Lex wound his way back to his office after dinner. He walked slowly, once again contemplating how she had managed to corrupt meals for him as well. …The deafening quiet…
He opened his office door – darkness. He moved to the desk to turn on a light. He was mentally running over what he had so far in his apology – without actually saying the words "I'm sorry" -- when an icy feeling of fear wrapped itself around him. He stopped for a moment and listened – nothing. He shook it off and turned on the small desk lamp with a 'click.'
He jumped back when he saw a young man no more than two feet in front of him. The man was wearing all black with black sunglasses, despite the fact that it was pretty much dark outside.
Lex immediately put his hands up. "What do you want?" a slight bit of panic filtering its way into his voice.
Lex was about to offer the man some of his vast resources when the expressionless figure took a hand from behind his back and held it out to Lex. Lex noticed that he was being handed a very large packing envelope, curving under its own weight.
His fear had subsided slightly and Lex stopped to look at the brown envelope with curiosity. The young man raised the envelope toward Lex again in another offering. Lex pondered the possibility that this was some kind of trick, but realized that if something bad were to happen it probably already would have – the guy was already in his house.
Lex slowly reached for the envelope. He turned it over in his hands; it was heavier than he thought it would be and there weren't any markings. "What is it?" he looked to the young man.
The man shifted nervously and looked around. Lex looked around as well, not fully understanding what he was looking for.
The figure began to stride purposefully to the door. Lex decided not to call security – security. How did he get in here?
He opened the envelope and pulled out its contents. It was a large book with a light blue paper cover. The title was written in small regular type – entirely too small for the size of the book – like it had been put on with a regular typewriter. The cover read: Invoice Audit of Luthor Corporation.
Lex looked at it for a moment – this was the official government document. No one that wasn't a government employee was to see this – especially not anyone that had anything to do with Luthor Corp. "Wait." his head snapped up after a moment of realization.
The figure in black was about to step out the door, but stopped in his tracks. He hesitantly turned around.
After a moment Lex asked, "Who sent this?" As if he didn't already know.
The young man shifted in place. He ran his fingers though his short hair; "OK, is this part of the test?"
Lex narrowed his eyes at the young man, truly having no idea as to what he was talking about.
The man's posture turned to one of abrupt realization and he put his hands over his mouth, "Shit! You're not going to tell her, are you?" He remembered how she said hello; he didn't want to know how she punished failure.
"No," Lex was being honest. He knew who the young man was talking about. "Not if you tell me what I want to know," he amended.
"You didn't know that I was coming?" he asked in disbelief.
Lex shook his head as he turned to sit at his desk. Is this one of the exceptionally talented people Rhone talked about? No wonder she was in charge – not that he was trying to belittle the tremendous amount of talent she had demonstrated. But this guy was… Lex thought for a moment, "So, you're the new recruit." He raised his hand to offer him a seat.
The young man hesitated and slowly took the seat that Clark had occupied hours before, "Yeah."
"Tell me about this test," Lex prodded.
"Get in and get out without alerting security. Most importantly – don't speak, be authoritative without words. And deliver the envelope, which I hope you appreciate, because the fucker is heavy," the man put his left hand to his brow.
Lex perked his eyebrows at the last portion of his statement. "It's not that heavy," Lex looked at the report that sat before him.
"It is when you have to run with it from Metropolis," he said bitterly.
"You ran from Metropolis? How long did that take you?" Lex asked.
"Long enough to make me think about using some of my new found skills on you so I would never have to do it again, Mr. Luthor," he said through gritted teeth.
Lex stifled a laugh, "You can call me Lex. And you are…"
"New Guy," was his reply.
"New Guy?" Lex questioned. That wasn't very creative. He looked back to the report and opened the front cover to leaf through it.
"Yeah, she said that they needed something to call me until I found a name," he emphasized the world "found."
Lex nodded as he read the table of contents. …Holy shit. This document not only covered what was found at Plant Number Three, but all of Luthor Corp. A ball of glee formed in his stomach and exploded. There was no way his father could ever dream of getting his hands on this, that was why he hated the idea of the audit so much. He resisted the almost overpowering urge to jump out of his seat and do some sort of victory dance – most likely never preformed by any Luthor before him. This was just too good to be true, and he didn't even have to do anything to get it… Wait…
"Why did she send this?" Lex asked.
"I thought that was something between the two of you," he seemed puzzled, "She told Griff that she owed it to you."
The remnants of his glee ball quickly dissipated.
"I was actually kind of wondering what someone like you did to have someone like her owe you a favor," New Guy said.
Someone like me and someone like her, Lex mused. "Can you wait here for a moment?" Lex asked as he rose from his chair.
"I really should go; they're timing me," New Guy stood.
"If you don't…" Lex picked up the phone from his desk in a silent threat. He was truly wondering if this bluff would work.
New Guy looked at the phone, "You wouldn't. I told you what you wanted…"
Lex raised his eyebrows in a "Wouldn't I?" expression.
"Shit! I don't believe you people! Is this because I'm new?" he said in a way that implied he had gotten the brunt a lot the past the few weeks.
Lex looked at him without emotion and awaiting an answer.
New Guy shook his head and in his defeat said, "What?"
Lex began to walk out of the room, "Something for your return trip."
New Guy allowed his head to drop onto Lex's desk with a thud.
She had her right hand on her hip, feet slightly parted. She was completely still as she emptied her clip. Her gun's empty counterpart lay in the counter in front of her, dull silver with a black handle. She often mused that so many things she – acquired were silver in color. …Custom-made for her as well.
Faintly, she heard someone calling her name. Lowering her gun, she turned around to see Griffin calling to her. She walked a short way before taking off the protective gear over her ears and eyes. "What's up?" she asked loudly as others were still shooting.
Griffin motioned to the door that would lead out of the firing range. She followed him and closed the door behind them. They were in a room with huge panes of bullet proof glass so they could look out into the firing range. "New Guy is back on base," he said simply.
"Excellent," was all she said. The men on the other side had stopped shooting.
"Do…" he wanted to phrase this delicately, "You want me to send him to you so you can get a – full report?"
"Unnecessary," she watched the paper targets glide forward towards the marksmen. She had come to the conclusion that she had survived quite some time without Lex Luthor, and she could continue to do so. She needed nothing – until she laughed, or worked on her comics, or ate, or breathed, or blinked -- basically did anything that made her think of him. …Damn it.
He sighed and turned to leave. He would get a full report even if she didn't want one. He didn't understand why she was willing to throw anything she could have with Lex away because of one – non-fight. Well, he knew why. It was all the training, all the conditioning. She must be worried that she would begin to neglect the team.
He entered a long grey corridor when a thought occurred to him. She had never really been hurt – at least not like Lex had the power to… Lex had power, power she wasn't used to giving. …She put up so many walls and defenses – she put a lot on the line when she trusted Lex. Griffin knew that, so did she. …Griffin smiled; I've got to meet this guy.
She listened to Griffin's footsteps recede down the corridor. She quickly refocused her attention when she saw Awol was trotting up to the bullet proof window with a large grin on his face. He had two large pieces of paper in his hands. Rhone knew what they were.
He slammed the poster-sized papers against the window, facing her. Each generalized outline of a human had her initials on them, put on before they were sent back to be target practice. And each had a large hole in the center of the head, from repeated bulls-eyes. Perfect.
"Jazz told me this is what you did to New Guy's manhood," Awol laughed loudly, referring to the meeting in the shower room almost two weeks prior.
"He was the first guy that I recruited that had any," she raised her voice so he could hear her through the window.
His smile faded, "…Hey."