Emmeline and her dad brought in some boxes from the car and into her new apartment.
"So Oliver Queen decided to let you live in his penthouse just out of the blue?"
"Pretty sweet deal, right?"
"A little too sweet. He's not…making you do anything…right?"
"Oh, Dad, gross! Oliver Queen may have a reputation for being a billionaire playboy, but he wouldn't do something like that."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I promise, this is a completely legitimate agreement between the two of us. Though I'm definitely the one who's getting the better end of it. I mean look at that view."
"I have to admit, it is really nice to see you getting a place to yourself. Of course, if it was up to me, you'd never leave the house."
"That's definitely the plot of a Lifetime movie."
"Calm down, I'm helping you move, aren't I?"
"Considering how often I was out of the house for school and my job, you probably won't even notice a difference."
"Of course I will. Well, let's make this place look a little bit more like you live here."
Emmeline walked down the stairs at the Daily Planet and headed over to Chloe's desk, but the blonde was nowhere to be seen. "Hey, Lois, is Chloe still around? I wanted to give her my Christmas present."
Lois looked over at her. "Uh…no, I think she just left."
"Shoot. I guess I'll just head over to the Talon then and see if she's home. Maybe I can grab dinner with my dad while I'm over there."
"She, uh, she said Clark is back in town, so…you could see him too."
"Clark's back? That's great! I can't believe it's been two whole weeks since he left. And he's back just in time for Christmas!" Emmeline finally noticed how jumpy and nervous Lois looked. "Are you okay?"
"Uh, yeah. Just, uh, nervous about interviewing Lex."
"Since when does Lex make you nervous?"
"Since a lot of my career is riding on this exposé."
"Well, I'm sure you're going to be great at it."
"Just gonna…need a lot of proofreading, right?"
"I'm sure you've gotten better since I was editing your articles back in high school."
"One would hope so."
Emmeline started to go towards the elevator but saw an 'Out of Service' sign posted on it. "Oh, crap, how long has your elevator been out?"
"Oh, I think it just broke down a little bit ago."
"Dang it. I wasn't expecting a leg workout today. Good luck on the interview."
"Yeah, thanks."
Emmeline took a breath at the bottom of the stairs and prepared for the climb up to the exit. She should probably do this every time she came here to keep her fitness level up and ready for her training sessions…but elevators were there for a reason.
Once finally up to the ground floor, breathing heavily but not totally spent, she made her way to the front doors. She was just about to walk out of the building when every sound around her suddenly amplified just like it had before, if not even more so. She cried out in pain and clapped her hands over her ears.
Not now, she silently begged. Please not now.
Emmeline stumbled into the closest empty room and shut the door to try to minimize the noises.
"Lois, put down the gun," she heard Lex's voice say.
"Gun?" Emmeline whispered.
"Just answer the question," Lois's voice ordered.
"Lane, what are you doing?!" Grant's voice demanded.
"Getting the truth."
Emmeline tried to breathe and zero in on the voices, but she could just barely hear them over the sounds of everything else.
"Lex, there's no time. Why does Adrian have a memory for a life that doesn't exist?"
"I don't know who Adrian is," Lex answered.
"Well, I wrote his story. He grew up outside Philly, played point guard for Homestead High, got his first job on the obituary beat at the Liberty Times. That is where he first got noticed as the editor in Alaska. First in sports, then in—"
There was a sharp noise that made Emmeline cry out in pain again followed by the sound of a body falling to the floor.
"What are you doing?!" Grant exclaimed.
"Someone was pulling her strings," Lex said. "I took her out of the equation."
"So she wouldn't hear the truth? Those were my memories, Lex."
"You're the editor of a major newspaper. That information is everywhere."
"What about the time my mom got me a red and green dirt bike for my seventh birthday?" a different voice joined in.
"Adrian?" Emmeline whispered in between pained breaths. What the heck was happening upstairs?
"I rode that thing everywhere. I thought I could pedal until—"
"Until the chain wore out," Grant finished.
"That's the one. I saw your picture in the newspaper one morning and realized we had a lot in common."
"Who are you?" Lex asked.
"Lex, let him talk," Grant said. "How do you have my memories?"
"Because Lex made me," Adrian answered. "And when I didn't work…he made you."
"What's he talking about, Lex?"
"Congratulations, Grant. You're the perfect clone."
"He's insane," Lex tried to argue.
"You're me?" Grant asked in disbelief.
"Same DNA," Adrian said. "Same backstory. The only difference is that you worked and I didn't."
"Lionel giving me up for adoption."
"My Harvard degree," both Grant and Adrian said at the same time. "The paper."
"It's all lies. Am I even your brother?"
"Brother?"
"Who died when Lex was 12."
"You created me in a test tube, you kept me like some kind of freak pet so you could have a brother? Is that why you couldn't get rid of me?!"
"You're not my brother!" Lex yelled.
There was a gunshot, and the loud noise pounded through Emmeline's skull making her scream and sob in agony.
"You're a mistake!"
A body fell to the floor, and then Emmeline could hear soft high-pitched beeping.
"Help, help!" a new voice yelled.
"Chloe?"
"Help us!"
"Jimmy?"
Emmeline focused all of her energy on stopping the voices and the sounds so she could think straight. It took several minutes, but finally, it was quiet again. She put her hand to her aching head and tried to process all of the things she'd just heard.
Lex had evidently made a clone of his deceased little brother and then shot the one that hadn't been made correctly all right inside this very building.
But that wasn't the most pressing issue, even if it was the most disturbing. Chloe and Jimmy needed help, but where were they? And what was that beeping?
Emmeline had never attempted to actually use or control her abilities before since she'd been in such fierce denial about having them. But they were there inside her whether she wanted them there or not, and now more than ever, she needed to try to access them. Chloe and Jimmy needed her.
She took several deep breaths.
Please, she thought. Please let me be able to save them.
Emmeline raced for the stairs and, after a couple seconds, found herself moving so quickly that it seemed that time had frozen around her. She ran over to the elevator on the top floor, maneuvered through an in-progress Christmas party, forced the elevator doors open, and saw Chloe and Jimmy in the middle of a passionate kiss.
She smiled, knowing how much Chloe was still in love with him despite their breakup, but only allowed it to last a moment before focusing on the source of the beeping: a small bomb resting on the floor.
Emmeline picked up the bomb, raced out to the balcony, and threw it up into the air just as it exploded.
Time resumed around her again.
The adrenaline coursing through her was so strong that she couldn't stand anymore and sank down onto the ground.
Then she started to cry.
"I had to rev my geek into fifth in order to crack that hex code," Chloe told Clark as she presented him with her findings on a woman from Project Scion who was catatonic and rambling in Kryptonian. "Just think of it as a thank-you for channeling your inner Bruce Willis yesterday."
Clark decided not to tell Chloe that he wasn't the one who'd gotten rid of the bomb in the elevator. He wasn't sure who it was, but he planned on finding out first and taking care of that before he filled her on the possibility of someone else like him being close enough and fast enough that they'd been able to get rid of it before he had even known it was there. "I'm sorry it took until the last second for me to get there. I don't know where I'd be without you."
"Thanks. Did I mention that I missed you?"
"So, this pattern, it made sense?"
"Well, to me, not so much, but to a computer, it's scripture. The numbers represent an error message that high-tech systems encounter when they can't boot up."
"And it's repeating, because the computer keeps trying to start."
"Exactly. I think the sequence is actually learning from its mistakes and getting closer to successfully loading."
Clark turned to her concerned.
"That's not my favorite look."
"Chloe, this started as a metallic fluid inside a vial. It's now evolved into technology that's willing to kill. It's the Brain InterActive construct."
"Clark, you think that this is Milton Fine? But you turned off General Zod's PDA after he spread that computer virus across the world."
"If any part of him was left behind to regenerate, then Fine can be out there."
Lana's entrance into the house cut off their conversation. "Chloe, hey. I didn't know that you were—"
"Just leaving."
"Do you want to stay? I kind of overloaded on Danishes."
"No. Thanks. Lois is actually taking me out for breakfast. She's deemed it 'National Chloe Sullivan Day' or something." She looked over at Clark as she headed out the door. "I'll-I'll call you."
As Chloe exited the house, Clark smiled at Lana. "What's the occasion?"
"Your safe return from the Fortress. Christmas came early this year."
"I've missed that smile."
"Me too. To be honest, Clark, after everything I shared yesterday, I was worried that I'd scare you away. But I've never felt closer."
"I realized something when I was gone. That feelings, good or bad, they don't just disappear, no matter who you are."
"Are we still talking about Lex?"
Clark gently ran his hand through Lana's hair. "I'm talking about us. Yesterday, when I saw you in the barn, it was like I fell in love with you all over again."
He tenderly kissed her and then wrapped his arms around her to hug her.
What Lana didn't see was that when the sun streaming through the windows drifted over Clark's face, it distorted into gray metallic stone.
"Hey, Emmeline, come in," Hannah smiled as she ushered Emmeline into her hotel room. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas. Shouldn't you be back in New York celebrating with friends?"
"I'd rather be here in a hotel room celebrating with my daughter."
Emmeline gave her a small smile. Despite their rocky history and the distance between them at the moment, it felt nice to be someone's priority. "I'm sorry I flipped out last time we saw each other."
"Emmeline, considering the size of the bomb I dropped on you, I would've been more concerned if you didn't flip out."
"Speaking of bombs…"
Hannah took a seat at the table in the corner.
Emmeline slowly sat down across from her. "I overheard a conversation that I don't think I was supposed to hear at the Daily Planet. And then I stopped a bomb from killing my best friend."
Hannah was speechless for a moment. "Um…okay, wow. And this is a good thing, yes?"
"I'm glad I saved her, of course. And the power I felt when I was running was…indescribable." Her eyes filled with tears. "But I couldn't even really enjoy it because it scared me so much. I have seen what having these kinds of abilities do to people when they get them this late in life, and I am terrified about what this means for me."
Hannah looked at her sympathetically. "Emmeline, I can't even fathom what all of this must be like for you. Have you told Clark about all of this yet?"
"No, I…I don't even know how I would."
"No one will be able to help you through this better than him."
"I wish my dad were here."
"Yeah. Me too."
"Why didn't you tell me about him sooner?"
"Emmeline, back then, you weren't even ready to have me in your life, much less find out that your father wasn't human. Would you have even believed me?"
"I don't know."
Hannah stood up and went inside the closet to open up the room's safe. "I have a Christmas present for you."
"What is it?"
She handed Emmeline a small blue object that resembled a compact mirror with a button on top of it. "This…is a message from your father."
"What?"
"Don't ask me how he got it to me because I don't have any idea. There were two of them, one for me and one for you. He must've made them just before the planet went up. I…never listened to this one. Whenever you're ready, just press that button right there and take a few steps back."
