untrue."
"Which part?" he asked.
"All of it," she answered.
"How do you know what they said?" he turned his head to the side.
"I don't," she said simply. He smiled at her again. She continued, "I don't have to, Mr. Luthor. I know what that type of person would say. I know how they treated me the instant they met me, and they knew that I was their supervisor."
He really looked at her, and saw her wisdom. He leaned forward to listen to her, maybe some of it would rub off.
She looked down at her artist's tube in contemplation and then shook her head. "Your staff was not ready on time today and they should have been," she admitted.
"Then that is their fault," Lex acknowledged.
"No, it's not. It's your fault -- indirectly," she said casually. Lex set his drink down on the table. "They are understaffed. They need at least one other person in that department, probably two. Not to mention the day we came was the day after a heavy workload period for them. You should have been aware of that," she finished.
"I talked to their supervisor…" Lex began.
"You are her boss, of course she told you they could do it. Would Scotty tell Kirk that something was impossible?" she asked leaning forward.
He slightly furrowed his eyebrows at the reference. He didn't really watch TV, but knew what she meant. "No," he said looking at her.
"Don't get me wrong, you can't be everywhere or know everything. And she shouldn't have given you bad data. And you should know that everyone in that office works his or her ass off. They deserve raises," Rhone finished.
Lex looked down, "That isn't what your friends said." He liked the way she went to bat for people she didn't even know.
"Didn't I just tell you they're liars?" she asked with a small smile. "And they are not my friends," she said with an emphasis on the word not.
"I'm happy I don't get to see the report they write," he leaned back resting his arms on the back of the couch.
"I can assure you, Mr. Luthor, that none of their irrelevant negative comments, like the ones they made to you today, will appear in that report," she assured.
His eyebrows perked up, "Really, and how are you going to do that?"
She smiled, "You ask that of a girl who just burned classified particle accelerator blue prints in your fireplace."
"Well -- thank you," he said. No one had ever done anything like that without wanting something back from him. Clark saved him, but this was business. It was different. "By the way," he started, "where did you get those plans?"
"Mr. Luthor, the only organization in the world that exceeds Luthor Corp. in the reaches of its tendrils is our own federal government. I work for them. And they asked for quite a favor when they asked me to come here," she said too much.
"This isn't your normal job?" Lex asked casually.
"No, it isn't. They just couldn't get anyone else to work with the people I am working with," she didn't need to lie about that.
"What do you normally do?" Lex asked, wanting to know more about her.
"A little of this, a little of that," she sidestepped the question and Lex knew it. She was hiding something. He made a note to look into Rhone Chade a little deeper. "Listen, it's been nice talking to you, but I'm sure you have important things to do," Rhone said quickly as she stood.
He got up as well, "You know it's still early, you don't have to go." He liked talking to her, and it was nice having someone else in this castle. In a way she gave him that altruistic feeling that Clark gave him. She had already picked up her artist's tube and was heading toward the table to pick up her laptop case.
She turned to him. "Some of us show up to Plant Number Three before 10 in the morning," she joked.
"Normally I'm there around 9, I just woke up late this morning," he started to explain. Why was he explaining, no, making excuses to her?
"All the more reason that you should get your ass to bed today," she smiled and turned to leave. "Good night, Mr. Luthor," she said slinging her tube over her left shoulder and switching her laptop to her left hand.
He went for her laptop, "I'll help you out."
"I can show myself out," she said, but she let him take it when he insisted.
"This place is big, you could get lost," he went for her artist's tube with a crooked smile. His smile faded when she turned fast so he couldn't reach it.
"I've got it, thank you, Mr. Luthor," Rhone said with a light smile. She noticed his smile fade and she didn't want to offend him. She didn't let anyone touch it if she could help it. It was -- special to her and few things were. She felt the urge to tell him that, but she knew better. She started to walk out of the room.
He followed her, carrying her laptop in his hand. "So, you're into art," he said gesturing to the tube on her back as they started walking down the hall side by side.
She looked at him, "Something like that."
"Would I know any of your work?" he asked.
"Obviously not," she said with a smile.
"What kind of art do you do?" he was trying to get some non-work related information out of her. She was obviously more interesting than her file implied.
"Probably nothing you would like. I do very, very little fine art," she said. She didn't want to talk about her comic books. Associating a worldly man like Lex Luthor and comic books was actually amusing. She could just picture him at one of the comic book or sci-fi/ fantasy/ gaming conventions she once attended. She smiled to herself.
"What?" he asked when he saw her smiling.
"Nothing," she shook her head.
"Anyway, I would like to see some of your work," he continued.
"Maybe later," she said as Lex opened the front door of the mansion for her. She did have a half completed rough draft back at the hotel; maybe she would bring it to work tomorrow. No, she wouldn't; he wouldn't be interested.
She leaned down to take her laptop from him but he made a point to start walking toward her car. He approached the car that was not there when he had parked his. He squinted. It was the car from the Plant. His eyes widened, "That's yours?"
"Yeah, why?" she asked, really not understanding how he could be interested in her car when he had -- numerous cars.
"How did you get it? I haven't seen another one of these on the road," he said, running his hand over the curves of the flawless black.
"And you won't," she said as she threw her artist's tube into the small back seat and reached for her laptop again. He reluctantly handed it to her.
"Why not?" he asked slightly angry at the implication that he may not be able to have one.
"Because," she paused, "I made it." He raised his eyebrows. She leaned over the driver's seat to put her laptop case into her passenger seat.
Lex couldn't help but briefly look at her. Nice. "You made it?" he didn't really believe her.
"Yeah," she confirmed. He was still looking at her. She decided to cave in and explain, "The main body is a Corvette, but a lot of the body I chopped away and replaced with superior parts of other cars. That goes for the mechanics too. There are a dozen cars in there. It was in pieces forever while I was trying figure out a way to make all of it fit together." She shook her head at the memory of the infinite number of car parts and design drawings lying around the Mech Lab at the base. It should not have been physically possible to make this car, but she had a way with machines and metal.
"I would love to see what it can do," he said, looking directly into her eyes.
"Most guys would," she said half in her car. "Good night, Mr. Luthor," she said with a smile as she got in and shut the door.
He lightly raised his hand in a gesture of goodbye. She was interesting; he wanted her to stay. They could talk about art or cars or not talk at all. What the hell was that? That was out of the question, they were from two different worlds -- and there might be a struggle to be the man of the relationship. He smiled at that thought as he watched the taillights of her car disappear. He tried to shake those thoughts from his head as he went back into the house, but he couldn't. He decided to do a little more inquiring into her life before he wrestled with sleep. At least he would have something to think about while he couldn't sleep.