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Angelica was a smart woman. Not quite as smart as Lex or that goddamned Mr. Terrific, but smart enough to graduate top of her class at MIT. She'd been described as a tactical genius and she had tons of experience in reading and manipulating people. She found the answer to most questions not particularly hard to find. This, however, was not a normal question. She looked over the whiteboard she'd assembled inside her LuthorCorp apartment again. A net of multicolored string connected pictures of people, statistics, lists, and spreadsheets she had printed out over the last three years. In the middle, in bright red letters: WHO DOES LEX LUTHOR LOVE?
Angelica's research hadn't been fruitless. She had assembled around fifty possible theories and ordered them by likelihood. Of these, forty-seven fell to the wayside pretty much immediately. She felt there was around an 8% chance that Lex was in love with of these people. (Eve, his current girlfriend, netted a strong 0.04% chance, and that was being generous. Even Otis scored higher.) The most likely of these was Sydney, and his likelihood was 0.7%. Not exactly a top contender.
Angelica's top pick, on the other hand, came out to around 42%. She considered this one to be the most likely option: Lex Luthor. He certainly had the ego for it (though who would begrudge him?) and it fell into line with many of her observations. It was certainly realistic for Alexander Luthor, smartest man alive, to care for nobody more than himself. He was the most exceptional human being of their age, possibly ever, and he knew it too. She would not begrudge him this narcissism, if she found it to be true; it was not an inflated ego, it was simply an accurate look at reality.
Angelica herself came in a close second place, at 39%. She had adjusted that number quite a bit, not wanting hope to influence her good judgement. Nevertheless, there was evidence in place for this too. Firstly, he treated her with far greater respect and care than any other LuthorCorp employee, and in fact she was the only member of their team he worried about when it came to danger. Furthermore, he had given her above all others the chance to physically elevate herself and fight these damned metas, and more than this, he did not look at her any different now. She had worried about that, when she first went under the knife and got the nanobots injected, that he would judge her and consider her a meta, someone who you had to tolerate but didn't have to like. She knew she herself would've treated any other LuthorCorp employee the same way. He, however, only looked at her with more appreciation than before and trusted her with even more important tasks and secrets. Thus she was the second-best option.
Angelica might've left it at that. But she wouldn't have been the Engineer if she did. A final red thread led over to a final contender. With a whopping eleven percent, Superman was the third most likely option. Lex's obsession. Stealing his DNA. Not killing him as soon as possible. Posturing in front of him. It might be hate. It might not be. This, too, was an possibility she had to face, even if she didn't want to.
Angelica didn't delude herself. She was in love with Lex. Had been for a long time. And her desire to kill Superman was not just hatred of metas. It was also part jealousy. She'd done the numbers. If Superman died, her main rival would be out of the picture and there was every chance Lex would choose her. So she didn't waste any time with romantic overtures or testing the waters. She knew exactly what she had to do. This would al be over once she brought him Superman's head. And they were so close.
So Angelica pushed the board back against the wall in her apartment where it belonged. She changed into her nanite reinforced nightwear. She shut off her systems. And she went to sleep. And even though Angelica was logical through and through, a little part of her couldn't help but worry that she'd made a miscalculation along the way.