Chaos Theory

Chapter One

Chloe checked her watch and saw that she had three minutes and fifty six seconds to go. She she checked her laptop which now said 'Download Complete'. Sighing with relief she was about to disconnect it from the mainframe when she saw the danger warning on the control panel. She looked deeper.

A feedback loop had been created in the temporal core which was building on itself, doubling in intensity every fifteen seconds. At this rate the temporal field would expand far beyond the confines of the Temporal Chamber to include the whole of Metropolis, and it would happen a minute before Chloe's charges were set to detonate.

She checked her watch, three minutes and thirty one seconds. That gave her two and a half minutes to stop the feedback loop and find a way to discharge that energy, or who knows where or when Metropolis would end up.

She rushed to the door at the end of the room which led to the temporal chamber. She had studied the schematics of this device for a month so she knew her only option was to get into the power couplings and reroute the building charge.

She shot the lock off and opened the door. Walking in here, she had known that the the chamber was lead lined and it didn't have an earth. To save metropolis she only had one option, to reroute the building charge into her. The explosive devices would then do the rest of the work for her and this facility would be reduced to rubble.

A tear slipped down her cheek as she realised the inevitable. She didn't want to die but she was out of options. Saving metropolis was worth her life. Saving Clark and Oliver and the rest of the Legion. They were worth a lot more to this planet than she was.

She pulled her gloves off and held her hand over the coupling.

"I'm sorry," she said as she closed her eyes. Even she couldn't have said if she was apologising to Clark or Oliver. She took a deep breath and grasped hold of the conductor.

It hurt. More than she could ever have imagined. Her skin was burning, her insides felt like they were being vaporised and her head felt ready to explode.

Then the pain began to recede and Chloe found that she was grateful for the oblivion that washed over her. No matter what the afterlife held, it surely couldn't be any worse than the agony of being electrocuted.

III

When Chloe awoke she was freezing cold and wondered for a moment if she was in purgatory. It made sense that if hell was hot, purgatory would be cold. Maybe heaven would be just the right temperature.

But why was it so dark?

Slowly she realised that her eyes were closed and cracked them open a little. Yep, still dark. She closed her eyes again since even that small movement had hurt.

Gradually she realised that if she had eyes, she had a body. Didn't only the soul pass onto the afterlife?

She twitched her hands and feet and realised that wherever she was, she was still alive. Hoping that she might find somewhere warm, she reluctantly opened her eyes and sat up.

It took a few moments for her head to stop spinning but when it did she frowned as she was finally able to focus on what was in front of her, the Luthor Mansion.

"Whoa!" she said softly, wondering how she ended up here.

Knowing that she needed to make sure the Time Lab had indeed been destroyed in the explosion, she ignored her protesting muscles and got to her feet. There were lights on inside and she knew that Tess would probably help her. She ran to the front door and knocked loudly, just remembering to pull her balaclava off in time. Showing up at the Luthor mansion looking like a ninja assassin probably wasn't the best idea.