---- Chapter 2: Search & Destroy
Walking along the sidewalk, Chloe hunched her shoulders a bit as the wind nipped at her neck. Everything had seemed to have come together for her except the weather, which while clear was quite chilly. Glancing up at the sky, there weren't many stars visible because of the ambient light. That had always been something that she had loved about her time in Smallville. Stars. Such an odd thing to remember, but they were always so prevalent in the night sky there.
Pulling her hands out of her pockets for a second as she stopped at an intersection, Chloe looked up at the looming buildings above her. LexCorp dominated this part of the skyline, but if she glanced off to her left a little the globe on The Daily Planet took over as the main attraction to the eye.
She had loved that place like so many people loved their family homes. Most people thought of a family home as where they grew up; Chloe thought of f the Daily Planet. She'd gone in there as a nothing, working as hard as she could for years on end to become one of the top people, one of the best. When she had finally earned her way into the bullpen, it had been one of the best days of her life, almost a graduation of sorts.
There had even been a celebration. Lois had thrown her a party when it had finally happened, and she'd done the same for Lois when she'd gotten up there. The fact that it had basically happened at the same time had ended up making it a joint party, which had really just made it all the more special. They'd done it together.
Snapping out of her thoughts as people around her began moving, Chloe started walking along with them.
For a time it had been Sullivan and Lane, or Lane and Sullivan depending on who you asked or who you were around. They'd done so much good work together that it had been strange working on her own when Perry had split them up. He'd started using them on their own and with other writers, a move which he had referred to as 'spreading the wealth.' They'd still helped each other with things after that, of course, but they'd never technically been a team again.
For all intents and purposes, though, Lois had grown up with her at the Planet. They'd actually become closer through their time together there. It didn't matter that Lois seemed to have garnered more of the attention because Chloe wasn't in it for the attention. Her articles had done just as much good as Lois' had.
But then there was the teaming of Lane and Kent. Chloe smiled as she walked, rolling her eyes a bit at how good a team those two had become almost against all odds. Opposite personalities to the extreme. But when Clark had fallen about a month after getting back from his travels, well, Chloe knew that he was never coming back. He was gone.
She'd watched him pine for Lana. That had been painful. She'd also watched him try to figure out his feelings for Lois and then try to figure out if he could do anything about it. Him not doing anything about it for a year and a half had been an entirely different sort of painful.
In the end, of course, everything had worked out for them. She'd been lucky enough to be involved in their courtship... why the hell did she just think courtship? She'd been lucky enough to help with the wedding plans, being Lois's maid of honor, and then being later on when Jacob was born. Long night. And that had only been one year, one month and one day before where she was now. Amazing what a difference 396 days could make.
Picking up the pace of her step, Chloe wondered just how different her life would have been had there been a small turn along the way. She most likely wouldn't be on her way to kill Lex. No, that was definitely a consequence of some very bad turns in her life. Maybe if something had gone right along the way, she'd have a husband, a house and a son.
But her life hadn't taken different turns. It had taken the ones it had taken, and there was no way to change that. It had led her to this point, and now she was going along. Looking up again, LexCorp stood menacing before her. Time to go to work.
---
Flying into the house, Clark stopped at the base of the stairs after doing a quick clothes change. He did a quick x-ray of the house and didn't see Lois anywhere. He was less than shocked that she hadn't waited for him. Walking into the living room, he started to pull his cell phone out of his pocket when he noticed a piece of paper on the coffee table. Picking it up, he saw that it was a list in Lois' handwriting with a note at the top.
These are all the gun ranges outside the city. Chloe could be anywhere, so you check these. I also made a list of places she could be in the city, so I'm checking them because they're much more bunched together. Call me when you find her or when you run out of places to look. Sorry I didn't wait for you. Love you.
Releasing a sigh, Clark sped back into his Superman suit and locked the door behind him as he took off to check the list Lois had given him.
---
Lois pressed on the gas pedal a little harder, pushing the car to go a little more over the speed limit. She'd been fortunate enough to hit a bunch of green lights so far, and was driving a little more quickly than she normally did. She really wanted to find Chloe, hug her and just listen to her rant and rave about things, like it had been so many times before. There had always been something that one of them had wanted to rant and rave about, though nothing quite so serious as what had happened between them recently.
Scratching at her arm, she let her left foot bounce a little since it didn't have its usual clutch to take care of. She let her fingers tap out a beat on the steering wheel as Whitesnake played on the radio. When she'd turned on the music, she'd gotten away from Clark's stations and found her favorite, hoping the familiar tunes would soothe her a bit. It hadn't helped.
For some reason, she just couldn't get past her worries that Chloe wasn't going to a gun range. It seemed too easy, the way things had been going. She trusted what Chloe said, though, at least enough to try looking through the names she'd found in the phone book and online to find her. Unfortunately, she didn't know where else Chloe would be. She could be anywhere if she wasn't at one of the ranges.
Rubbing at her head, Lois felt the beginnings of a headache coming on. It was going to be one of those dull throbs right in the middle of her forehead that she despised. Not that she had a preferred form of headache, but those were the worst.
Letting her eyes focus off in the distance for a moment, she took in the lit skyline of Metropolis. She loved her city; there was no place in the world she'd rather live and make her family. She lived fifteen minutes from downtown in a great place that she'd never really seen herself in.
Really, when she'd pictured her future it had always been in the city. Leaving the buzz of downtown for the suburbs had never been her vision of happiness. When she found out that she was pregnant plans had started forming in her head about how they were going to do it.
But then Clark had made his case for getting a house, for having a yard for their son and any subsequent children to play in. Really, his description had been more of an idealized vision, but she knew what he meant. He'd been so adamant about the idea that he'd started taking her around and showing her places in various suburbs. He'd even printed out statistics about schools, crime rates and other things that he thought she would care about. She still hadn't been sure about it.
Then she'd gone to Chloe to talk about things. Chloe had made her see what Clark saw. While she still hadn't shared his enthusiasm for the idea, she had a much better understanding of things and had done her own research on the subject, cashing in a couple favors from researchers at work to do some stats and maps for her, letting her locate the best place to raise a family.
They'd found a good house they both liked, and the rest was recent history.
Chloe had made it possible for her to live in a house she had come to love, in a neighborhood that would give her children a safe place to play.
She wanted that for her cousin, so much, or at least a reasonable facsimile. She'd almost had it, too, or at least they'd all been under that impression. Fucking Mark. Why couldn't he have figured out that not loving her wasn't going to change with time. Why couldn't he have just gotten out after a year instead of staying in, even after finding love at first sight, of all things?
His poor influence, plus her poor instincts had made her push Chloe into something she wasn't ready for. Instead of a shoulder to rest her head on, Chloe had gotten a boot to the ass into singles bars. She'd almost acted like an overbearing mom that didn't know when to quit instead of just being her cousin. God, why had she been so stupid?
No more, though. She still wanted Chloe to find the love that she'd found for herself in Clark, but she wasn't going to push anymore. Pushing led to no good, at least not in this case. Chloe had to find her own path, whatever that might be. Lois hoped dearly that it included happiness. There had been so much misery in the last six months of Chloe's life that she almost doubted there would be happiness in the form of light at the end of the tunnel, but Chloe had to traverse that tunnel on her own terms.
Sighing, Lois noticed that she was getting near to the city now. It probably wasn't good that she'd zoned out while driving. It took something like her love for Chloe to make her do that. Gritting her teeth, Lois exited off the highway and headed towards the city.
---
Plastering a smile on her face, Chloe walked up to the man at the desk and swiped the pass card that Ollie had gotten for her. The light blinked green and the waved her back into the building. Pocketing her card, she kept her eyes peeled as se walked towards the elevator. She waited a moment for it to open up then stepped inside as it did so.
Once the doors closed, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the latex glove that had Lex's fingerprints on it. Pulling off her gloves for a moment, she worked the latex onto her hand then slipped the gloves back on, covering any evidence of it. She flexed her hand a couple times before letting it settle into a pocket like its counterpart.
Looking up, Chloe watched a couple floors fly by on the counter before looking back at the polished doors. Impatience overtook her and she let her heel tap against the floor for a second before she took to swaying her hips from side to side. She felt like she had so much nervous energy waiting to be used that it might start leaking out of her ears soon. Or she would explode. That one seemed extreme and painful.
When she finally reached the floor she wanted, she walked out, doing her best to keep her pace normal instead of dropping into a run that probably would have felt highly rewarding. She let doors pass as she made her way through the hall. She turned a corner and smiled at a couple men walking by, neither of which seemed to notice she existed.
She was here to kill Lex and they couldn't be courteous. Of course, they didn't know that she was in the building to kill Lex, but still, what had happened to the world? Around here it was probably a side effect of being so close to a human that basically radiated evil.
Shaking her head a bit, she focused on the job at hand. Remembering all the information she'd found on the building, she felt that she had a good idea of where exactly she needed to go to get everything done in short order, which is how she wanted things. The less time it took, the better. This was not something that should take her long hours. This taking long hours probably spelled her doom.
Finding the door she wanted, a door so nondescript that it stuck out in a row of nondescript doors, Chloe swiped the pass card and pulled off her gloves, stuffing them into her bag. She pressed her hand, covered by the latex glove onto the fingerprint sensor and the door unlocked. Quickly pulling off the glove, she stuffed it in a pocket and walked in. She gave the room a quick survey, finding it empty, and made her way to a desk in the back. This was the control center for video surveillance in the building, and a very good place to make sure she wasn't seen while doing her thing.
Dropping her bag on the floor as she sat down, Chloe swiped the pass card on the computer system desk, which led her to a screen asking for a password. Smiling, she typed in the password that Ollie had told her. A second later she was into the system. So far, so good.
Making her way through the commands, Chloe scanned each list of things that came up before she finally got to the top floor. There was a camera system for the entirety of the floor, and then a separate system just for Lex's office. Grinning, she paused the cameras on the floor and started writing in some new code. A couple minutes later, the feed that would be seen of the top floor all over the building would be of the floor below it. Fortunately, most of the floors looked the same and the doors to Lex's office were similar to others throughout the building.
Taking a moment, Chloe located all the footage of her in the building and deleted it. Yeah, they'd find the blank spots when they went over the days footage, but with the visual evidence of her being there essentially destroyed, nobody would ever know it was her. Hopefully. If nothing else, it would take longer for them to figure it out.
With that done, Chloe started working on finding the feed for Lex's office. A few minutes later she was frowning; she could hack into the feed and watch it, but she couldn't get access to it beyond that. After a moment more of working on it she sat back in the chair and chewed on her lip. She was going to have to find another way in.
All of a sudden her expression darkened. She moved herself closer to the screen and watched as Lex walked into his office and to his desk. Well, at least he was here. Now if only she could get the damn video feed off. Getting back to the keyboard, Chloe was about to start typing when the door opened. A man walked in and shut the door behind himself.
"Who are you?"
Chloe looked up and did her best to smile, taking in a deep breath and releasing it after a second. "Hi! I'm Sandy, the new security tech worker." Sandy? Why the hell had she said her name was Sandy?
"Why the hell wasn't I told about a new hiring?"
Chloe shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I was just told that this was the surveillance hub so I came up here to check for holes in the system. Looks like I'm here just in time, too, because without much effort I've managed to get deep into things."
The man stared at her for a moment before walking over slowly and looking at the screen. "What is that?"
"The video feed for Mr. Luthor's office. It only took me a few minutes to get into there."
"What? I designed that system myself! There's no way you should have been able to do that! The only person that has the feed is Mr. Luthor himself, on the computer in his office. It's the hard copy, too."
Wow, that was a whole boatload of information she hadn't wanted to hear. Nice of the guy to tell her everything she needed to hear, though. She shrugged again and looked up at the guy. "What can I say? There's a reason I was hired. I can help you with this for the future, if you want, but right now I need to go attend to some other things."
She got waved away and made her way out of the room. Maybe if she got away with this she could become an actress. That, or the guy she'd just talked to was incredibly gullible. Either way, she needed to get to Lex's office.
---
Up in the sky, Clark flew away from where he'd just stopped a mugging and back towards the last shooting range on his list. He pushed his speed a little and was there seconds later, floating a few hundred feet above it. Looking down, he activated his x-ray vision and looked at the building, but couldn't see into it. Frowning, he tried again but got the same result. Perfect, a place lined with lead.
Flying down and landing in a nearby alley, Clark walked briskly towards the building and went inside, giving the guy at the front desk a nod before saying anything. "Hi, I'm looking for somebody. A blonde woman, average height and weight, maybe a little smaller. Has she been in here tonight?"
"Only woman we have here tonight is Petunia. She isn't average, or anywhere near smaller."
Clark sighed. "Thanks anyway."
Walking out of the building, Clark heading into the night without anywhere to go. He figured he should probably fly to Metropolis to see if he could find Lois. He'd already tried calling her a couple times earlier but hadn't gotten an answer. After a quick change into his suit, he took off into the night.
---
Walking out of yet another failed attempt to find her cousin, Lois blew a thin stream of vapor out of her mouth and into the night. Checking her list, she walked back towards where she had parked her car and ran a hand back through her hair as she got in. Turning on the car, she signaled and pulled into traffic. She still had five or six places to go and was having no luck at all.
Pulling out her cell phone, she looked at the display and found that she'd missed a couple calls from Clark. Hitting the speed dial for him, she waited a moment until he answered.
"Hey, Lo. I was wondering if you were going to get back to me. I'm headed into the city to find you since I couldn't find Chloe at any of the places on my list. I take it you haven't had any luck."
"Very true. I'm just driving to the next place on my list, but I don't know that I expect to find anything. I don't know how I plan to find her, Smallville. If she isn't at one of these shooting places then where is she? Meeting with her dealer? Drinking alone? Normally I wouldn't have as much of a problem with that but with how angry she has been, large amounts of alcohol would be extremely not good. How are we supposed to do this?"
Clark was silent for a moment before speaking. "She took your car, right?"
"Yeah, that's why I'm driving yours."
"Doesn't yours have the customer service, where you can call in and say you forgot where you parked and need help finding it. They can send the GPS info on a map to your cell phone."
Lois broke out into a grin. "Clark, you have no idea how much I love you right now. What's the password for that information?"
"817K512TM. Let me know where to go, ok?"
"I'll call you back in a moment, Smallville."
Ending the call, Lois scrolled through her phone to the number for the car people and hit dial, waiting a moment for somebody to answer. When they did, she gave the person her code and was soon looking at a map and turning in a different direction. Checking her list while keeping one eye on the road, Lois found a shooting range right near there and pumped the fist with the list in it. Dialing Clark again, he answered on the first ring.
"What's the news?"
"The car is in the parking garage on 8th, about six block east of the Planet. There's a shooting range right near there, too. You go check it out while I drive. I'm about five minutes away."
Five minutes later Lois was turning into the garage. It didn't take her long to spot the car because Clark was leaning against it in the clothes he'd worn to work earlier that day. She pulled into the closest parking spot and jogged over to him. "No luck?"
He shook his head. "She's not there, and the people at the front don't recall seeing her."
Lois almost screamed in frustration, but groaned instead. When she looked at Clark again he had the familiar look that said he was heading somewhere else, quickly. He glanced at her, his eyes apologizing without words. She sighed and smiled softly at him, though it didn't reach her eyes. "Go, Smallville. I'll keep you up to date as best I can." He smiled at her and ran off, disappearing from sight a second later.
Not wanting to spend more time in the car, Lois walked out of the parking garage while scratching at her neck. Spotting a penny on the ground, Lois picked up the coin and remembered that picking up a penny was good luck. Luck. Ha! She flipped it over to the heads side and spotted the year: 1987. The year Chloe was born.
Stuffing it in her pocket, sh looked up at the buildings around her and found herself staring at the LexCorp logo a couple blocks away. Frowning, she let her head tilt to the side for a moment. What was it Chloe had said about her anger?
"You know how you describe your love for Jacob? The total, complete love I probably don't comprehend very well?"
Lois nodded and smiled at Jacob. "I vaguely recall that, don't I little guy?"
Chloe took another sip of coffee. "Well, think of that, but replace the love for Jacob with anger at life, and Lex in particular."
Frowning, Lois let her eyes drift away from the building as she walked into the foot traffic and crossed the street as the signal started blinking to stop crossing.
"Well then I promise at least four hugs if you come home right now, Chlo. Talk to me to blow off steam."
"I appreciate the offer Lois, and I may take you up on it later, but right now I need to do this. It helps, and tonight I think it will help more than ever."
Chloe having a gun wasn't especially bothersome, but would she get proactive with it? Chloe wouldn't go after Lex, would she? Walking a little faster, Lois realized that it might just be that. But Chloe couldn't shoot Lex, could she? Hell, she could take up smoking weed and she basically blamed Lex for all the crap that had gone down in her life, so going after Lex may not be entirely farfetched.
Breaking into a jog, Lois pulled out her cell phone and texted 'LexCorp' to Clark before picking up her pace towards the office building.
---
Stepping out of the elevator, Chloe looked around for a moment and spotted one security guard a little ways in the distance facing away from her. Stepping out of his potential line of sight, Chloe took off her gloves and pulled her gun out of her bag, loading a clip into it. Leaving the safety on, she put it in her coat pocket but left her hand on it.
Taking in a deep breath, Chloe readied herself for the part of the night that was going to test her nerves. She hadn't done through everything just to back out now, though. Twisting her neck so that it cracked, she exhaled and walked around the corner.