hmmm, I think it was the secritary. Just kidding, maybe. It's sad that Chloe still carries the hurt Lex caused her after 10 years. I'm ok with there not really being anyone else I just wanted to know really cause it tells you what time period the story is in.
Just started reading this and already I can't wait for more.
I'd like to know what were Lex's reasons to let the friendship fade away, and how Bruce is gonna react when he learns of Chloe and Lex knowing each other previously.
Oh, and I was wondering if maybe you worked for an insurance company at first since you seemed to know your subject so well, but then I saw your note. Always good to know an author has done its job and researched its subject! Makes the fic even better.
So Chloe is gonne have an office to work at Wayne Industries? Cool. More chance for her and Lex to run into each other. Oh, and am definitely intrigue about that explosion thing.
Can't wait for more!
I'm absolutely loving this! You made me want to fish my black trenchcoat from the back of the closet and go around all Dick Tracy-ish sniffing for clues. Corporate espionage and Chlex plus Bruce and Gotham? It doesn't get much better than this...well actually I'm guessing it does when you post your next instalment! Have got me hooked and lined here. Please update as soon as possible your writting is too good!
Re: Ends and Means - R - Chapter 2 - 7/8
Thanx for the update, really want to know what his reasons were for ignoring Chloe for 6 monthsWill Bruce be showing a interest in Chloe or is he just going to want to find out what happened between Lex and Chloe? Who sent the E-mail i wonder please update soon
I love the corporate espionage-y atmosphere. Pitting Chloe and Lex's wits against each other always sets sparks flying, so we should have some even more exciting chapters coming up. And I can't wait for you to unravel the shared history they have (bring on the angst)! Update soon!
Sorry, not an update just some news and comments. I'll answer any questions you have in the next update just as I did with this last one so if you have any questions that haven't been posted yet, post soon so I can add them to my answers.
Also, I am going out of town this week so the update will actually be a couple of days early. Hope you don't mind!
Thanks for the FB.
This fic is amazing
Please update soon
Malu
I felt a little disturbed at how much I enjoyed the contractual banter that happened, but not being around the the jargon this year has been disappointing at times. I was in love with the way Chloe burst back into Lex's life and the reaction that Bruce had to her was great. Rapid interaction that happened in the office was good to read and hope to see more like it. I'll definitely be keeping tabs on this story, can't wait for more.
'I build you out of nothing to have you near
I remembered you on trains
So now you're on every train I hear'
Something For Kate: Old Pictures
A/N: Alfred Pennyworth is owned by DC, as well, which is a shame, really because who couldn’t use their own Alfred?
Chapter 3
Later that night…much later…
Gloved fingers flew over the keys of the large control panel, typing out a search:
SULLIVAN, CHLOE J
FEMALE
He added some more details, including Chloe’s approximate age and other vitals and let the computer’s intricate databases do the rest. The results of the search appeared in one flat screen monitor and as the user entered another search.
LUTHOR, ALEXANDER J
MALE
When the results appeared seconds later, the user entered another command: FIND MATCHES.
Before the user could view the results on the third screen, the rapid movements of a feather duster across the console obscured his view.
“Alfred!” he growled in his trademark gravely voice. “Do you mind?”
“Not at all, sir, but thank you for your concern.” Came the clipped reply from the wielder of the feather duster, an elegant man with silver hair and British accent.
“I meant, I can’t see the screens when you do…that. I’m working now. Can’t you do that some other time?”
“If you can name a time when you won’t be working, sir, I’d be happy to come back then. But since Nostradamus himself couldn’t possibly predict such an occurrence, I have to choose my opportunities when I can.”
The Batman, as he was popularly known, frowned and grumbled low in this throat.
“Just…clean something else until I finish this search,” he said, turning back to his massive console.
“I wish I could, sir, but I’m all caught up down here,” replied Alfred, gesturing around the Batcave. “I’ve even catalogued your supplies for you: things you swing from, things that explode, and things that incapacitate evildoers. Those last two took quite awhile, though. You wouldn’t believe how often things overlap in those areas.”
“Alfred…”
The manservant ignored the warning tone in his employer’s voice, a tone that had caused many a criminal to lose control over their excretory functions. Instead he peered over Batman’s shoulder at the image on the first monitor.
“What a lovely woman. Please tell me she is not our city’s newest megalomaniacal evil villain. Sorry, villianess.
“Her name is Chloe Sullivan. She’s an investigator from Allied Insurance looking into the explosion at the LW Technologies plant.”
“I see, and why are you investigating her?”
Batman glared at him through the lenses of his cowl. “I like to know whom I’m dealing with,” he answered pushing back his cowl to reveal the handsome, yet expressionless features of Bruce Wayne.
“And her connection to Mr. Luthor?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Lex knew who she was when she walked into the room today and she knew him. I could tell from how they interacted. There’s clearly some kind of history there.”
“There’s always the direct approach, you could just ask him.”
“Oh, I plan to, Alfred, but I don’t like asking questions I don’t already know the answer to.”
Bruce pulled the winged gloves off his large hands and punched some more keys on his console.
“This is interesting…Chloe J. Sullivan, listed as a dependent of one of Luthor Corp.’s employees, Gabriel Sullivan…until about eleven years ago. He was apparently the plant manager at a facility in…Smallville?”
“Interesting name for a town. And they say we Brits are eccentric,” murmured Alfred.
“Gabriel Sullivan was terminated then, no explanation given…The next time there’s any connection between the two of them is when Lionel Luthor was tried in federal court ten years ago. Apparently, Ms. Sullivan was a star witness.”
“That’s quite a connection, indeed. What happened?”
Bruce tapped more keys. “Shortly before her testimony, Miss Sullivan and her father were killed in an explosion while being transferred to an FBI safe house. According to the same news article, Lex was hospitalized for an attempted poisoning around the same time. “
“Killed? Didn’t you just say you met her today?”
“Yes, and as the saying goes, she looked pretty good for a dead woman. Here it is…She and her father resurfaced three months later, alive and well, again in this Smallville place.”
“No explanation given? They’re just dead one day, alive the next?”
“The implication is that they were hiding out from Lionel Luthor, but no one seems to know where or how.”
Bruce tapped some more keys. “Damn, that’s the last connection. It seems Chloe Sullivan left Smallville and moved here right after high school. She’s been here in Gotham or overseas working for Allied ever since graduating from Gotham U. No further connections to the Luthors, at least not that I can find here.”
“So what does that tell you, sir?”
“Not enough,” replied Bruce. “But it’s a start.” He leaned forward again and entered another command:
SHOW ALL IMAGES
A single image popped up on the search window. It was a picture taken by one of the press at the Metropolis Courthouse during Lionel’s trial. It showed a younger Chloe Sullivan and Lex Luthor standing very close to one another. Lex’s hand was at her back and the two appeared to be in deep discussion. The Chloe in the picture looked young and anxious, very unlike the woman Bruce had met that day. She was beautiful, though, even back then.
But instead of wondering what they had been discussing, Bruce was looking at the expression on his old friend’s face.
“This, on the other hand,” said Bruce, tapping the screen, “tells me quite a lot, Alfred.”
*****
The next day…Wayne Enterprises Building…
It was already mid morning when Lex Luthor crossed the lobby of the Wayne Enterprises building, heading towards the elevator. He already had a fierce headache and wanted nothing more than to be left alone as long as possible.
“Lex, hold the elevator!”
So much for that.
Bruce was the last person he wanted to deal with right now. Well, maybe not the last but near the bottom of the list to be sure. Still, Lex leaned on the ‘door open’ button to wait for his friend.
Walking leisurely and looking ridiculously rested, Bruce ambled over to the elevator, briefcase in hand. Lex wasn’t surprised by this. Bruce rarely made it to the office before ten. To those who hadn’t worked closely with him, he gave off the air of a ‘hands off’ CEO, content to be the public face of the company but let others make the decisions.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Lex knew that behind Bruce’s public face as a carefree playboy who just happened to share the name with a Fortune 500 company, was a shrewd, calculating mind.
Lex didn’t question the dichotomy in his friend; he surmised that Bruce’s reasons for it were partly business and party personal. Lex himself knew the value of not keeping part of yourself hidden from the world so he played along and didn’t question it. Bruce had certainly extended him the same courtesy when necessary.
Lex rolled his eyes, though, as Bruce stepped up beside him in the elevator. He let the doors close before addressing him.
“Just getting in?” he asked with a slight air of condescension.
Bruce shrugged. “Had a late date last night; kind of spilled over into the morning.”
Lex resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. He had no desire to hear about Bruce’s sexual conquests.
“I’ve already been to my Gotham offices. The accountant from Allied was there when I got there, tearing the place apart. You can’t even imagine.” He almost shuddered at the memory. The accountant Chloe had sent to Luthor Corp was a humorless woman in her fifties with a tobacco-hardened voice and a quick temper. He had never seen his staff move so quickly before, not even when he lost his temper with them.
“I guess we’ll see more of the same when we get upstairs,” said Bruce evenly.
“You don’t seem all that concerned about this. Aren’t you worried about this at all?”
“Of course I am but I’m not about to get caught off guard again like we did yesterday.”
The elevator stopped at one of the lower floors and an attractive brunette stepped on, flashing smiles at both Lex and Bruce. Lex barely acknowledged her but he had to endure a few minutes of watching Bruce flirt shamelessly with the woman before she stepped off again on the 28th floor.
“You were saying?” Lex said pointedly.
“Hmmmm? Oh, yeah...we can’t allow her to catch us off guard again. She may have won the first round, but this isn’t over.”
There was need to ask who the ‘she’ was that Bruce was referring to.
The elevator chimed as it reached the top floor of the building and Lex immediately stepped off and headed towards the office that he had been using for the past year as he and Bruce put together their venture.
Much to his annoyance, instead of heading to his own office, Bruce followed him past the reception area and down the quiet hallway.
“By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you…”
‘And here it comes…’
Lex stopped but didn’t turn.
“…our new friend the insurance investigator, where did you two meet?” Bruce inquired.
It was on the tip of Lex’s tongue to deny knowing her but he sensed that would be futile and then Bruce made that much obvious.
“I couldn’t help but notice that you knew her name was ‘Chloe’ when both she and Lucius had only revealed her last name. So I surmised that you must have known her from somewhere else.”
Lex turned. “Nothing gets past you Bruce,” he said sarcastically. “Miss Sullivan’s father once worked for Luthor Corp, ran one of our plants, in fact. He worked at the plant in Smallville, outside Metropolis, when I lived there a few years back. That’s how I know her.”
“Do you know all of your employees’ children, Lex? Or just the ones who are built like her?”
“No, I don’t, but you seemed to have missed the name of the town. Smallville. As in everybody knows each other. She might have been a friend of people I knew in the town, that kind of thing. And to answer the next obvious question, no we didn’t. It wasn’t that kind of relationship.”
“What kind of relationship was it?” Bruce pressed.
Lex was trying hard not to show his annoyance with the conversation. He knew he had to appear disinterested or Bruce would never let up. “One that’s completely irrelevant to the matters at hand. Now if you don’t mind, I have a conference call with our suppliers. They’d like me to explain when they’re going to receive payment for components that no longer exist.”
“That’s precisely why you should answer my questions. You know what’s at stake here, Lex. Now, during the course of this ‘irrelevant’ acquaintance with Miss Sullivan, do you recall anything about her that might give us some insight as to what we’re up against here?”
Lex’s memory flashed to an intense conversation he had with a teenage Chloe Sullivan, over a dead body no less. It was his first glimpse of her tenacity, but not his last. The room had nearly crackled with the heat of her determination, and perhaps something else…
“Lex?”
Lex snapped back to the present and paused before answering. “I know this: Chloe Sullivan has a knack for finding information that no one wants found.”
Bruce didn’t seem to be too happy with that response.
*****
Wayne Enterprises Manufacturing Complex, area formerly known as Building C, later that day
Notebook in hand, Chloe made her way around the throng of workers and demotion vehicles gathered outside what had been Building C of the Wayne Manufacturing Complex. After only a few minutes there she was glad she had anticipated the condition of the scene and dressed accordingly: khakis, work boots, and a windbreaker with the Allied Insurance logo on the left front side. She had pulled her hair back into a ponytail. Shortly after she arrived, someone handed her a hard hat. Chloe was glad she wouldn’t have to navigate the wet, uneven floor of the building’s ruins in three-inch heels and a tight skirt.
After roaming the perimeter for a few minutes, dodging workers hauling debris she finally spotted the man had come to talk to.
“Mr. Thomas Liu? CJ Sullivan from Allied Insurance. My office called and said I was coming.” She said, hurrying over the man. He was older, in his fifties, with silver lined black hair and glasses. She extended her hand and the man took it, firmly. Chloe’s father had always told her that you could tell a lot about a man from his handshake. At the time, Chloe had brushed it off as one of Gabe’s quaint ideas about the world but her years of meeting people and needing to assess them quickly had taught her otherwise. Gabe knew an awful lot when it came right down to it.
“Afternoon, Ms. Sullivan. I did get that message. I was kind of surprised to get it though.”
Peering at the man, Chloe decided that Mr. Lui reminded her a lot of her father. The parallels were there. Chloe had, of course, researched the man beforehand and found that he was an eighteen-year employee of Wayne Enterprises. He had been hand-picked by Lucius Fox, Bruce’s second in command, to head up the LW Tech plant. He had an impressive education, complete with advanced engineering degrees and certifications. By all accounts, he was loyal, hardworking, and honest. A lifer at Wayne Tech, a company man, just like Gabe.
Filing away that knowledge, Chloe focused on the questions she needed to ask.
“Why did it surprise you, Mr. Lui?”
“Well, it seemed pretty cut and dry. The explosion was an accident. The GCFD signed off on it, I’m not sure what else I can say that can help your investigation.”
“You’d be surprised, sir. Sometimes even a minor detail can help in case like this.”
Mr. Lui shrugged, “I guess, well, I’ll tell you what I know. It’s already in the arson report anyway.”
“I read that report, thanks. I’m interested in a few items that are outside the scope of that report.”
Mr. Lui looked around, apparently looking for someplace where they could talk, away from the hustle of the clean-up crews.
“I wish I could show you to my office but, as you can see, there isn’t too much left. Why don’t you follow me, we could at least find something for you to lean on, miss.”
Chloe resisted the urge to roll her eyes. In anyone else she might look at this as a stalling tactic, but Mr. Lui’s demeanor suggested that he was simply trying to be polite and his old-fashioned manners would not allow a female to be uncomfortable in his presence for very long.
She followed him to an area where makeshift benches comprised of partially damaged sheet rock had been set up as a break area for the crew. Mr. Lui motioned for her to sit down and then sat across from her.
“What did you want to ask?”
“Well, to start, I’d like your assessment of the cause of the explosion. The GCFD attributed it to a malfunction in the systems that regulated the climate-controlled zones in the plant. Do you agree with that?”
“There was a complex system in place for climate control, yes. We’re not just talking about your basic HVAC. In order to test the durability and performance of our robots in extreme environments, we had to try to simulate those environments here in the plant. For example, Zone 4 was designed to mimic the temperatures in the Arctic. Zone 5 simulated the extreme pressure under the deep Pacific.”
“It must have taken a lot of power to provide that degree of simulation,” mused Chloe.
“It sure did. The entire subbasement level of the plant housed the computers and generators used in the climate simulations.”
“So somewhere among those systems, something went wrong with the climate simulators, leading to the explosion.”
“The GCFD says that’s the most likely cause.”
“And what do you think, Mr. Lui?”
The man looked startled for a minute. “What does it matter what I think? The report…”
“The report was written by people who don’t understand your systems, who came in here for about a week and poked around unfamiliar equipment, most of it damaged beyond recognition anyway. As much as I respect the arson squad, it’s been my experience that when they use language like the kind used in this report, it means that they aren’t 100% sure of anything. You ran this plant, Mr. Lui. Tell me what your gut says.”
“I really don’t think it’s my place to question…”
“No, actually it’s my place to question it and I’m asking you,” Chloe snapped back. Then she relaxed, remembering that Mr. Lui would probably not respond well to that. “Sir, you’re not doing Wayne Enterprises any good by staying silent. It’s in the best interest of the company to cooperate with these questions. The sooner this is over, the better it will be for everyone, especially you and your staff. You’ll most likely be able to resume your regular operations, and your regular work schedules,”
That tactic seemed to work, Chloe recognized the change in the plant manager’s stance, indicating he was ready to be more open with her.
“It’s just that…well, we tested those climate systems for months before they went online. There were redundancies, monitors and fail-safes at every possible weak point. If those systems failed to the degree necessary to cause that explosion, we would have been getting faulty temperature readings days ahead of it.”
“And you received none of those warnings?”
“No, miss. So, it’s like I said, it’s possible that the climate controls malfunctioned, but I’m not sure how likely it is.”
“Have you shared these thoughts with anyone else? Your supervisors, perhaps?” asked Chloe.
Mr. Lui shook his head. “No, they seemed pretty content with the arson report. I don’t know Mr. Luthor all that well but Mr. Fox and Mr. Wayne have been good to me and this team. They’ve never given me reason not to trust their judgment. Besides, if it wasn’t the climate controls, what else could it be? Even the bots themselves don’t house enough power to do all this.” He gestured around them at the charred remains of the plant.
Chloe nodded and decided to try anther route. “Did anything unusual happen at the plant in the weeks before the explosion?”
“Unusual how?”
“Employees leaving on bad terms, being passed over for promotions, fighting, that kind of thing. Anything that might suggest sabotage?”
“Sabotage?” croaked Mr. Lui. “No, not this crew. I’ve known most of them for years since we were all together on the Wayne Tech side. They’re real team players. It’s not possible.”
“Anything’s possible, sir. I learned that a long time ago,” replied Chloe vaguely. She capped the pen that she had been writing with, sensing that she had gotten all she needed from the plant manager.
“I guess, but this crew was still thrilled over the elimination of the third shift. They didn’t have anything to be disgruntled about.”
Chloe blinked. “Third shift? I thought this plant didn’t have a third shift. That’s why it was empty when the explosion happened.”
“It didn’t, not anymore anyway. We added a third shift right before we went public with the bots, anticipating demand and all that. Cut it back about a week before the explosion. Good thing, too. If we hadn’t, there would have been at least a hundred people in this place when it went up.”
Chloe felt the familiar tightening in her belly, the one she felt each time she found the right direction in a case. There it was, whether she wanted it to be or not.
“Whose decision was it to cut the third shift?” she asked.
Mr. Lui adjusted his hard hat and squinted as he tried to recall. “Ahhh…I think it was…yeah, that’s right…It was Mr. Wayne. Sent the email himself as a matter a fact. Even made it effective immediately. I had to call the crew that was scheduled to come in that night and tell them to go back to bed.” He laughed at the memory.
‘Did he give a reason for the decision?”
“No, not that I recall. But he’s the boss, after all, one of them anyway, he doesn’t really need a reason, I guess.”
End chapter
And here we are again...
Lexchloe: Who’s sending the emails? I can’t answer that just yet!
Kit Merlot (from email questions): Bruce’s corporation is Wayne Enterprises, Lex's is Luthor Corp. LW Tech is the joint venture.
June: No, not a pro by any stretch of the imagination, unless you want to call me a Professional Fangirl. Thanks for the compliment, though. Lucius is really an underused character, isn’t he?
Louie: There might be at least two more familiar faces popping up. I won’t say who though! Hope you enjoyed seeing Alfred.
BabDreamer: Yes, Chloe will have her only little space in Wayne Tower to play in, but do remember whose owns the place. (Nice screen name, by the way.)
Pipersmum: Will Bruce be showing an interest in Chloe? Um…he’ll be interested in her, all right. But you have to define “interest” for me….
Great update, I'm really really intrigued.
Is it too soon to start begging for another update?
Kimmie
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