Seriously, never gonna stop saying how powerful and encouraging your reviews are, you totally get me in the mood of writing right away. I had a very productive day at job today and after reading your thoughts and comments, it made a great mood combination and well... the result is Chapter 4 already! The longest one so far :o
I know we're all busy with school, job, or responsibilities, thus I can't promise to update this daily, but you have to know that I'm always looking for a moment to do it. Thank you for all of your support, it's priceless. Much love for you beautiful people! :*
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters. All of them belong to CW's Supergirl TV Show.
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CHAPTER 4
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"We need to get her out. Now!"
Jeremiah was on his feet walking around his bed. Alex, J'onn, and Eliza were trying to put him back in bed.
"Honey, please sit down, you need to…" Asked Eliza doing the best she could to reassure her husband.
"You don't get it. We need to get Kara out of there."
Alex never saw her dad as worried as he was now. His mind was far away, thinking, planning… J'onn was trying to reach his mind but he was struggling with it, frowning; which made Alex worry even more. Couldn't J'onn read his thoughts?
"J'onn?" She looked at the Green Martian with expectation.
"I can't…"
"What?" Alex turned to look at her father.
"I can't read anything… nothing."
Jeremiah seemed to notice J'onn's frustration. "What are you talking about?"
"J'onn is a telepath, dad. He's trying to read your mind to understand what you mean by saying we need to get Kara out of Cadmus, now."
"You're human, I should be able to listen your thoughts."
"What does that mean?" Asked a concerned Eliza.
"It means Jeremiah is not entirely human anymore." J'onn heard his own statement, repeating it again to himself to be convinced of what he said.
"What…?" Alex shook her head. "No, it can't be…"
"He's right." Jeremiah's gaze stood on the Green Martian. "What happened… in Cadmus…" He took a deep breath before explaining. "Initially… they healed me from Hank's stab. Once I was on my feet, they didn't let me go and threatened me by going after Kara if I didn't cooperate. I was asked too much about her and Superman, I had to give them answers from our studies and all the knowledge we had," he looked Eliza with guilt in his eyes, "on the contrary, they were gonna kill me and go after my family one way or another. They knew about our home, jobs… our daughter's school." He sat on the bed. "They wanted me to work for them, needed me to extract genetic information from extraterrestrial refugees on Earth." Jeremiah shrugged and closed his eyes, wishing to erase whatever that was coming to his mind. "The things I saw. What they did to subjects… "
He looked defeated and Eliza couldn't help but seating next to him, grabbing his hands to give him some comfort. They all waited until Jeremiah spoke again.
"Many of them came from Fort Rozz, but many others didn't. Innocent beings didn't deserve that. The kind of experiments they did to them… mutilation, transplants, energy experiments, cloning, virus exposure tests, species hybridization, dissection, resistance levels… subjects were always so scared, and when project Cadmus had what they needed, they killed those subjects. And I helped them… I can't let Kara go through that…" His voice broke.
J'onn J'onzz felt the anguish inside Alex's mind and grabbed her hand. His agent was standing looking straight to her dad figuring out a way to somehow understand his dad was only trying to protect his family, he had no choice… but all those lives. Kara was probably going through a nightmare in that very moment, and for a second she wished her sister to be death instead of facing Cadmus; immediately regretted the thought, hating herself for wishing Kara's death.
"It is the government and everything they want is power. By studying refugees, they have developed weapons in order to 'protect' our planet." Continued a regretful man who looked even older while telling them that story. "After working for Cadmus during four years, one day… the subjects were three identical Knoxes; a beautiful, full of wisdom specie from an extinct planet in Circinus Galaxy. But they were only eight terrestrial years old; it used to be a family, but after Cadmus they became orphans." His lips were trembling. "I refused to collaborate in that massacre, I didn't want to keep being part of those genocides. This time they didn't threat me with my family; instead they told me that if I felt so much love and admiration for other species, that if I preferred extraterrestrial species over ours, they were gonna give the pleasure of becoming one."
Alex's mind and Eliza's went blank. J'onn perceived how the whole environment inside that room changed, and he heard the fast beating heart of Jeremiah's daughter. Things clicked and it made sense why he couldn't read the man's mind minutes before. Silence was broken by Danvers.
"We all heard about extraterrestrial abductions and all of that before; often finding testimonials about subjects with lack of memory regarding what they saw; losing track of time, secondary effects, the need of hypnotism in order to recreate what happened during their abductions…" He sighed. "Cadmus operates in a similar way. I only have flashes in my mind. I do recognize my captors, but whatever they did to me, I can't remember; I only remember being in pain and… cold. Human mind is weak, with the right treatment, you can mold it however you want or help it to erase traumatic situations, since that's a mechanism of defense." The man stood up and walked to a table on the corner of the room. "I do know this…" He took a scalpel.
"Jeremiah… what?" Eliza went after him; nonetheless, before anyone could do something, Jeremiah made a small cut on his forearm and an orange liquid emerged.
Alex put her hands over her mouth in disbelief, a couple of tears falling.
"In the middle of the flashes I have… I was told they killed those young Knoxes, and…" He gulped his own tears. "They tried to improve human's brain in matters of retaining information as Knoxes did… the source were those childs, and this is my blood now. That's why J'onn can't read my mind, my brain is not entirely human anymore… I, I... I was the subject of the experiment." He couldn't contain it anymore and started to cry.
Alex ran to both her parents to cover them in an embrace as wide as her arms allowed her to.
They spent some minutes like that, trying to calm Jeremiah. The family was assimilating everything they shared. In that very second, Alex forgave whatever her dad did. He had no choice and his broken heart proved it. The guilt. The regret. He was her dad, a man of good; always looking after the people he loved. Despite the past, her father's orange blood; nothing of that mattered now, she missed him, she loved him. "Love bonds us all." Kara's voice came into her mind.
The Green Martian made a sound, getting Alex's attention. He was looking an empty place inside the room, perceiving something out there, and when he noticed she was looking at him he said.
"Maxwell Lord is here, and because of his thoughts, I know Superman has arrived as well."
…
Reus finished putting a gauze pad on her navel. Modric studied it by inserting a camera into it. Kara's face was covered in tears, still crying silently while the doctor was taking off his blood stained medical gloves.
"Very well, Kara. Now we know the gestation process for a Kryptonian fetus is similar to humans. I'm amazed we share nature characteristics, considering how far Krypton was from Earth, and our different environmental conditions."
"Please… just stop." Her trembling words ashamed her.
Doctor Modric ignored her. Reus helped him to place the table in a vertical position. This was a new room. There was enough space to easily park five cars in it. By the time they placed the table on one side of the room to face the contrary wall, Kara understood why they needed that area. The opposite wall was gray color, made of platinum, and it had a big blue circle in the center.
Out of nowhere, Doctor Modric inserted a long needle in her chest, right in her heart, making her gasp in surprise. He showed her a shiny green bag hanging from a stand. She panicked recognizing the liquid that would go through the needle.
"Yes to your thinking. That is liquid kryptonite, do not make me push the button, Kara." He warned her with a deep voice. "I'll remove your cuffs so you can use your powers momentarily. You're weak enough to lose balance if we untie the straps holding you to the table, hence don't even think about using your strength because by the time you are about to move your arms an inch, liquid kryptonite will be already inside your heart." And with this, he placed a metal head band on Kara; which was holding lens frames for both eyes, but there was no glass on them. After removing the kryptonite cuffs, Reus and Modric stood next to the table, adjusting some data in Reus's tablet.
"Kara. You see that blue circle on the wall, right? Please strike it with your heat vision."
She didn't do it. She had to be strong and heat vision was one of the few things she could control. They could experiment on her; take as many samples as they wanted, harm her body, but she knew that once they measured the intensity of her powers, they were going to create weapons stronger than Kryptonian's powers; Kara wasn't going to put her cousin's life in danger; she rather die in order to protect those she loved. She would be strong for the sake of others. That was her duty.
"Kara?" Asked Modric.
There was no response.
"You don't wanna play that game with me, Kara." Modric left his spot to stand in front of her looking at her with those deadly green eyes.
"Use… the liquid kryptonite if you want and… k-kill me. I won't stri…"
He hit her with the back of his hand, making a bloodline stream from her lips. Kara faced him again, spitting blood on his face. Her eyes started to burn and before she could release her heat vision against him he punched her still opened navel. Her eyes closed hard. Her body claimed to contract but the straps kept her stick to the table. Modric got out of her way.
"You want me to kill you? I could in fact, get many information from a corpse, but we would miss the fun and I need your powers, Supergirl." He took his coffee mug and sipped from it. "You might don't care about yourself, but what about others? Do we need an incentive?"
Her eyes opened with fear on them.
…
Everyone was gathered inside the meetings office. It was late now and activities inside the DEO were calmed, giving everyone a better chance to discuss the rescue mission.
They had the plans of Cadmus on the table. Around it, were Jeremiah, Eliza, Hank, Winn, James, Alex, Max, Johnson, Bale and Vega.
"If you get to the server control room on the left side of level 7, I could give you a device for you to connect it into their system and I could easily hack them to take control of their gates and security." Explained Winn. "Once I have access to it, I can check on cameras and help you find Kara."
"I live for frames and pictures, I am completely observant on details. I could find Kara easily even if you put me in front of hundreds of screens." Said James. "I would detect her really quick and help to guide you out of Cadmus. Look, you won't take me or Winn with you, I know that." he put his hands up to let them know he knew how things worked during missions. "But we can still help you from here, and be your eyes inside that maze."
"Sounds good for me." Jeremiah nodded to him. "I do remember how to get to certain areas inside the building, they might have erased many things from my mind, but they gave me a Knox's mind, I can save detailed aspects about anything inside it. They tried to make me forget the maze; flashes or not, my mind allowed me to keep them very detailed."
"We should find another way in." Vega was taking note of specific places inside Cadmus.
"He's right. Ventilation system is not an option anymore." Alex was standing next to J'onn and as soon as the thought came to her mind, he perceived it. "Unless…"
"Alex is right." Everyone turned to look at him and Alex. "I could shape shift into someone from Cadmus, sneak in the server control and made our way in."
"I can install tiny cameras on you to give us a better look while you move inside Cadmus." Max suggested. "I also have a laser weapon as the one you described. I don't know if it would be powerful enough, but it would let us be at close level with them. Additionally, I developed bulletproof vests to stop more than simple bullets. And we all will be using mental waves blockers, just in case they took advantage from Myriad and have developed something similar to control or kill."
Max walked to the front of the room, carrying a hard briefcase, and when he opened it, he took out a syringe to show it to everyone.
"Most of us remember when Kara was affected by red kryptonite."
"By you." Snapped a serious Jeremiah, looking straight to him.
"Oh, I see you already know the story." Max gave a quick glance to Alex. "And as you know, I developed a weapon to counteract the influence of it on Kara, taking it out of her system." He held the syringe a bit higher. "I guess they must be using kryptonite on Kara, since the government holds more information than the DEO in matters of extraterrestrial species, and that is the most effective way to subdue a Kryptonian. Just as I was smart enough to find a way to fix the red kryptonite mess, I managed to create this. This is a serum I developed to neutralize kryptonite effects on a Kryptonian's body. If Kara is facing any form of kryptonite, this should help neutralize it and help her recovery. It doesn't have the same healing magical effect of the sun but at least works to prevent hard situations. I will make more of these so each of us can carry one, the first one to get in touch with Kara, use it." He took a small gun charged with a cartridge of it and threw it to Superman. "We know they have kryptonite bullets. Take an extra one, just in case."
Clark looked at him frowning a cold gaze. "You've tried to harm my cousin more than once in the past. Why are you doing this now?"
"Let's say I'm into helping the city too. Although it punches my ego to say this, I have to admit, the world does need Supergirl. Guess this is a payback after what she did to save everyone from the Myriad chaos."
"I am sure Kara is alive." Jeremiah spoke. "All they ever wanted was a Kryptonian in their collection, they must have done anything to save her from the bullets. They need her powers and that is why I am sure they should've found a way to keep her alive." He turned to see Eliza. "Whatever they have done to her so far, by the time we come back…" he took both her hands in his. "I am going to need all of your knowledge and Alex's to fix whatever there is to fix with her body."
…
An incentive?
"If we need to bring someone from home, or work…"
"Wait…" Kara was afraid of the people she cared about. "No…"
"Doctor Reus, we need to run tests from a Kryptonian to a human, soon." Modric pretended to not listen to Supergirl. "Do we have human subjects at our disposal?"
"No, Sir. The last one was used to share a K'hund's DNA, but the subject died during the test."
"Don't… you dare to…"
"Hush, Kara! Guess we have no option." Modric took his coffee mug again ignoring the girl's words. "Did you ever watch The Incredibles movie, Reus?" Asked curiously to his assistant.
"Yes, Sir."
"Great! Then what do you think about making a family of superheroes?" Modric started to place the kryptonite cuffs on Kara's limbs again. "The dad is a walking developed brain so far, and if tests worked with his DNA, the next subject on the list who got genetic information from him is…" He stood next to Kara and placed his mouth on her ear. "Finally, you'll be blood related. How much do you miss your sister, Kara?"
TBC...