Fic: Ex Machina (8/9)
Fic: Ex Machina (8/9)
Series: Special Projects
Summary: After their experience with the Demon Meg, Chloe is broken. Dean is shattered. Somehow, they've got to find a way back, while at the same time figuring out how to stop a Demon-made Artificial Intelegence.
Author: pen37
Beta: Clarksmuse
Fandoms: Smallville/Supernatural/DCU
Characters: Chloe, Sam, Dean
Pairing:Chloe/Dean
Rating: Pg-13.
This is a part of the Special Projects series. You can find the rest of the series here.
Written for the Crossovers100 challenge. Prompt #67 Snow. The table is here.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9
It took three days of constant computer work, with Isaac, Sam, Chloe, Oracle and Cyborg all working round-the-clock to build the modifications to overwrite the demon AI.
“So the thought occurs to me,” Dean said as he leaned against Chloe's workstation. At the moment she was taking a break from coding to install new parts into her computer. It reminded him a little of working on a car, the way she'd popped the cover off of her machine, and busily soldiered a new motherboard in place. “I have no idea how we're going to distract this thing so that we can sneak up on it and whammy it over to our side.”
“You sound like we're hunting it,” Chloe said. As she unplugged her soldering gun and sat it aside.
“Aren't we?” Dean asked
“I guess we are,” Chloe shrugged. “And there is one place that we can work from that it can't turn on us.”
“Where is that?”
“The fortress.”
“What fortress?”
“The fortress,” Chloe said.
“You mean up in the arctic with the polar bears and the penguins?”
“You know, that's a misnomer,” Chloe said. “Penguins are in the Antarctic.”
“Yeah, whatever. I'm going with you.”
Chloe tilted her head. “It's sub-zero weather.”
“Don't care. Someone's got to protect you from the non-existent Arctic penguins.”
“Sam's going to want to come, too.”
“Let him.”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“I - Okay?” Dean pinned her with a look. “Just like that?”
“Yeah,” Chloe shrugged. “We're partners, Dean. If you want to come with me, that's your right. Just don't complain that you're sitting around in the snow freezing.”
“I'll live,” Dean replied.
* * *
He would have thought that they would go straight to the Arctic. But instead Clark ferried them - one at a time - to a cave in the middle of BFE Kansas.
“Where are we?” Sam asked as he looked over the hieroglyphs on the walls of the cave.
“Smallville,” Chloe said. “There's a device in this cave that lets us teleport to the fortress.”
“That's convenient,” Dean said.
“You have no idea,” Chloe said.
“You guys should bundle up,” Clark said as he leaned against the wall.
Chloe quickly produced a canvas bag with three appropriately-sized arctic snow suits.
“We'd better get there soon,” Dean complained as he zipped himself into one of the suits. “It's hot in this thing.”
“Somebody's bored already,” Chloe sing-songed.
“Give him a polar bear to shoot,” Sam grinned. “That should keep him occupied.”
“Did you know that a polar bear's liver contains levels of vitamin A that are poisonous to humans?” Chloe asked.
“Why yes, as a matter of fact, I did,” Sam said.
“How do you guys know this?” Dean asked.
Chloe shrugged.
Clark stood next to a stone table, and inserted a key. “Here we go.”
There was a flashy light show, and then a rush of wind. When the world calmed down, they were inside what looked to Dean like a giant snow globe.
Chloe crossed the open floor of the globe, and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a giant spiky crystal. The thing immediately started glowing and an angry voice echoed around the room.
“What strangers have you brought here, Kal-El?”
“It's Chloe, Jor-El,” she said to the computer in a gentle rebuke. “You know me.”
“Chloe Sulli-Van,” the computer confirmed. “Why are you here?”
“We need your help, Jor-El,” Clark said.
“I have no interest in helping lower life forms,” the AI said scathingly.
“Hey Oz, The Great and Terrible,” Dean said sarcastically. “Last time I checked, you lived on this planet, too.”
“Who are you?” the AI boomed.
“Dean By-God Winchester. And I'm trying to save the world, here. Otherwise you can bet your hard drive I wouldn't be freezing my ass off here!”
There was a short pause. Chloe looked at Dean and bit her lip nervously.
“Kal-El, what is this strangely named Dean By-God Win-Chester speaking of?”
Clark quickly relayed the situation to the AI.
“I will help you, Chloe Sulli-Van,” Jor-El said.
“Oh good,” Chloe deadpanned. She pulled out her re-built laptop, and for the first time, Dean realized that some of her modifications were to insure that the computer would work in sub-zero temperatures without freezing up. She quickly synched it with the crystal supercomputer to give herself an interface that she could work with.
“Okay, I'm hacking into Luthorcorp, and looking for another one of Lionel's windows,” she relayed.
“I'll radio the Watchtower and relay this,” Clark said as he started across the room.
“I thought she was Watchtower?” Dean tilted his head sideways in a pose of confusion.
“I was Watchtower first,” Chloe said. “But Ollie never has been great at picking codenames. So when he got that swanky base on the moon, he named it the Watchtower. That's when they shortened my codename to Tower.”
Dean raised an eyebrow. “There's a base on the moon?”
Chloe sighed. “Yes.”
“Awesome.”
“So doesn't that get confusing?” Sam asked.
“All the time,” Chloe nodded. “Word of advice, guys. Pick your own code names. Otherwise you'll wind up like me: five foot four with a code name like Tower.”
“Actually, Batman suggested that we call them Bitch and Jerk,” Clark said with a tiny smile.
Dean frowned. Chloe started to laugh, and then turned it into a cough.
“Oh, hell no!” Sam shook his head violently.
Just then Chloe's computer interface beeped at her. “Okay, here we go.” she muttered, and then leaned over the keyboard. “Accessing . . . and . . . Ha! Your gate is down. All your base are belong to me.”
Dean shot a confused look at Sam.
“That's good. She said that she's in,” Sam said.
“Uh oh! Nonononono! Jor-El, brace for impact.”
Clark looked up in astonishment. “What?”
Suddenly, the walls glowed green, and the fortress shook.
“What's that?” Dean asked. His face twisted in a look of worried confusion.
“We're being shot at with that damn laser death ray.”
“I ought to just go up there and turn it off,” Clark muttered.
“Uh . . . yeah? You think?” Dean frowned. “Lower life form my ass,” he muttered.
“Why didn't you?” Sam asked.
“I didn't want to alarm the Department of Defense.” He shrugged. “Lex . . . isn't himself, and he's always been a vocal opponent of me anyway. I figured: Why give him something to complain about? Jor-El?”
“Yes, my son?”
“Dude? I thought your dad was from Kansas?” Dean asked.
“Long story,” Clark waved the question off. “Jor-El, that thing's not going to wreck the fortress, is it?”
“Of course not,” Dean didn't think that a computer could have feelings. Yet the AI sounded offended at the question.
Over her computer, Chloe continued her muttering. “Almost. Almost. Almost. Done!”
Immediately, the laser ceased firing on the fortress.
“Now what?” Dean asked.
“Now it's copying information on the cloning facilities, to the Jor-El interface. And . . . self-destructing.” Chloe grinned. “Just like that.”
“That was almost too easy,” Dean muttered with trepidation.
“Too easy?” Chloe's jaw fell as if unhinged. “Weeks of coding? Rebuilding my computer? Taking the Clark Kent express up to the Arctic Circle? And it's too easy?”
“Well . . .” Dean shrugged. “I didn't get to shoot, stab or exorcise anything. That was all research.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “Welcome to the information age.”
“Give me an old fashioned hunt any day.”