Chloe leaned over the window ledge and stared into the old factory room. It had been a meeting room once, with a glass window set into the wall that separated it from the rest of the factory. The window was gone of course now, but in its place had been set rough, mismatched iron bars, looked to have been scrounged from wherever they could be found. It was a prison of sorts, Lex had told her, the closest they had out here, and a fitting place for its new occupant. Pete and Clark had brought her in, Pete none too gently handling her. Against Clark’s wishes he’d taken charge of her and had set her in this room, tied to a chair. She hadn’t resisted, indeed, she was still unconscious, with a nasty bump on the back of her head. There was also a rough bandage wrapped around one of her hands.
“Well,” Chloe said finally, “good work, I guess. Just one thing, what do we do with her now?”
“It does sort of beg the question,” Lex said. He leaned closer to the bars and stared in. “You know, I could get used to seeing her like this.”
“We’re not keeping her in there,” Clark said quietly. He was standing away from them, staring at the floor. He looked to be trying to avoid even glancing inside the cell. “This is just temporary, until she-“
“Until she dies of old age,” Pete broke in. “Or until she gives up hating us, turns her entire life around, and spends the rest of her life feeding the starving little children. Whichever comes first.”
Chloe smiled. “Which one of you gave her the bump?”
“Who do you think?” Pete smirked. “Just paying her back for a lot of my people.”
“I told you I could bring her in,” Clark snapped at him angrily. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Hey, not everyone’s forgotten about all those people her goon squad killed at the Talon.” He glanced into the cell and shook his head, disgusted. “I should’ve done a lot worse.”
“Don’t you mean, ‘could’ve’?” Chloe asked.
“No,” Pete answered shortly.
“Clark, Pete,” Lex said stepping between them. “We don’t have time to do this right now,” he said firmly. “Lana’s here and she’s alive,” he said to Clark, then he shifted his gaze to Pete. “That was part of our deal, remember? So let’s just focus on what we have to do now. We’ll have enough trouble without adding to it.”
“Like how we’re going to get into Luthorcorp?” Whitney asked quietly. It had taken a long conversation with Lex to get him to here, and even know he stayed on the outer edge of the group, not contributing much. The fact that Chloe kept giving him murderous looks didn’t seem to make him feel more comfortable.
“Oh getting in is the easy part,” Lex told him. He nodded at Clark. “At least for some of us that is.”
“You mean me? I thought you said I couldn’t break in,” Clark said, confused.
“You’re forgetting the fact that they want to catch you, Clark. You’re going in the front door; maybe a little worse for the wear, but you’ll be inside. And right where we want you.”
“Under a fucking gun?” Chloe exploded. “Are you insane? What kind of plan is that?”
“The only one,” Lex told her simply. He pulled out his laptop and opened up a file on it. On the screen, blueprints and room schematics flashed by, showing a large octagonal shaped room. “I’ve spent the last three years of my life planning ways to take my father’s lab. I’ve considered everything from mercenaries to cyber terrorism to a full-scale nuclear assault, so believe me when I say I’ve considered all the angles.”
He looked at Clark and smiled. He tapped the screen slowly. “When they take you in, they only have one place to put you, right in the cell with your… ‘brother’,” he said plainly.
“ ‘Brother’,” Clark said slowly, testing it out. He’d never thought he’d ever be able to say that word before.
“They’re not really brothers though,” Chloe pointed out.
“ ‘Parallel version of himself’ is a bit of mouthful,” Lex said dryly.
“This is some pretty major stuff here,” Whitney said slowly, staring at the screen. “Nuclear silos aren’t this well guarded.”
“Believe me, I know,” Lex agreed. Chloe gave him a look and he shrugged. “I consider everything.”
“What if they put him somewhere else?” Pete pointed out.
“They don’t have a choice,” Lex smiled, “there’s nowhere else that has a chance of holding him. I mean, it’s not like they can just put him in a normal cell.”
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“So I get in that way,” Clark said slowly.
“Clark, come’on,” Chloe said. “There’s gotta be a better way of getting in there than just handing yourself over to them.”
“If… Lex says that’s the only way,” Clark told her, “then I believe him.” Lex looked faintly surprised for a moment and smiled.
“Thank you,” he said simply. “It won’t be easy though. My father’s people aren’t going to be gentle. Do you think you can handle it?”
“I don’t have much choice, do I?” Clark sighed. Lex nodded slowly, staring at him. Chloe bit her lip, looking doubtful, but said nothing. Eventually, Pete broke the silence.
“So he gets inside his… ‘brother’’s cell and what? Convinces him to join up?”
“We’re not that lucky,” Lex grunted. “Your brother’s spent his life in a cell; he’s not likely to have much love for anyone, even the people who free him. The least we can expect from him though is to help you break out, and occupy the guards afterwards.”
“You see, the cell is only meant to hold one,” Lex said, bending over the schematic on the table. “And even then it has its limits. All of these defenses have been stretched to their limits and it still isn’t enough sometimes. The two of you together, with your combined strength should be able to force your way out.”
“Are you sure,” Chloe asked seriously, “or are you just guessing.” Clark glanced at her, surprised. He hadn’t expected her to get this involved in everything here.
“I’m positive,” Lex assured her. “He’s already broken out twice before.”
“When?” Clark asked, surprised. Lex winced momentarily, like he’d said too much. Strangely, Clark thought he his eyes go to Chloe briefly and then flash away.
“Once when he was very young,” he said. “I don’t think they’d had him a year or two there yet. No one knew how strong he was yet and they had him in a normal holding cell. Needless to say, a steel door wasn’t much of a challenge to him. He didn’t get far though and they increased the guard on him until they had this built.”
“What about the second time?” Pete asked.
“It was a few years ago,” Lex said calmly. There was something in his voice that was too even, too controlled for Clark though. He frowned and listened closely.
“Someone forgot to follow all the procedures when they brought him out for the daily run-through,” Lex told them. “Apparently not all the safeties had been engaged on his manacles and he managed to get an arm free. He did… quite a bit of damage before he was contained again. He actually did get pretty far on his own before they caught him. About ten feet further and he’d have made it to the front gate. With a little help, he might go all the way this time,” he finished.
“What’s the ‘daily run-through’?” Clark asked quietly. Lex’s mouth was fixed in a tight line and he didn’t look at Clark. “What is it?” he repeated.
“My father has been doing experiments on your brother almost since the first day he arrived,” he said finally. There was silence in the room for a moment as everyone stared at him. Chloe glanced at Clark quickly, one of her hands reaching out to him on reflex. Clark didn’t say anything, just stood there, his gut clenching.
“What kind of experiments?” he managed to choke out finally.
“The kind you’d expect them to do on an alien. The kind you see in the movies,” he said, swallowing. “Genetic sequencing, tissue samples, testing his abilities, his body chemistry,” he listed in a whisper. “Very few of them are painless.”
“I don’t know how this will make you feel, but by now they’ve learned everything they possibly could from him, probably a long time ago. They keep doing them though, every day.” Clark stared at him too stunned to speak. “That’s why I’ve been trying to hurry this along,” Lex told him quietly. “What’s been done to him is inhuman.”
"LuthorCorp’s famous for that,” a tired voice said from the other end of the room. They looked up in surprise at Tina, standing there in the doorway. She was wearing a t-shirt that was a few sizes too big and an old pair of blue jeans. Strands of thickly wrapped bandages wrapped around her shoulder and upper body peaked out from the neckline of her shirt. She looked utterly drained and washed out, but she was standing on her own. She kept her eyes lowered though, and refused to look at anyone.
Whitney stood up straight in surprise and then seemed to shrink into himself. He started to back up towards the rear of the group. “Tina,” Lex said quietly, “I’m glad you could come. I wasn’t sure you’d be up for it.”
“I heal quick,” she said shortly. “What’s she doing here?” she went on, nodding towards the cell behind them.
“Meet our way into LuthorCorp,” he told her with a momentary grin.
“We’ve met. She shot me.”
“Right,” Lex said slowly.
“How is she going to get us into LuthorCorp?” Pete asked.
“I have access to some of the security measures inside the lab. Benefits of being my father’s son,” he smiled ironically. “Using them I can shut down roughly half of the defenses there; security cameras, motion detectors, and most recently, the security measures around your brother’s cell.” Clark looked up quickly, but Pete wasn’t impressed.
“Half, huh? What does that leave?”
“Only the most dangerous defenses, including the LuthorCorps’ barracks on the base,” he smiled briefly again. “There are ways to lock them all down, to keep them down for as long as we want. Unfortunately, only two people can access them.” He paused. “Fortunately, we now have one of them.”
They were all silent for a moment and then Pete cleared his throat slowly. “Somehow I don’t she’s gonna give those codes up willingly, Lex.”
“Wait, we’re not gonna…” Chloe left it hanging.
“Oh please,” Lex laughed, “we couldn’t get them that way even if we wanted to. She’s been trained to resist interrogation. And besides, they’re not the sort you can torture out of anyone.”
“What are they then?” she asked, puzzled.
Lex looked at Tina closely for a moment, pursing his lips. “Tina, can you fake fingerprints and retinal scans?”
Slowly, almost against her will, Tina raised her head and looked at him. “Fingerprints,” she said quietly. “I’ve never tried retinal.”
Lex sighed in relief. “If you can fake fingerprints, you can fake retinal,” he said, relieved. “And I know how well you can do the rest.”
Tina stared at him and then looked past him towards the cell with slowly dawning horror. “You want me to fake her?” she asked in a whisper. Lex stepped towards her quickly as she looked back at him. “No, I can’t do it. I can’t walk in there.”
“You can,” he told her. “It’s the only way, Tina. We need her access to shut everything down. It’s the only way to pull this off.” She stared at him and then her eyes strayed past his, staring towards Whitney. Clark looked back and then saw he was gone. At some point he had disappeared.
“I need you to do this,” Lex said again. She kept staring past him and then slowly she looked away. Lex let her go and took a step back, looking towards Clark. “I need everyone on this.”
“Do you really think this can work?” Pete asked quietly.
“Why don’t you ask Lana?” Lex asked, now sounding weary. “She’s been listening to us for the last few minutes I imagine.” Everyone jumped in spite of themselves and looked towards the cell. Lana was still slumped over in her chair, tied up tightly. Then suddenly, she lifted her head up and stared at them coldly. “Welcome back,” Lex said quietly.
“I want to be disappointed in you, Lex,” she said in a dead voice. “I want to feel betrayed or angry, but the truth is that I can’t. I guess I always suspected you’d try something like this.” She looked past him to Clark and then back. “I just can’t believe how far you’d go.” Lex smiled to himself and turned away.
“He’s right though,” she continued. “You’ll be able to get in; he’s good enough to get you that far. But only that far.” A bit of blood trickled down from her hairline and ran down her face, crossing her cheek. She didn’t even blink as it happened. Instead, she stared at Clark. “If you think you’re going to be able to help him,” she said, “you’re wrong.” She started to laugh, her face horribly contorted. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you’re getting yourself into. You’re think you’re just going to walk in and invite the other one to join you? You’re just going to go ask him and he’ll help?” She started to laugh harder. “Don’t any of you realize what he is? Why all the defenses are there? We didn’t put him in a cell,” she gasped, tears rolling down her face, turning her cheek pink as they mixed with the blood. “We put him in a cage. And all of you are going to find out why.”