Smallville: 2012
. . .
Mistakes
. . .
The office was spacious enough, comfortably fitted and the décor was marked out in her preferred pastels – cream and beige predominantly – yet she was not deceived by the trappings. She had spent at least ten minutes knocking out the various bugs in the room before she had even begun to upload the security software into her computer, it was ex-Checkmate technology but it still worked. She certainly did not feel safe – she wasn't that arrogant or that stupid – but she felt reassured, she had feeds on the detention cells and on the approaches to her office.
She checked on their latest arrival, he was crumpled in the corner – his hyper-metabolism was a handicap in this situation, like his aquatic-counterpart he received nourishment only slowly: just enough to keep him alive. A few morsels into his cell every so often so he wouldn't die on them – they couldn't afford a death, the non-Metahuman two were fed equally miniscule rations: they were not here as guests and they couldn't afford to waste time preparing gourmet meals for their detainees.
In an ideal world she would have liked to have assumed shared-control of the operation before the kidnap of Arthur Curry but unfortunately she had only actually been able to achieve a face-to-face meeting after early mistakes had been made. If the suits working for them had been intelligent they might have recognized that Curry was talking on his cell-phone before they kidnapped him and realized that the contact he was calling was Bart Allen. Allen was a loose end, with his capabilities he could have reached Curry the moment he heard his friend be knocked down by the sonic discharge and indeed he probably had seen everything.
That was why she'd gotten involved with the shipment of kryptonite, intercepting the original seller and taking their goods for her own, naturally she'd ensured there were no loose ends and then she'd arrived at the facility. She'd made short work of Mia Dearden, shorter work than she would have expected it would take to knock down the protégé of the Green Arrow but, then again he was hardly the most talented of the bunch – and then she had gone after Allen. He had not been difficult to hide nor had he been particularly difficult to catch.
A few well-aimed punches had been enough to daze him, and the taser had knocked him out more completely, she had then travelled with him to the facility and overseen his transferral to his own cell – one apart from Curry. She did not want communication amongst the prisoners – she did not underestimate her enemies, nor did she underestimate her partner. He was a particularly crafty individual, and one she was quite sure was unhinged in some way, his grotesque appearance did not endear him to her any further but she needed him at this point in time so she would have to accept that for the time being.
That hadn't however stopped her implementing a controlled leak to Tess Mercer's little Mole lower down in the organisation, Mercer had always been untrustworthy ever since her days in Checkmate and she had every reason to expect that the treacherous White Knight wanted in again, which was exactly why she had leaked the false trail. It was enough information that Mercer would already know to draw her in with enough padding to confuse her, naturally she had hidden a little information in plain sight to be unearthed by them when she needed it unearthing, right now it would just confuse Mercer and make her go silent for a while – which was after all what she needed.
"Caroline my dear," the voice of her partner crackled over the inter-comm, the far wall of her office parted revealing a screen, complete with the visage of her partner on the left-hand side and to the right a collection of profiles of the Metahumans they were in the process of capturing, "may I have a moment of your time?"
"Of course," she said, rounding her desk to face her partner, "what would you like to discuss?"
"I have learned that a former associate of mine is to attend a Charity Gala in the city tonight, I would very much like it if we could cause a…disturbance."
"Is he Metahuman?" she probed.
"No," her partner stated, "he has no powers of his own but he enjoys…gadgets. I doubt we should be able to take him at the gala but it might be possible to cause…issues for him, I assume you can use some of our contacts?"
"It should be possible," she said, comprehending what he meant by issues, "I will see to it that it's all arranged."
. . .
"Well at least your lousy taste improved with Chloe," Dinah said, casting her head across the panorama of Metropolis as if she was hoping a big searchlight would beam into the sky saying 'Base here', she turned back to Oliver, "shame about your attitude…you're still prone to your mood swings, you know Chloe's right about the whole, this isn't your fault thing right?"
He didn't answer, he was to busy surveying the city himself, probably having exactly the same feelings as she did, probably just as worried, probably beating himself up about the whole situation still. She didn't understand it, he was acting like he was their guardian angel and that was an insult to them if he thought that things would have been different if he'd have been there with his arsenal of arrows for every occasion – they could handle themselves and he needed to get past his pride and accept that. Accept that he wasn't responsible for everyone. She knew that if she got kidnapped she wouldn't want him feeling guilty about it or acting as if he could have made things different – he couldn't have, he was just being delusional.
"I don't know what to think anymore," he said, he faced her now, she couldn't even see the little glint of warmth in his eye that was always there normally, even when he was mad, his eyes were cold…he was being consumed by his inner darkness, "this isn't working…if we just split up we'd have probably found something by now."
"Splitting up is what got the others kidnapped," she reminded, she didn't want to hurt him with the comment but it might snap him to his senses, he clearly needed another talking to, and Chloe went soft on him too often…in her experience with multi-billionaire playboys they needed a couple of slaps before they paid any attention to reality, "Chloe might be willing to just let you go on moping or willing to convince herself that you're fine with everything but I'm not – I have my Canary call, all you have is a couple of fancy arrows – I don't care that they took out AC, obviously they can take out non-Metahumans a hell of a lot easier than they can people without powers like you or Mia or Courtney. As long as you're like this you aren't any good to me, you're a liability and your kidnap fodder waiting to happen."
He looked past her to the city and then she realized she'd hit a nerve when she could see the droplets forming at the corner of his eyes, she moved closer to him and he slumped into her arms, sobbing slightly as the tears began streaming. He drew apart from her after a few seconds and sniffed a few times, wiping away the tears and drawing his hood back around his head and putting on his glasses and looking away from her, moving to the edge of the building. She followed cautiously keeping a distance back.
"This wasn't your fault." She said more emphatically this time.
"Maybe you can use that about AC or about Courtney, but no matter what you say I did this to Mia, I took her off the streets, I offered to train her…to mould her into my apprentice or sidekick…or whatever she is – I brought her into this world so the only reason she is with whoever she's with is because I put her there Dinah, and I'm sorry if you don't want to let me feel guilty about that but I have to because I form attachments…because I care about people – maybe that's a flaw but I can't just pretend this hasn't happened and pretend like I'm not upset."
"And you're suggesting I'm not upset?" she scoffed, "Just grow up Ollie – stop acting like you're the only injured party, they're our friends too you know – sure I don't know Mia as well as you but we've sparred a few times and I helped train her a couple of times when you were out of town – and as for the others don't you think I'm worried about Arthur and Courtney and what's being done to them? Don't you think Chloe is or even Clark? He might like to play the tough-man but he's more fricking compassionate than all of us put together – the guy's giving up his life to protect us Ollie.
"I'm not saying don't forget what's happened, I'm not saying don't be upset – but don't focus on it, don't let it overtake you, you have to keep it under lock and key," she schooled calmly, "we will rescue them, we will save them and we will get the people that did this – but to do that we need to do what we can for our friends out here, not think about what's being done to them in there, you understand?"
He nodded slightly less reluctantly than he had a few days ago with Chloe, siphoning away his guilt and his fears into a part of his mind were he wouldn't have them controlling him so resolutely – he couldn't deal with them now, he shouldn't have tried in the first place.
"Let's fine those people – we should retrace Mia's steps."
. . .
She'd recognized the name the instant Clark had mentioned it to her though she hadn't realized where from, Watchtower had only taken a few moments to throw up what limited information she could pool about Themyscira – the island home of the Amazons – apart from a brief visit to the Vatican, the Queen Hippolyte had never ventured beyond the shores of the island, and otherwise there was very little to be said about the island. It was somewhere in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Greece and was supposed to be, according to mythology the site of the Gate of Tartarus – the ancient Greek version of Hell, although Chloe wasn't entirely sure if she could distinguish the fact from fiction.
Diana Prince on the other hand was rather better documented, she had entered the country on diplomatic immunity from Themyscira, she had studied in Athens, Rome and Paris and had arrived in Metropolis a few months previously. She had taken the job at Planet a few weeks ago…and then Chloe's sources had dried up about her. There was very little to indicate she was Metahuman at all apart from what Clark had told her…Chloe was stumped and that was unusual, too unusual. She turned around at the sound of the whoosh to see Clark.
"So what did you find?" he asked.
"Nothing," Chloe admitted, "nothing to indicate she's a Metahuman anyway…she is from Themyscira though – the island of the Amazons," she qualified when she noticed Clark's confusion at the foreign sounding name, "so it could be to do with magic or something else…maybe you should talk to Zatanna? She might at least have some idea about the Amazons…I mean more than I can give you…sorry Clark but I can't really help on this one."
He frowned, "Did Ollie and Dinah find anything?"
"They followed Mia's route that night but they lost the trail part way through…it's been cleaned by someone, like Mia was never wherever she was…Clark I think it's time that we considered checking in on everyone to make sure their okay…something's…something's happened…"
"Chloe?" Clark cocked an eyebrow worriedly.
Chloe frowned, "Bart." Was all she could say, she'd been distracting herself with immersing herself in the culture of the Amazons to focus on the news, she'd tried to call Bart, to text him and she'd even visited his apartment to check in on him and her suspicions had been proved correct, signs of a struggle and that Bart had left in a hurry…which for him was the blink of an eye…they'd taken him like Mia and the others. They'd lost someone else, she searched Clark for a clue to how he was feeling but he didn't reveal anything more, his face was a wall – guarding any outward emotion.
"Clark say something." She implored – she needed him to say something to distract her from it.
"Send that message," was all he replied, "to everyone – even Zan and Jayna," he remembered his admirers, they were doing pretty well at low-level crime-fighting but they remained naïve, and such innocence would be dangerous in the current climate, very dangerous, "I'm gonna go see Zatanna…see if she can shed any light on this."
"Clark…do you think I should tell Ollie?" Chloe asked.
Clark shook his head and left.
She had to tell Ollie didn't she? He was her boyfriend…and Bart was his friend – he would find out anyway wouldn't he? But was it worth doing it if Dinah had brought him out of his slump – to send him back to square one? She couldn't think about that now…she had to find out who had taken them and why, and she needed to do it before Ollie found out about Bart – she opened up her hacking programmes and set to work on Tess Mercer's personal files, she didn't care if Tess had feigned ignorance there was something more to her and she could bet that in the twenty-four hours between their last meeting and the present Tess had already found something, Tess always did.
. . .
I shouldn't feel challenged, I'm the alpha-female, I'm like the lead-lioness in the Pride and she just needs to back-off. Or does she? Damn it why do attractive girls always have to turn out nice, if they were bitches it'd just be easy because I could go to town on their asses but on this one I have to be kind and sincere and sweet because Clark thinks she's a sweet girl and she actually is one to boot – this isn't an act…if it was an act I'd have smelt it by now. I'm just gonna have to accept this and try and be amiable…without smacking her for being so damn pretty.
"What did you dig up?" Lois asked warmly, sipping at her coffee, ensuring that when she put the mug down her face was smiling perfectly, effortlessly and completely falsely – she couldn't actually smile at the girl yet.
Diana handed a printout across the desk.
"Billionaire tycoon Bruce Wayne is attending a Charity Gala tonight being held to raise money to save part of the Amazonian rainforest, it's going to be full of ecologists, apparently he's going to use it as a platform to announce a new green-project from Wayne Enterprises – do you think its worth checking out?" she enquired.
Lois considered it for a moment – getting the scoop on the ecology angle of Wayne Enterprises would be interesting, not to mention the fact that she'd be interested to prove Wayne over whether he was pursuing this out of sincere concern for the environment or because he was trying to hide up his business's lacklustre C02 emissions record. For a man who was trying to portray himself as compassionate she somehow found his whole playboy billionaire persona a little too reminiscent of what Oliver must have been like in the early days.
"Definitely," she affirmed as much for herself as for Diana, "we need to find out what's hiding behind this story – it has to go deeper than some stupid ecology project, Bruce Wayne is one of the richest men on the planet, he could probably bribe half of Congress to vote against Environment legislation just to benefit his company if he needed, this guy is shady and it's our job to expose him for what he is and what he's trying to cover up."
"Have you ever met him?" Diana enquired – it wasn't said snappily or as a reproof, but in an ambiguous voice, "Maybe he is being sincere – for all you know perhaps he has a conviction to defend the environment, maybe it's important to him."
"I doubt it," Lois rebuffed firmly, "regardless we should go to get the scoop on him but before we do I think we need to do a little more background research on him – worst thing you can do as a reporter is investigate something without being able to put things into context."
"So we should get to know him first?" Diana joked but immediately stopped laughing when she saw Lois's face, "His parents were killed when he was very young, he was raised by his butler, he built his Business Empire from nothing and he recently adopted a teenager – is there anything else you need to know or just the sketchy details?"
"Sketchy details are fine." Lois snapped, getting up from her chair and leaving Diana at her desk, she definitely had the urge to throw her coffee over the girl now…that or just kick her in the head, she couldn't decide which would be more satisfying.
. . .
As far as anyone knew she was still at the office, she'd hired the saloon under an anonymous name and she'd avoided CCTV where she could but it was unavoidable here, she would just have to take the tapes when she got another opportunity, she left the car in a space and walked briskly towards the building, avoiding eye contact with anyone sat in the waiting room and walking straight up to the receptionist desk.
"How may I help?" the receptionist asked.
"I'd like a consultation please, I was recommended by a friend."
The receptionist smiled, "Just take a seat and one of our Doctors will be with you in a moment."
. . .
Hope you liked Chapter 2,
Acrobat
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