AN: ENJOY!
Disclaimer: not mine
Chapter 9
Lex walked into the restaurant and to his absolute non-surprise saw that his party was already present. He quickly scanned the restaurant and saw other agents. He grunted to himself.
"So this is to be an ambush. They actually do think to intimidate me."
He sat down across from Amanda Waller and motioned for the waiter. Lex resented the fact that he was summoned and that he had no control over the situation.
"Tell me, Waller, is this on the government tab? Or are you forcing me to pay for this meal? Shouldn't you be out prosecuting an actual criminal? Perhaps Martha Kent?"
Lex could admit to himself that he felt a blazing charisma from Agent Waller. She had this aura about her that discouraged anyone from being stupid in her presence. Amanda Waller was a formidable woman.
"I'll be picking up the tab, Mr. Luthor. This is a business meeting after all."
He leaned back into his chair. "To what do I owe the pleasure of this business meeting?"
"We know your activities. We know about the meteor rocks. We also know that you have been temporarily ousted as the CEO. You'll get your position back, but it will take time and there are those who require that you get your position back sooner rather than later."
The waiter returned with salads and water for them both.
"Oh, I've ordered for us. I don't particularly want this to take more time than necessary either."
The anger over her daring to order for him was pushed aside in favor of her words.
"You're one of those people I suppose. What does it matter—"
Waller interrupted him, "If you want to avoid being subject to the Patriot Act, you will release all your research on the meteor rocks and transfer the affected to government care. It is clear that you are unable to control this part of your business. It is disruptive to the rule of law."
Lex tried to speak over her, but she merely bulldozed over him in a way that had never been successful, "You will resume your position as Luthorcorp's CEO next week to facilitate the process. After that, our business will be complete."
Waller abruptly stood and leaned over him, "I will always have my eye on you, Mr. Luthor. Mind your business, keep it in order, and do not make me come for you."
With that she left the restaurant; and a few minutes later, so did six agents. Lex leaned forward and steepled his hands. He would need to tread very carefully. There were things that she did not know. He simply needed to be that much more careful.
Lex finished his salad and waited for the entrée. He wouldn't waste a perfectly good meal.
Chloe was preparing to go to bed. She was exhausted, but she had done that on purpose. Her day had been spent reading the news, following Wall Street, and hanging out a hacker conspiracy sites. If anyone had some insight to the craziness she was seeing it would be conspiracy theorists. There wasn't always something to be found, but Chloe was positive that some crazy hacker specifically looking for anomalies would have posted something, somewhere. It was only a matter of writing a program to search the internet for her.
She was proven right and so followed the link spiral to weed out the improbable with her memories of Brainiac's Protocol. It was hard, but since she had her own Wall of Weird and conspiracy theories she recognized them as her people. Some of them had no idea how correct they were. Most just couldn't articulate or follow the implications because Brainiac was a super advanced artificial intelligence and even his creators had issues with him.
"Him? Since when did I begin to think of Brainiac as a person and not a machine?"
It was probably because Zor-El had never thought of Brainiac as merely a machine. Brainiac was beyond such designations. He was a thinking force of nature, a font of endless possibilities. At the end, every Kryptonian had to realize that singular fact.
Sleep was the thing she needed. She needed eight, maybe twelve, hours of darkness where she didn't have to think and she wasn't trapped in the memories of Zor-El. In addition to the fact that she felt emotionally exhausted after each encounter, it was changing her. It wasn't becoming harder to separate where she began and Zor-El ended, but she felt like she was becoming less human and more Kryptonian. Chloe didn't really understand what that meant, but she felt it was true deep in her bones and she didn't think she had the reserves to deal with it.
Of course, her new normal did not include any kind of respite from the weirdness, which is why she was not surprised when she didn't get her darkness or rest.
The dream seemed to have begun in the middle. Chloe was playing with a small child. The girl's giggles pierced the air and Zor-El felt a lightness that had eluded him for the past few weeks. This was happiness: a trusting face looking at him with love and only the expectation that came with the carelessness and selfishness of childhood.
"How is my daughter today? Is Kara Zor-El having a good day?"
She laughed happily in response.
"Of course my daughter is having a good day! Father is fun like a hurko!"
Zor-El's memory supplied the four-legged, goofy looking beast that he referred. It had large feet with six long toes that allowed it to disperse its weight so it could walk on the semi-liquid surfaces in Krypton's marshes. They made exceptional pets.
Chloe gently tossed Kara in the air. It was her favorite. When Kara landed, Chloe/Zor-El blew on her belly.
"Father will take you flying later."
An amused voice called from behind him. "Then Father will become a flying hurko will he not?"
Kara squirmed from his lap and ran, giggling, towards her mother.
"Sorry to end your time, but it's time for this daughter of a hurko to bathe."
Chloe watched as her wife handed their daughter over to her caretaker. Both of them waited until Kara and her caretaker left the room. His wife was going to give him a much deserved lecture on avoidance. He had been deeply unfair to them both. The worst part is that Zor-El knew his behavior was wrong but he was selfish and didn't confront the problem.
The dream, as disconcerting as any of the other dreams of Krypton, had been pleasant. There were good feelings. She had been enjoying this dream. The attendant dread that permeated the other dreams were absent in this one. It represented something that was simple and the emotions she had been feeling through Zor-El were all so very human. They were things she could understand.
Fortified with Zor-El's contentment and happiness, Chloe was singularly unprepared when Zor-El's wife turned towards her and revealed the face of Oliver. Chloe had suffered through these dreams and she had fought through them; and when she awakened, she always felt weird and discombobulated. Despite all that, she could get through the dreams. But this time her mind rebelled. Her entire being rebelled. And that's when everything went weird. Time and space meant nothing. Her consciousness awoke in different places and she felt fractured and flayed alive.
She remained in the dream looking at her wife, Alura In-Ze, who smiled at him in amusement and kinship. He awoke to her bed in the darkness with pain grasping at her. Chloe/Zor-El stood in a field of green under a graying sky, the wind tousling their hair and a clamor of voices drifting to her ears.
Chloe lurched back into the dream and felt the warm embrace of her wife. Zor-El could not look at her.
"I know the troubles that have been brought upon you and our House," her voice firm, but he felt her love for him keenly and she forced him to look at her, "I also know that there are things that you cannot speak of to me because that is not who you are. Zor-El. My husband. I [i]know[/i] you."
Alura/Oliver was shorter than he was and Chloe was keenly aware of that fact. He dropped to her knees.
His voice was muffled by her belly. "I am unworthy to have the favored daughter of the House of Ze offer me such love and wise counsel. You have strengthened my House beyond me."
Oliver ran his fingers through her hair and kissed the crown of his head.
"You can confide in me. Am I not your other half? Are my hands not to be put to use? Should my voice be not a trumpet for our House?"
"My love, I fear that I have failed Krypton. Brainiac is more than I thought possible. The Council and Jor-El encourage this. Jor-El has become a man that I do not know. The boy whose endless curiosity was to be nurtured has become unmoored to reason. He has chosen a path that I cannot follow. I no longer know him. Whatever fears of failure that I have for Krypton, it is orders of magnitude above that which I feel for my brother. To allow this to continue is to betray even myself."
There was a beat of silence between them. Alura's voice was hesitant.
"You have a plan."
Chloe/Zor-El nodded.
Alura gripped Zor-El and pulled him to his feet. "Then see it to completion. You have said that Brainiac will not be fully operational for at least ten years. With the other concerns regarding our planet's core and mining, it is yet possible that the High Council will be distracted. Jor-El will be tamed or not, but allowing him to be who he is at the expense of the greater good is not an option. You cannot make it one."
"I will hurt many people, Alura."
Oliver smiled softly at Chloe. "And even more would come to tragic end without you. Of this I have no doubt. You are a good man, Zor-El. Never forget that I, above all others, know you. You cannot hide from me, no matter how hard you try."
Chloe smiled in return. "The strength and wisdom of the House of El resides within Alura In-Ze."
Alura had the last words, as she often did, and he never really minded. Alura/Oliver commanded Zor-El/Chloe, "See your plan to completion and do not waver, my husband!"
Chloe awoke to the darkness of her room. Her face was wet as if she had been crying. She felt intense pain. Her head pounded as if she had been banging it against the wall for hours. A loud noise sounded within her head. It was like a cannonball had been fired mere inches from her ear. A blinding white light originated from behind her eyes. She scrambled from her bed and stumbled onto the floor.
The smell of blood was in the air. She rose to her knees and touched her face and ears. Her hands came away sticky and she knew that the course of the blood was her eyes, nose, and ears. Chloe tipped forward and used one hand to brace her body off the floor. Her other, bloody, hand reached for the door. Chloe tried to call out for her father, but no there was no sound.
The little strength she was expending to keep from falling over was too taxing. Chloe vomited onto the floor and she collapsed. The last thing she perceived before darkness claimed her was the door of her bedroom opening and her father falling to his knees to cradle her body. The ensuing darkness had a known quality. It felt like Zor-El, but the presence of her father overwhelmed anything else. He snapped into sharp relief against the darkness. It was only slightly menacing, which was more than she hoped for at this point.