The computer's Done noise woke Chloe from where she had been dozing in her chair. She blinked in surprise to realize how dark Watchtower had gotten. Had she slept that long? She vaguely recalled Courtney saying goodbye at some earlier point. Chloe really hoped she had replied, and hadn't just snored the younger girl. Had it been light out or dark then?
Looking back at her monitor, she checked the time. Nearly 3am. It had taken even Watchtower's advanced computers quite some time to download all the seismic data, while she had been catching up on her missed Zzzz's. Now she just needed to analyze the data.
Feeling only slightly refreshed from her nap, but with a crick in her neck, Chloe pulled up the graph and let it run across her monitor, wondering if there was any chance of coffee in the pot that wasn't sludge. Blinking, she got up from her seat with a stretch, looking around the room. The Watchtower was lit only by the screens of a dozen monitors, giving the space an eerie sort of glow. As her eyes adjusted, she searched to see who else was still in the tower. Finally her eyes fell on the form of Victor Stone in the far corner. He had plugged into one of the computer terminals and images flashed on the screen in front of him. Chloe guessed he was searching through his own data.
She snagged her empty coffee cup from the desk and moved over to the coffee pot in the corner of the room. After filling a cup and adding way too much cream and sugar, she walked over to join Victor.
Seeing her come up next to him, Victor Stone, aka Cyborg, froze the screen image before him, and turned to smile at her. "So you finally rejoin the land of the living again, Chloe."
Chloe smiled back a bit sheepishly. "Yeah, sorry if I snored."
Victor laughed. "If you did, I didn't notice. I've been studying this data, and unlike you, I don't need sleep."
Chloe smiled, and took a sip of her coffee...which she promptly spit out again. It was thick as motor oil and about as tasty, even with the cream and sugar.
"Bleh!" she exclaimed, making Victor laugh.
"Chloe, why don't you go back to your place for a while? Those few hours of chair sleep can't have been all that good for you. Get some real sleep and come back. I've got everything here under control."
She hesitated, weighing the suggestion. She'd been up for nearly 24 hours straight, excluding her chair nap. First with the move, then the quake, then damage control, only to go straight into downloading and analyzing the quake data.
She looked over at the scrolling graphs on her own computer. If she wrote a short program, she could set that to run over the new data and see if it could compile and epicenter for the quake while she went home for some real sleep.
"Alright, Victor. I'll do that in a bit. Thanks."
Chloe pulled the covers up to her chin. The bed was new and unfamiliar, but right then she thought she could sleep on the floor and be content. In truth, she nearly had. Earlier today she had run out of the apartment without having anything, including her bed, set up. Thankfully, it seemed either Lois or Clark had come in at some point and put together the bed and mattress. They had even put clean sheets and blankets on.
She sent her mystery benefactor a silent thank you, before stripping down and crawling into the covers.
Her dreams, however, were not very restful. She tried to tell herself it was only because another relationship had crumbled around her, but her mind kept reliving the last few days of her time with Davis Bloome. She remembered him breaking down in fear over losing himself to the monster within. She remembered their desperate, passionate embraces. She remembered separating him from Doomsday.
She remembered his mad eyes as he killed Jimmy and tried to kill her.
She woke screaming his name and soaked in sweat as sunlight spilled through the room.
As Davis disembarked from the bus at the Metropolis bus station, he looked around his former home with a riot of feelings fighting within his chest. First among them was joy. He loved this city. Even through the trauma of his childhood, Metropolis had always been the only place he saw as home. His three years at the Emergency International camp had been important work, but it had never been home. Not like this noisy, busy, crazy city with all its strange happenings.
Close on the heels of his joy, was trepidation. Last time he had been in this city, he'd been a murderer. In fact, if it hadn't been for Tess Mercer, he'd still be a wanted man...instead of a "dead" one.
Then there was the blossom of hope. Chloe was in this city too. Even knowing the great divide between them because of the terrible actions of the Darkness that had taken his shape, he couldn't suppress the warmth inside knowing she was nearby.
Lastly, being this close to Doomsday again after all these years sent an unpleasant prickle of awareness through him. It helped remind him of his true purpose here. This wasn't a social visit. He was here to stop his monstrous other half from breaking free again.
Hefting his bag onto his shoulder, he made his way out onto the street.
Chloe stood at the window of her new apartment, sipping a cup of fresh coffee, trying to wash away her haunting dreams in the bright sun of the new day. A figure in dark clothes with a large duffel bag thrown over one shoulder at the end of the block caught her attention. There was something in the way the man walked that tickled at her memory. The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled up, so she couldn't see his face, though she probably wouldn't have seen much anyway from this distance. Even so, she found herself pressing her nose to glass as she tried to make out his shadowed features.
For a moment, the figure paused. As he turned and looked back, she had the impression of dark eyes looking directly at her, even though that was impossible. He shouldn't be able to see her any better than she could see him at this distance. Even so, she she stood motionless in the window, watching him as he seemed to be watching her in return. It wasn't a bad sensation, this watching. In fact, it made her feel strangely...warm. She had no idea how long they stayed like that, but when her phone let out a shrill ring, it made her jump. That broke the strange connection. Turning from the window, she snatched up the phone from the floor next to her bed. She hit the answer button without even looking at who had called. "Hello?" she said into the phone, already turning back to the window.
"Chloe. It's Victor. I hope I didn't wake you."
"Hey Victor. No, I was awake already. What's up?" Her mind was only half on the call as her eyes scanned outside, searching once more for the dark, familiar figure. She couldn't find him, even though he had been there a moment ago. Where was he?
"Just wanted to let you know that data analysis you set to run is complete. Whenever you want to head back in, we can go over it."
She finally spotted the dark figure some ways down the street. She thought she saw him glance back at her once more, then he ducked around a corner and out of her sight. She couldn't help the strangely disappointed sigh that escaped.
"Chloe? You alright?" Victor asked over the phone.
"Yeah, yeah, sure. I'm fine. Data's done? That's great. I'll be in soon." Hanging up, she pressed herself against the window once more, even though she knew the strange man was gone. Who was he? Why had he seemed so familiar?
Realizing that she wasn't getting anywhere staring out the window, she turned away. Victor needed her. There was real work to be done...and maybe cameras to check for the mystery man's whereabouts as well.
She never did get to check any cameras for the man that had so riveted her earlier. The data that her program had compiled took all her attention.
"This just doesn't make any sense...," Chloe grumbled to herself looking over the graph that scrolled across her screen.
"What doesn't make sense?" Victor asked, coming up behind her.
"It almost looks like..." she said, watching the flow of seismic graphs on her screen to be sure. "Well, I am certainly no seismologist, but it looks to me like that quake started...here. Right outside Metropolis, to be exact. But that can't be right. I mean, this is Kansas. We don't get earthquakes."
Victor nodded agreement. "Yes, I am seeing the same thing from the data I ran on my side earlier. I was just looking to see if there had ever been any report of earthquake activity in Metropolis. So far, nothing in any of the records. Point of fact, I even found a geological survey from Luthorcorp that Tess Mercer commissioned before the old geothermal plant was built. Nothing at all about seismic concerns in the area. That was part of why they built the plant -"
An alarming thought hit Chloe at his mention of the old geothermal facility. "Wait - Stop right there. The geothermal plant. That is just outside Metropolis, right?"
Victor nodded.
Oh, please no. Don't be true...
"Victor, I need a high resolution map of the Geothermal facility's blueprint right away."
He looked at her, interested. "Sure, Chloe. I'll send one right over. What do you think you'll find?"
Turning back to her screen again, she replied, "Hopefully nothing."
Chloe stared in horror at the screen image before her, hoping that with each blink of her eyes it would change.
But it didn't.
The blueprint overlay of the old Geothermal Plant and the seismic map she had generated lined up perfectly. In particular, the area of the former plant that had housed the Core Shaft appeared to be the epicenter of the quake.
"Victor?" she called out.
"Yeah?" he asked, coming over to her. "The geothermal plant. It's still locked down, right? No new activity there?"
Victor shook his head, confused at her question. "No. Nothing. Tess did a great job of covering the site over with both a paper trail and real rubble to make sure it stayed undisturbed. She knew the dangers buried under there, and wanted to make sure that no one in the future would start eyeing the spot. Why?"
Wordlessly, she threw her screen up to one of the large monitors. Victor immediately saw what she had - the perfect match between the seismic map and the geothermal plant.
"Hmmm. That's not good...but what could it mean?" he asked, studying the image.
Anxiety roiled in Chloe's guts. "Danger was never something to stop the original Lex, and I doubt Lex 2.0 would be much different. Especially since he knows nothing about what is really down there. For all we know, Lex Luthor reborn might just see the shuttered plant as a perfect spot for a secret underground facility. It might be worthwhile to have someone go out there and check it out in person."
"Alright," Victor agreed and turned back to the monitor.
She really hoped she was wrong and that the quake location was just a coincidence, because if not...
The word escaped on a breath that shook with fear. "Doomsday..."
The monster that they had buried. The monster that had torn apart her life.
It could be breaking free.
Author's Note: Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter. I was on vacation then involved with secret-chlark (which went super). I'll be posting that story here as well if you also like Chlark. Story is called "One Summer..."