Lois walked over to Chloe and Emmeline's table and set down a large mug of coffee with lots of whipped cream. "Triple espresso mocha-cappu-latte, my own invention, guaranteed to put the zip-a-dee back in your doo-dah."
Chloe took the mug and eyed its contents. "Thanks."
"Come on. It's not that bad. Jimmy is coming back. One day. Maybe. You know, besides, distance is good for the relationship. That is what all the guys who've moved away from me have said."
"Lois, I don't think that's helping," Emmeline said.
"Yeah, you should really stick to investigative reporting and out of the advice column," Chloe added.
"That's the plan," Lois said.
Jimmy had since taken a photography assignment in Wisconsin and Chloe was missing her boyfriend pretty hard. But Emmeline knew that Jimmy was head-over-heels in love with her, and a little thing like a short assignment wasn't about to have them breaking up any time soon. Behind them, Clark walked into the Talon.
"Hey, Smallville," Lois called. "Love to hear about the cows and the corn, but I got a lead on a dirty senator that needs to be hosed down. See you on the front page."
"She's going after a senator?" Clark asked as Lois quickly left the Talon.
Chloe shrugged. "I guess so. She hasn't told me much about it."
"Lot of that going around lately."
The blonde looked at him hardly as she stood up and headed to the counter. "Was that jab directed at our chins?"
"I went to Lionel to ask about Lana."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing. Just like you two."
"Wait a minute," Emmeline interjected. "Lana did the exact same thing with us, and that is very unfair of both of you. You guys can't keep coming to us with secrets and then get mad when we actually keep them."
"You guys know what Lex is really like. Did you forget what he did to you, Chloe, what he did to your mother?"
Chloe clenched her jaw and went to pick up her stuff from her table. "No, I haven't forgotten."
"I don't want anything to happen to Lana."
"Neither do we. But if she's staying in that marriage, all I can say is, she must have a darn good reason."
Emmeline hurried into the Planet after her shift was over at the clinic as Chloe had called her and told her that something urgent had happened.
"Chloe, what's going on?" Clark asked as he rushed down the stairs.
"You haven't heard?" she answered. "Senator Burke was murdered."
"What?"
"Yeah, it looks like Burke was in bed with la familia. He crossed them, they gave him the Fredo treatment."
"A mob hit."
"Well, all evidence points to that, but there is one witness who doesn't think so."
They made it to Chloe's desk and Clark saw someone sitting in her desk chair. "Lois?"
Chloe handed Lois a mug of tea.
"Thanks," Lois said softly as she took a slow sip.
Clark saw that the young woman had blood stains down the right side of her yellow jacket, somewhat hidden by Chloe's black coat resting on her shoulders. "What happened to you?"
"Uh, well, one minute, I was harassing a public official, and the next, he came out of nowhere, like a ghost. Burke and his men never had a chance."
"You saw who did this?"
"Yeah, I did more than see him, Clark. I know him. His name's Wes Keenan. We were army brats together when we were kids."
"I'm running a check on his name," Chloe said, and she went to go pick up the papers she'd printed on any possible results.
Emmeline went over to Lois and gently rubbed her shoulder.
"Looks like he works for the mob now," Clark said.
"Wes?" Lois said in disbelief. "No way. He's career military. He's been decorated more than a Christmas tree. Even my dad loved him, and the General hates everybody."
Chloe returned holding a piece of paper. "Lois, are you sure the man you saw is Wes Keenan?"
"I haven't seen him for years, but he has this little scar above his right eye, and…trust me. It was Wes."
"Not according to the U.S. Government. He was in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan four months ago. He was killed in action."
"No. That is not possible. I know what I saw."
"We believe you," Emmeline told her.
"What else does it say?" Clark asked.
"Nothing," Chloe told him. "I mean, his military records have been classified."
Lois went to stay at the Kent farm for protection, but things didn't exactly go as planned which was usual when Lois was involved. Wes had shown up in the barn, tackled Clark with superhuman strength, and disappeared with Lois.
"How could Lois have been kidnapped with you standing right there?" Chloe asked as she quickly exited her apartment.
"She just vanished, Chloe, literally," Clark told her.
"So, he could teleport, like Alicia?"
"This time, it was different. It's more like what Graham Garrett could do."
"So he can turn himself invisible?"
"Not just himself. He took Lois with him. And it's not his only ability. And when he hit me…Guys, I haven't felt anything like that since I went up against Titan."
Chloe's stomach tightened. "Clark, we need to find Lois before Wes…"
"We will. Were you able to uncover anything about Wes that might be able to help us figure out where he took her?"
"I haven't been able to retrieve any information from the military files, but I did run a crosscheck on his name, and I found one hit: Jodi Keenan."
"Jodi Keenan? Isn't that the woman who tried to kill Lex in the tunnels?"
"Guess who she's married to."
"Wes?"
"Looks like Jodi found out that Wes wasn't killed in Afghanistan."
"And she followed the trail all the way back here to Lex."
"Okay, so Wes is exhibiting multiple krypto-abilities. And according to Lois, he's also on the receiving end of some sort of mind control. How much do you want to bet that all of this plays into Lex's 33.1 experiments?"
"Chloe, I need you to contact Oliver and his team. They've been taking out 33.1 facilities all around the world."
"You don't you think that's a hero-to-hero phone call?"
"I'm gonna talk to Lex."
"Clark, come on. We both know that Lex isn't gonna tell you anything."
"Then I'll find somebody who will."
Clark quickly exited the Talon.
"I'll contact Oliver about this," Emmeline said. "Maybe you can go to the Planet and see what else you can find?"
"Wait a minute, since when can you contact Oliver?" Chloe asked.
"Just before he left, he gave me a burner phone that I could use to contact him in case of emergency. I'd said this qualifies as an emergency."
Of course, the burner she currently owned wasn't the same one he'd given her then.
"Why would he give you a burner phone? When did you guys even talk?"
"Well, you remember that time that you led the team through a raid on one of Lex's warehouses? That was around the time I had pulled away from Clark. And right before they all left, they came to see me and tried to convince me to patch things up with him. He gave me a burner, but I didn't think I would ever use it."
Which was true. At the time, she wasn't sure she would ever use the burner, but here she was now, six burners later.
"Okay, uh, I guess go ahead and call Oliver then and see what he says."
Emmeline quickly left the Talon before Chloe could ask any more questions. She still didn't want to tell her about her and Oliver's secret training sessions. Not until she had a better idea of what she was actually going to do with those sessions. She could've easily let Chloe take the lead and not raise up any suspicions, but this was finally some way she could actually contribute to the problem at hand.
She took out her burner phone and dialed Oliver's number.
"I thought you knew that I'm the one who calls you, not the other way around," Oliver's hard voice answered.
"No, Oliver this isn't about our training. It's Lois."
There was a slight pause before Oliver hesitantly asked, "What about Lois?"
"She's been taken. And our problem is that the man who took her is supposedly dead."
"Okay, tell me everything you know."
"His name is Wes Keenan, and he's a soldier Lois grew up with. He recently took out a senator and all of the armed men with him with no trouble at all. But as far as the rest of the public is concerned, the senator had ties to the mob and that's why he was killed. He has several abilities, like super-strength and he can turn invisible. His actions may or may not be controlled by a third-party. We think that he's tied back to Lex's 33.1 experiments."
"I think I can help you."
After Clark went to the Luthor mansion to talk to Lana, he, Chloe, and Emmeline reconvened at the Kent home.
"I think Lex was experimenting on Wes, trying to make him into a super soldier," Clark explained.
"Yeah, that's what Oliver told me," Emmeline said. "That they were trying to pick and choose certain meteor powers and then put them into one human being."
"Wait, you talked to him?"
"Do we really have time to discuss why I was the one to contact him?"
"Right. So Oliver knew about Wes?"
"Not exactly, he came across an earlier version in the Utah desert. Apparently, this isn't the first time that one of these super-soldiers hasn't followed their given commands."
"Well, was he able to stop him?"
"Yes, but barely. It took the equivalent of a mini-nuke to break through his force field alone."
Chloe looked at Clark concerned. "Clark, if that's true then even if you find him, I'm not sure—"
"Maybe this will help," Martha interrupted, handing them a military file. "Wes's military jacket."
"How did you get that?"
"Called in a few favors and had to promise a couple dozen of my own."
Clark opened the file and quickly scanned its contents. "Lois was right. Wes was a hero."
"He took her instead of killing her," Chloe said. "You know, if whatever programming they're using to control Wes is failing, maybe he'll go back to a place he remembers."
"Somewhere he lived or was stationed," Martha put together.
Clark looked back at the file. "The military base that Wes grew up on was decommissioned a few years ago. Fort Avelson, just outside of Metropolis."
"Sam Lane was stationed there when Lois was in junior high. Maybe that's where—"
Clark zoomed out of the back door before Chloe got the chance to finish her sentence.
"Do you ever get used to that?" Chloe asked Martha.
"Not really."
Clark was able to save Lois, but at the expense of Wes's life. He had been there to witness Wes come back to himself and say his good-byes to Lois just before he died for real.
Meanwhile, Martha Kent was heading to Washington D.C. to fill Senator Burke's seat so that she could use her power to help people like Wes from being used as pawns in Lex's twisted game.
"'Mrs. Kent Goes to Washington'," Chloe joked when Clark told her the news. "Well, if anyone can give Jimmy Stewart a run for his money."
"I just wish Lionel wasn't helping her," Clark said.
"What, you think the king of ulterior motives may have something up his Armani sleeve?"
"When doesn't he? Just right now, his son's a bigger problem."
"That's the understatement of the century. I mean, we've always known Lex has a dark side, but with what he's been doing recently, we're headed towards pitch black."
"I want to make sure that Lana's nowhere near him when the lights go out."
"Hopefully, he'll be behind bars long before that. I mean, Lois is meeting the Feds at the morgue. And once they connect Wes's body with Lex and then Burke's murder—"
Lois stormed up to Chloe's desk. "Don't hold your breath. Wes's body's gone."
"What about the Feds? I mean, what did they say when you told them what happened?"
"I work at the Inquisitor. You know, aliens, Bigfoot, Elvis. What do you think they said? As far as they're concerned, Wes Keenan died in action four months ago."
"Just like it said in his file," Clark said.
"He deserved better than this."
"Lois, I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry for me. Be sorry for Lex. He's gonna pay for what he did to Wes, and I'm gonna make sure that he doesn't do this to anyone else."
As Lois stormed out, the three of them shared a cautious look. Lois had a bad habit of sticking her nose too far and getting into major trouble. They worried that if she went too far this time trying to stop Lex, she might not make it out alive.
Emmeline walked into the warehouse Bart had run her to. Fortunately for everyone, she was getting better at controlling her stomach during the travel and she now didn't feel like she was about to puke her guts out when he ran her to the training location.
"How's Lois?" Oliver asked.
"Hi, Oliver, how are you? Oh, I'm great, thank you for asking," Emmeline teased. "She's fine. Mostly. Wes was a really good friend of hers, so she's taking this pretty hard. Clark was able to stop him, but Lois then had to watch him die, and that's rough for anyone. It doesn't help that no one knows the truth about what really happened."
"We're not doing enough here. I gotta let the guys know we've gotta step it up."
"Oliver, if I'm distracting you or taking up too much of your time with this, I'll understand if you need to stop."
Oliver raised an eyebrow. "You're not getting out of this so easily. Come on, let's pick back up on your combat training."
