“Stop! Just a second, okay?” Chloe asked plaintively. She coughed and bent over, gasping for breath. It was hard to tell in the near darkness of the sewers, but she looked beat. Neither of them looked that good, he thought. The muck at the bottom of the tunnels had started at ankle deep and was now around mid thigh. Slogging through it had left them soaked and filthy. Every time they so much as brushed the walls, they came back with a thick coating of slime on them. On top of that, there was the smell and the loose floor on the bottom of the tunnel. Bits of stone, rubbish, and other things he didn’t want to name littered the soupy floor, waiting to trip them up and send them sprawling.

When she managed to catch her breath, she glanced up at him, still bent over. “Why didn’t you run?” she asked hoarsely. “I told you to.”

“And leave everyone there, you included?” He paused and stared down. “Not that it helped any.” He’d never have imagined those soldiers would just open fire on the crowd like that. He shuddered slightly as he remembered the sight of the bodies around him.

“Well, thanks anyway,” she said quietly. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t…” she stopped and glanced down at the murky waters. “Well, I definitely wouldn’t be here, but you get my point.”

He nodded and smiled a little. She stared at him strangely and then looked at his shoulder. Reaching over, she fingered one of the holes in his jacket. “You were shot…,” she said quietly.

“I’m fine,” he told her, moving her hand away. “Don’t worry.”

“That’s sorta the point though,” she said, reaching under the jacket. “You’re not even bleeding! And before, you punched through a concrete floor. How did you do that?”

He hesitated, unsure of how to begin. “It’s hard to explain. You know how I said I wasn’t from here, or at least, this wasn’t the Smallville I knew?” As he spoke, he started down the tunnel and she followed after him.

“Yeah,” Chloe said. “I’m not sure I know what to think about that right now, but I have to admit that there’s not a lot about you that’s normal.”

“Thanks,” he said dryly. “Well, what do you know about the day of the meteor shower?”

“A bit,” she said, hopping over a floating lump of garbage. “I was still in Metropolis then, but people still talk about it. Meteor rocks came down all over Smallville, tore up half the town and killed a lot of people. They’ve got a plaque about it where the old city hall used to be.”

Clark stopped, looking at her. “They landed in town?”

“Most of them, I think,” she said. “Why?”

“I just remember hearing that most of the rocks came down outside of town,” he said quietly. “I guess that’s something else that’s different,” he wondered out loud.

She seemed to consider this and then shrugged. “So where were you doing all of this?”

He looked at her for a moment and then told her. “I came down along with them.” Chloe slipped on something suddenly and fell face first into the muck. She came up sputtering and hacking. When she had recovered, she stared up at him in shock.

“You what?” she asked.

“My ship came down with the meteor rocks. My parents found me and raised me as their son. I’ve been living here ever since.”

“Your ship?” she repeated. She blinked and then said slowly, “You’re an… alien?”

“Is that any harder to believe than anything else I’ve told you?” he pointed out.

“It’s just a lot of take in,” she remarked, looking a little wide-eyed.

“Imagine how I felt when my parents told me about it.” He smiled and stared down the tunnel and pointed to a branching path. “I think that one leads out of town.” He started down it and she hurried to catch up.

“Umm,” she asked hesitantly, “how do you know for sure?”

“About being an alien?” he asked her. “I guess I wondered about it for a while. I mean, I look like everyone else, and I didn’t really start to get my powers until I was older…”

“No,” she cut in, “I mean about the tunnel. How do you know it leads out?”

“Oh,” he said, a little put out, “I can see the streets above us. This leads out of town.” She looked at him for a moment and then nodded slowly. They walked through the tunnels in silence for a while.

Clark wasn’t sure why he had told her his secret just now. It might have been easier to lie to her, he realized, and just make up a slightly more believable story. As if there was one, he thought dryly. It wasn’t the sort of thing he could share with anyone. He’d never even told Chloe, his Chloe, about his secret, unsure of how she would take it. Not Lex or even Lana. Pete had eventually discovered, but only when Clark hadn’t had anything other choice. Sharing that kind of information with people, once done, it wasn’t something that he could really take back if things went wrong. How would she react, he wondered. It wasn’t like he really knew her, he reminded himself. She looked and sounded like his friend, but there were a lot of differences. Especially considering how they met. And yet, this was Chloe, he thought, one of his best friends. He knew her, or at least, he knew his Chloe. He shook his head. It was all very confusing.

To break the silence, he asked, “So who were those guys back there?”

She coughed and spat. “The Luthor Corps: the company’s own private security force. They’re more like mercenaries though. The company keeps them around to do all their dirty work and guard their labs. That’s how they were able to buy up most of the land around here. They’d threaten them, cause a few accidents, or worse,” she glared, “and people would eventually cave in and just sell.”

“How can they do that? What about the police?”

“You mean, old Ethan?” she asked, amused. “He doesn’t blow his nose without Lionel Luthor’s permission. The police are all bought off; you spot a brand new Lexus in town I guarantee you it belongs to a cop. They don’t care what happens to the rest of us. They just go after drifters or people like me,” she shrugged. “Same way with the Ledger; it’s more like a promotional flyer than a newspaper. No body cares what happens to this town anymore.”

“Has it always been like this?” he asked, a little sickened.

“For as long as I’ve been here,” she said wearily. “I guess things started to change just after the meteor shower. Luthorcorp set up shop in that Fertilizer plant you mentioned before, the one your friend owns. Well, they tore it down and built this huge lab where it used to be. It’s state of the art. My dad used to work there and he told me about it. He used to say there were all these restricted sections inside and all kinds of top secret stuff went on in there.”

“Used to?” Clark asked.

“He died,” she said flatly. “There was a lab explosion or something a few years ago.” Clark took a quick look at her face, but she seemed not to care. Or at least, he thought, she was trying to look like she didn’t care.

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I know your dad, or I knew him,” he floundered for a moment. “He was, is a good man.”

She shrugged again and walked ahead of him, so all he could see was her back. “Whatever,” she remarked, her voice tight. Clark kept up behind her, wanting to say something more, but deciding to keep quiet.

“So anyway,” she went on, “after the meteor shower, the Luthors set up shop in Smallville and started to make a lot of donations, saying they were going to help everyone rebuild.” She looked back at him and smirked. “You can guess where all those donations wound up though.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“I’ve seen how Lionel Luthor can corrupt people,” he agreed, thinking of Sheriff Ethan.

“Ain’t business grand,” she laughed. “So pretty soon Luthorcorp had all the city officials in their pocket and owned most of the property in town. They started putting up all these factories, saying they were going to provide new jobs and better lives. Nobody ever mentioned what the jobs were going to be like though.”

“What do you mean?” She smirked and pointed to a large pipe sticking out of the wall nearby. The same thick, soupy water that were standing in was pouring out of it noisily. “Luthorcorp,” he said grimly, reading the name on the pipe.

“Imagine working day in and day out right next to vats of this stuff,” she said, kicking her feet in the water. “Breathing it in when they process it, having it on your hands when you take your lunch break. And it’s not like it’s just down here and in the factories, there are bogs of this stuff to the north, you can smell it for miles around. It gets in the soil, rots crops out,” she wrinkled her nose up in disgust. “And it’s not like no one’s tried to do anything about it. They tried to strike a few years ago, get better conditions. Luthor just brought in scabs and had the protestors arrested. They never even found some of the guys in charge of organizing it.”

Clark listened quietly, strangely enough, wanting to laugh. It was all too unbelievable. This was Smallville, it couldn’t be like this. It just couldn’t. But something in Chloe’s voice made him listen, the dull anger that became more pronounced as she went on. How could it go from such a warm place to this? What had happened here that hadn’t in his world?

When she was finished, she brooded quietly for a minute. Clark let her, thinking over everything. Then he looked at her and gave her a little smile. She noticed it and stared back at him. “What, you think this is funny?” she snapped.

“No,” he shook his head. “I just wanted to say I told you so.” She stared at him. “I told you, you’d be a great reporter. You missed your calling.” He shrugged and smiled shyly at her. She blinked and then burst out laughing. He did as well.

Smiling, she looked at him, studying him for a moment. “You are different,” she said finally.

“That’s sort of an understatement.”

“No, you are. I don’t know how to explain it…” she trailed off. A sudden noise at the other end of the tunnel made him turn around quickly though. “Trouble?” she asked, getting ready to run again.

“They’re still after us,” he told her quietly. She moaned a little, staring into the darkness. Clark focused his vision through the darkness behind them and concentrated for a moment. The blackness of the sewers fell away as he stared through the walls. He could see skeletons behind them, dim, white figures running in small groups. Most were still far off, but two of the soldiers were getting dangerously close.

“Two of them are near the start of this tunnel,” he said quietly, pulling her down in the muck with him. The slimy water came up to her chin as she ducked down and he saw her choke back a gag. “Stay here,” he warned her quietly. She gave him a ‘do-you-think-I’m-an-idiot’ glare and nodded. Taking a deep breath, he dove under the water.

Clark reflected briefly on how lucky he was that his eyes wouldn’t be hurt by whatever was floating around in that water. And the fact that without x-ray vision, he’d have never been able to see an inch in the murky water in the first place. He swam as quickly as he could down the tunnel without churning up the water behind him like a speedboat. The tunnel hit a T-junction at the end and it was there that he waited underwater, watching the pair of legs getting closer. The soldiers were advancing slowly, with guns drawn, he guessed from their stances. He let his head break the surface so he could see them more easily as he waited.

They were ten feet from the branch of the junction now, then eight, then six. He waited tensely for them to clear the gap. The only sound was the gush of water from a pipe and the sounds of the soldiers’ wading through the stagnant muck. Then before he could move, there was a burst of static from the soldiers’ walkie-talkies that cut through the silence.

“Target re-acquired!” a voice yelled through it. “Team 3! He’s right in front of you, Team 3!” The soldiers leapt back with startled shouts as Clark exploded up out of the water. He knocked one out cold against the stone wall with a brush of his arm and charged the other one. The unlucky soldier had time enough to get off a poorly aimed shot that sizzled upwards into the ceiling before Clark reached him. The shot tore open a steam pipe which started to hiss loudly. Grabbing the soldier’s armored vest, Clark lifted him up and slammed the top of his helmet into the ceiling. The soldier stiffened and then went limp.

Clark checked their status quickly with his vision. The one slumped against the wall was unconscious and didn’t seem to be too badly off. The soldier he was still holding had a slight concussion, but nothing too serious, he guessed. Before he dropped him, he plucked the soldier’s walkie-talkie off his belt and listened in for a moment.

“Team 3! Team 3, respond!” the cry came over it. “We’ve lost you over the sensor. Report your status. All teams converge on unit’s location. Team 6, head down two junctions and take a left, he should be there.”

Depressing the call button, he tried to make his voice sound more threatening then it was. “Call them off if you know what’s good for them. I can’t promise to go easy on them if they keep at this.”

“Target is there! Converge on location,” the reply came. Snarling, he almost threw it away when he thought better of it and stuffed it in his pocket. It would keep him posted on how close they were at least. He started to slog back to where he left Chloe when the walkie-talkie broke in again.

“Target on the move southward.” They were tracking his every move, he realized. How? He stared upwards, through the stone ceiling and the street above it. A helicopter was circling the air above him, panning back and forth. That must be it, he thought. But how where they tracking him?

Unconsciously, his ears picked up on the hiss of steam escaping from the broken pipe. “They lost me when the pipe blew,” he muttered. They must be using a heat sensor. Smiling, he started to jog back towards Chloe.

He found her exactly where he had left her. “Are you okay?” she asked quickly, standing up. She touched his shoulder lightly and Clark was suddenly very conscious of her sopping wet shirt.

“Yeah, fine,” he said, looking away quickly. She noticed where he’d been staring and laughed.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling her shirt off of her skin, unselfconsciously. “But what do you expect me to do, stay crouched over in that muck? And besides,” she smiled and pointed calmly to his chest,” it’s not like you’re any better.” Clark glanced down and saw how tight his shirt was pressed against his abs and blushed, pulling it away quickly.

“Forget about that,” he hissed through her laughter, “we’ve got bigger problems. They’ve got a helicopter up there tracking us by heat. It’s leading the rest of them right towards us.”

“Can’t you just, fight them off or something?” she asked. “You know, make with the super strength.”

“Wish I could. Those guns of theirs would make mincemeat of me in these close quarters,” he said, glancing at the tunnel walls. “But… I might be able to delay them.”

“How?” she asked quickly.

“Just start running for now. I’ll catch up with you in a minute. I think I can block their sensors.”

“Clark, I’m not just…”

“Just go, I’ll be right behind you,” he promised her. She held out for a moment, then nodded. Then, before he could stop her, she stepped towards him and kissed him on the cheek. He stared at her in surprise as she pulled back and made a gagging face.

“Oh, gross,” she said and started to retch.

“Not the response I was expecting,” he remarked.

“I forgot you’re covered in this muck,” she told him. She made a face. “Not exactly minty fresh.” She spit once more and then smiled lamely at him. “Good luck,” she said before running down the tunnel.

“Yeah… you too,” he said, watching her go. Then he shook himself out of his reverie and stared upwards. There were a number of pipes running around the ceiling, but it only took him a second to find the right ones. “Hope no one’s taking a shower now,” he muttered quickly.

Delicately, he started to heat up the water pipes with his heat vision. He didn’t want them to start melting, but he wanted to warm them enough to throw off the sensors in the helicopters. When the pipes started to glow a dull red, he stopped and moved farther down the tunnel, repeating the process. Clark could feel the heat begin to build up slowly as he kept at it. Just as he thought, with no where for the heat to go, the tunnels were starting to turn into an oven. Luckily, he was unaffected by the heat, but he couldn’t say the same for the smell. Heating up the muck hadn’t done much to improve its smell, and the fumes coming off it were getting thicker.

When he was satisfied, he pulled the walkie-talkie out of his pocket and listened for a moment. The panic and confusion he heard on the other end made him smile grimly. The helicopter was useless and the soldiers were turning back from the heat and gas. He turned around and started to jog towards the other end. Hopefully Chloe wouldn’t be too far ahead already, he thought.

Something roughly the size of a baseball plopped into the water next to him. On pure instinct, he threw himself forwards as it detonated in a burst of green energy. The meteor radiation picked him up like a wave and slammed him into the sewer wall. Masonry tumbled down next to him as he lay there, gasping for breath. Before he could pick himself back up, more of the green blasts exploded by his head. Apparently, not all of the soldiers had turned back.

Clark ducked down, still woozy from the radiation, but he still had enough of his vision left to make out a lone soldier charging him from down the tunnel, firing wildly. The soldier was wearing a full helmet equipped with a gas mask. Using all his strength, he leapt forwards and cleared the distance between them in an instant. Using his momentum like a bull, he slammed into the soldier’s chest. He heard her grunt as she went flying backwards, the gun falling into the water somewhere. It was a woman, he thought. In the uniform and helmet, he hadn’t noticed. She was lying down the tunnel on her back, groaning. He took a few steps forward so he could check on her when he saw her sit up and unholster another gun. It wasn’t one of the futuristic kinds she’d been sporting earlier, but it was still very large.

A chunk of the ceiling blew out as she missed her first shot, but Clark wasn’t going to stick around for more. He ran down the tunnels away from her. She kept firing after him, one of her shots even tagging him in the shoulder. It made him pitch off balance for a moment, but that was all. As he left her far behind him, he was glad that she’d been alone. Whoever she was, she was dangerous.

Picking up his speed, Clark found Chloe at the end of one of the tunnels. It looked like the sewers emptied in a large drainage ditch on the outside of town. Chloe stood there by the pipe opening, waiting for him. She was winded, sweaty, and covered in dirt, but she’d never looked better to him. When she saw him stumble out of the darkness, he could see her face light up and then turn red. Without a word, she threw herself at him and held onto him tightly for a moment. He hugged her back silently, then gently pried her off.

“I heard shooting,” she said quickly, not quite willing to let go of him. “Are you alright?”

“I’m stinking, but other than that,” he smiled at her. She sighed and shook her head.

“We have to keep moving though,” he told her. “I don’t know if we really lost them yet. It’s better if we find somewhere safe to lie low for a while.”

Chloe frowned, thinking. “I might know someone who could help with that,” she said slowly. “I don’t know if he can, but it’s worth a shot.”

“Lead the way,” Clark told her.

The Luthor Corps captain grunted as she slid the manhole cover off and started to climb out. A gun jammed itself down the sewer entrance though, right into her face.

“Hold it right there!” a young voice ordered her. She rolled her eyes and then glanced at the gun, unconcerned.

“You still have the safety on,” she remarked dryly at the soldier who held it.

Stuttering, he jerked it back quickly as he recognized her. “Sorry, ma’am! My mistake.” He reached down to help her out, but she shouldered his hand out of the way and climbed out herself. She glanced up and down the street, frowning. She’d come out close to half a mile away from the Talon. Without the helicopter to guide her, she’d been wandering blind down there. It had only been luck that had led her to the alien. Seeing how things had gone though, she didn’t know whether to call it good luck or bad.

Sitting down on the empty street, she groaned as she felt something in her chest twitch. All the soldiers were wearing body armor and helmets capable of stopping a bullet, but it couldn’t do much against the raw strength of the alien. Feeling under her armored vest, she winced as she probed her ribs. At least two were broken, maybe more.

The soldier stood there dumbly, holding his rifle. “Are you alright, ma’am?” She ignored him for the moment, as she sighed and took off her helmet.

She had short black hair that fell softly around her face, which had an almost exotic cast to it; with slightly almond shaped eyes and an eastern complexion. It was a face of startling beauty, but it was marred by the cold, tired look in her eyes. With her helmet off, someone might have been struck by how young she looked, which was of course because she was young, the youngest to hold her position. She’d trained all her life to get there, sacrificed so much, to get to where she was.

Another soldier came running up the street, holding a phone out. She hissed in irritation and chucked her helmet away in frustration. It bounced and rattled down the street.

“It’s…” he started to say when he got close, but she cut him off.

“I know who it is.” She took the phone from him and sighed before speaking into it. “Mr. Luthor, Captain Lang here.” Explaining this wasn’t going to be easy.