"Ahh, I didn't know this man was this hopeless," Marcel hissed, dragging his fingers through his tousled hair as though the sight before him had personally offended every strand.
His eyes darted from one monitor to another, each displaying surveillance footage of Lex Luthor's increasingly desperate attempts to find Lucinda. The screens covered nearly an entire wall, turning the room into a miniature intelligence center dedicated to one man's spectacular inability to accept that a woman had vanished.
And what a spectacular performance it was.
On one monitor, Lex was interrogating a man who looked as though he would rather confess to murdering the president than endure another five minutes of Luthor's death glare. On another, Lex was marching through a building with the sort of determination usually reserved for military invasions. A third showed him arguing with a security guard before abruptly deciding that the locked door between them was merely a decorative suggestion.
Then he broke it.
Marcel stopped brushing his hair.
He leaned closer to the screen.
"Oh, come on."
Lex strode through the newly damaged doorway, his black coat flapping behind him with such dramatic flair that Marcel briefly wondered whether someone had installed an industrial fan specifically for his entrance.
The man had the audacity to look good while destroying private property.
Worse, Marcel could have sworn the overhead lights caught Lex's bald head at just the right angle, making it shimmer like a freshly polished marble countertop.
He squinted.
"Is that the lighting, or is his head actually glowing?"
He switched to another camera angle.
Nope. Still shiny.
Marcel pressed his lips together, struggling to maintain the professional composure expected of a man entrusted with guarding a potentially world-ending anomaly. Unfortunately, Elizabeth had also entrusted him with a surveillance system that provided a front-row seat to Lex Luthor's emotional collapse, and Marcel was only human.
Well, mostly.
He grabbed a nearby cup of coffee and took a long sip.
"Unbelievable. The man owns half of Smallville, probably has enough money to buy the other half, and yet he can't locate one woman."
On the central monitor, Lex stopped in the middle of a corridor and spoke sharply to one of his men. Even without audio, Marcel could tell the poor fellow was receiving the verbal equivalent of a public execution.
Another camera showed Lex returning to his car, only to turn around moments later and march back inside the building. Apparently, he had remembered something important.
Marcel watched him disappear through the same doorway.
Then reappear. Then disappear again. He slowly lowered his coffee and reached for the controls and enlarged the footage. Lex was now examining a piece of evidence.
Marcel sighed. "Just what exactly did that woman do to this man? Did she discover something that could bring his hair back?" He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms across his chest.
Meanwhile, on the far side of the estate, Lucinda stood before an enormous monitor displaying strange, glowing symbols. She recognized them as Kryptonian, the language of Clark's home planet, but understanding them was an entirely different matter.
She squinted at the screen.
Today, Lucinda would finally meet Virgil Swann to discuss the procedures required to send her back to her own universe. It was the opportunity she'd been waiting for, her chance to return to the world where she belonged.
Unfortunately, meeting up had proven more difficult than anticipated. Lex had expanded his search across Smallville, leaving them with little choice but to personally lure him elsewhere. They had been feeding him clues about Lucinda's possible whereabouts, hoping he would investigate them himself and leave them enough time to proceed with their plans.
Lucinda's jaw clenched. For days, she'd been swallowing the lump in her throat, pretending everything was fine. She had never intended to deceive Lex for this long, but his relentless search had complicated everything.
Fortunately, Elizabeth had managed to steal the key Lex had purchased at the auction that very day, without him noticing. The man had been so consumed by his search that Clark and Lana had practically been forced to manage affairs at the Luthor manor in his absence.
Elizabeth still couldn't wrap her head around it. She hadn't expected Lex to become so attached to Lucinda that he'd practically rewritten two entire episodes just to find her.
Of course, she hadn't told Lucinda any of this. She had been informed that everything had gone back to the way it was supposed to be after she disappeared.
As far as Elizabeth was concerned, Lucinda's disappearance should have stabilized the series. Everything was supposed to return to normal, and all that remained was to send the woman back to her own universe.
And yet, somehow, everything had only grown more complicated.
Elizabeth no longer recognized this part of the storyline. Lex Luthor had never spiraled into this kind of madness in the early episodes. He was supposed to be suspicious, calculating, and occasionally unhinged, certainly, but not a man willing to tear Smallville apart for a woman who wasn't even supposed to exist in his story.
Had Lucinda's influence run too deep?
Or was Elizabeth already too late to restore the original timeline?
With her brows drawn together, she stepped into the room where Lucinda was waiting. Behind her came Virgil Swann, seated in his electric wheelchair.
Lucinda glanced over her shoulder at the newcomers before turning fully to greet them.
Elizabeth internally huffed.
It had been nearly two weeks since she'd last seen Lucinda, and something about the woman had changed. Her presence felt unfamiliar. The spark that once animated her eyes had dimmed, and her black leather suit only emphasized how different she looked from the woman Elizabeth remembered.
For a moment, Elizabeth wondered what had happened to the relentlessly talkative girl who had once seemed determined to challenge the universe itself.
Had the storyline changed because Lucinda had changed it?
As much as Elizabeth wanted to deny it, she knew the truth. Lucinda had already planted a seed in Lex and Clark's lives, and uprooting her influence wouldn't be nearly as simple as removing her from the picture.
She could only be grateful that Clark still hadn't found any solid leads on Lucinda's whereabouts, despite his persistent efforts.
"It's been a while," Elizabeth greeted with a smile.
"Likewise." Lucinda returned a dry smile, her eyes drifting toward Virgil Swann, who had stopped beside Elizabeth. "Good day, Doctor."
Virgil's lips curved into a pleasant smile. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you, Lucy Bryce."
"It's Lucinda Delos Santos, Doctor," she corrected. "I'm going back to my own universe. It's best if everyone calls me that."
Elizabeth studied her carefully. There was nothing in Lucinda's expression that she could decipher. It was as though the woman had finally accepted that she would soon cease to be a part of their world.
"Very well, Miss Delos Santos." Virgil smiled before raising a hand toward Elizabeth, silently asking for something.
Elizabeth produced a slim lead box, which Lucinda immediately recognized as the container holding the key.
She had already figured out the general procedure. Virgil would personally examine her reaction to the artifact before making the necessary adjustments to the machine designed to return her to her original universe.
Elizabeth had accelerated the entire process by utilizing resources from their own universe, along with the assistance of scientists and researchers in this one. In barely two weeks, they had managed to construct a machine capable of attempting what should have been impossible.
Now, all that remained was to test it.
Virgil secured the box and gestured for Lucinda to follow him toward a mechanical door.
Lucinda could have sworn it hadn't been there the last time she looked at that direction. Then again, considering the number of secrets Elizabeth's estate seemed to contain, she was beginning to suspect that even the walls had their own private lives.
"No… it doesn't make sense," Lex murmured, his eyes darting from one piece of debris to another.
He shook his head and slowly turned toward Clark, who stood beneath the shattered doorframe, watching him with growing concern. Behind them, Lex's men continued searching the building, combing through every room, opening every cabinet, and examining every corner. Yet, as expected, they found nothing.
Another dead end.
Lex clenched his jaw.
"Lex…" Clark began hesitantly. He swallowed, pressing his lips together as though carefully weighing his next words. "Maybe… maybe we should give it up for now?"
"Give it up?" Lex scoffed, turning to face him fully. "Do you hear yourself, Clark?"
"I'm just saying you've been searching for weeks. You're barely sleeping, you're hardly eating, and you're practically threatening everyone who crosses your path."
"Then perhaps everyone should stop being so damn useless."
Clark's expression tightened. "This isn't helping you find her."
"Neither is standing here telling me to quit!"
Lex's voice echoed through the ruined building. A few of his men discreetly pretended to become very interested in the debris at their feet.
Clark sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.
"Lex, I'm not asking you to stop looking forever. I'm asking you to take a breath before you destroy another building."
Lex stared at him for another moment before drawing a deep breath. Then, his gaze drifted upward, landing on the CCTV camera mounted just above the broken doorframe.
His eyes narrowed.
A thought suddenly struck him.
"That looks like the CCTV from the three buildings we've ransacked."
Clark immediately turned to examine it. "It does," he mumbled.
Lex didn't waste another second. He grabbed a metal ladder leaning against the wall, dragged it beneath the camera, and climbed up. After detaching the device from its mount, he descended and began examining it in his hands.
At first glance, it looked like an ordinary security camera. However, its compact, matte-black housing concealed a more sophisticated system. The lens was surrounded by a ring of infrared sensors, while a tiny status indicator sat beside a recessed communication module. A small satellite connectivity emblem was printed beneath an unknown manufacturer's insignia, alongside a model number which by far still didn't exist in 2000's.
Unlike conventional CCTV systems that relied on local cables or nearby wireless networks, this particular model supported satellite communication, allowing encrypted footage and device status to be transmitted through a satellite-linked network. It also had onboard storage, motion-triggered recording, and a backup power source designed to keep it running during outages.
It was an expensive piece of equipment, certainly. But that wasn't what caught Lex's attention.
He rotated the camera and inspected its underside, where a small communication module had been concealed beneath a tamper-resistant panel.
"Just as I thought," he muttered.
Someone had installed these cameras in multiple buildings, all equipped with the same specialized hardware. Unlike the other buildings with low-quality CCTVs, the ones with high-tech cameras revealed a very obvious trail that was supposed to lead to Lucinda's whereabouts.
Three coincidences couldn't possibly be coincidences anymore, could they?
Someone was watching him. Either that person had deliberately made sure he would figure it out by leaving such an obvious clue, or they were simply careless. Lex couldn't tell.
On the other side of the camera, Marcel swallowed as Lex's face appeared on the monitor. For a few seconds, he simply stared back then his lips twitched into a reluctant smirk.
"Damn. I didn't expect he'd notice it this late, though. Haha." Marcel leaned closer to the screen as Lex continued examining the device. "Well, the man hasn't slept properly in weeks. Understandable."
He sighed, ruffling his hair before fixing his gaze on the monitor again.
"Now it's up to you, Lex."
His eyes drifted toward Lex's shiny head.
"Please, for the love of everything, use that bald head for something useful."
Marcel couldn't stop thinking about the letter Lucinda had given him. Yes, he'd read the damned thing. And yes, he'd been so moved by her confessions that he'd nearly sobbed into his pillow like a teenager watching a tragic romance.
He would deny it until his dying breath, obviously.
But he'd seen the difference in Lucinda since the day she'd accepted that she could no longer see Lex. The woman who once filled every room with her chatter had grown quieter, her eyes losing their familiar spark. It was as though she'd already begun saying goodbye to a world she hadn't even left yet.
And Marcel hated it. Was he doing all this to help Lucinda? Probably.
He hated the fact that the woman barely joked anymore, barely smiled anymore, and had seemingly lost the spark that made her so easy to be around. Despite knowing her for only a few weeks, Marcel had somehow grown attached to her. Somewhere along the way, he'd started thinking of Lucinda as the older sister he never had, rather than Elizabeth, who was technically supposed to fill that role.
Today was the day Elizabeth and Dr. Virgil Swann would test the machine designed to send Lucinda back to her own universe. Virgil was an exceptionally brilliant man, the sort of scientist whose inventions seemed to work almost perfectly on the first attempt. If this machine proved no different, Lucinda would be gone before Lex could ever find her.
And the two of them might never see each other again.