"What do you mean dead?"

"Just that," Lena replies her voice tight as she takes a seat across the table from the stunned-looking agent. "Jamie is still running a search on the second sketch of course, but we don't need to waste any more time on looking for the boy."

Alex's eyes flicker to the copy of the sketch paperclipped to the side of the file folder sitting front and center on her desk. Not even that could hide the red ink of the rubber-stamped Deceased peeking past the thin paper.

Lex's neat handwriting mocking her from the top corner.

'James. Ryan'

"Ryan James." Alex whispers to herself testing the name as she takes another look at the sketch. Her hand immediately dropping to the side searching for Rory until she remembered the dog had chosen to stay with her other half this time when they'd split up that afternoon.

Maggie to go with J'onn and Alura to work on reversing what Kelly and Checkmate had done to her mind while Alex, Lena, and Jamie got to work trying to trace the identities of the two new faces crowding Linda's mind. Eliza had pulled the mother tone in 'suggesting' Winn join her and Jeremiah doing no one was really sure what.

"I know that tone." Alex murmurs as they watched the nervous young man being lead down the hallways toward the elevators. Eliza on one side Jeremiah on another. "he's going to get some kind of talking to." She predicts.

"The stove talk?" Kara guesses sliding the last bites of the shared take out toward her sister.

"Shovel talk." Kate, Alex, Barry, and Lena corrected earning a blushed "Whatever." From the blonde at the end of the conference table.

"Hopefully, they at least go easy on him." Kate sympathizes draining the last of her coffee earning agreeing nodes from the other three still at the table before she, Kara, and Barry head out to take care of some late-night 'hero work'.

"Kelly also had a good idea in helping to narrow that particular search." Alex guesses along with getting the dazed agent's attention once again this line of conversation was also Lena's way of changing the subject based on the glance the green-eyed woman across from her gave the now opened file.

The top page is a photo of a smiling teenaged boy with expressive green eyes and messy dark brown hair. The image was obviously a staged shot from some country-themed festival of given the plaid shirt Alex could see under the oversized tanned jacket the boy was wearing along with the rather precariously stacked haybales backing the smiling teenager.

The folder falling closed on top of the desk as Alex's jaw ticked at the very mention of her ex's name, but the CEO sitting across from her already has her hands raised "Hear us out." She bargains.

"You're an us now?" Alex rasps her tone bitter as her hands clench on the arms of her chair.

"She's trying to help." Lena defends but Alex's arms cross tight over her front, yet she didn't seem about to interrupt again, so Lena continued. "She had the idea of keeping an eye on anyone in the city making media searches about red kryptonite or any other kind of Kryptonian related subject searches."

One of Alex's eyebrows rose but beyond that, she didn't move from her locked position. "We found a hit." One hand seemed to unlock from its's clenched grip on the sleeve of her tactical gear clade arm as the tablet was handed over.

The internet handle wasn't one Alex recognizes (WeirdwallWatchtower) nor was the image obviously pulled from a poorly enhanced surveillance camera of the woman using the tag name. Not that the woman had made the job easy in keeping herself hidden from the surveillance cameras doting around the coffee shop.

Tactical training Alex recognized at once as she flicked through the different angles. Interesting.

"Does the name Chole Sullivan mean anything to you?" Lena asks conversationally before Alex could ask if they knew the woman's name as well as her internet name.

The auburn-haired agent's next breath comes in a gasp. For a half-second, she was back in a time when her wilder party girl days hadn't been as far behind her as she would care to admit whilst 'Hank Henshaw' shows her into what turned out to be a rather college-style dorm room setup that would become her haven after the brutal first training sessions of her DEO career.

"Look alive, cadet." 'Hank' announces as he nodes in greeting motioning for Alex to set her bag down on the open bed while he turns to the occupied one.

"Oh, Hey Hank." A blonde-haired teenager smiles only glancing up a few seconds when the door swung open. "What's new?"

Even without the much comfier looking dark washed sweatpants and silver DEO eagle shield embroidered shirt she was wearing Alex is reminded too much of Lois Lane albeit a more blonde-haired teenaged version. With the mess of notecards tacked to the wall, the haystack style of her hair, and the pen hanging from between her teeth as she goes back to rapid typing on the laptop she had propped on her knees the pair could be twins or at the very least cousins.

"Your newest roommate." He introduces nodding over toward Alex. "Entry-level field agent."

"Another one?" 'blonde haired Lois' says skeptically as she gives Alex another once over from behind her laptop.

Alex giving her shorter hairstyle a quick smooth down at the scrutiny. The new look a small promise to herself in starting a new better chapter in her life. "She's different." 'Hank' defends then turns to Alex with a stiff smile. "I'll leave you to get settled. Training starts at 0600 tomorrow."

It was several long seconds after the door had clicked closed behind him that either woman spoke.

"Chloe Sullivan." The blonde behind the laptop says without missing a beat of whatever she was typing.

"Alex Danvers." The new recruit introduces stretching out on the unmade bed her arms tucked behind her head as she looks up at the ceiling wondering again what she'd gotten herself into.

"I hope you survive, rookie."

"Alex?"

Lena's hand waves once again in front of Alex's unfocused eyes "Alex are you alright?"

"Yeah." The dazed agent promises her hand going to her head in an attempt to push away the headache forming behind her eyes. The memories she hadn't had before pushing to the surface at the name.

Lena didn't look conversed at the unsteady trimmer of Alex's gravel sounding voice. "You sure?"

Alex nodes "What do we know about her?"

Lena was still eyeing her warily but goes on with the briefing. "she holds degrees in both biochemistry as well as in botany and going by the receipt from the shop this was taken," Lena pauses tapping the surveillance image with the end of her pen "she prefers an almond mocha with extra whip."

"She always did love her coffee fixes." Alex remembers once again taking a look at the image of a woman that thanks to Oliver Queen at least she had once been friends with until her abrupt leave from the DEO training program.

"but like I've said she is incredibly good at covering her digital tracks," Lena laments "like Winn level genius with a computer almost, but we do know that in her more recent years she used to be a freelance reporter and apparently was even a reporter at the Planet before signing on longer-term with Star City Register."

"Star City Register?" Alex repeats it wasn't a paper she easily recognized from either set of memories battling in her head.

Lena was already shaking her head. "We already looked into that. She's started taking sick time three days ago. Some family emergency she said and has all but dropped off the earth since until she slipped up in making that kryptonite search late yesterday morning."

"Have Vaz—"

"She's already on it," Lena confirms passing over a water bottle when she picked up on the break-in Alex's scratchy tone. "When this Chloe surfaces again we'll track her to wherever she's holding Snowie."

Alex nodes once keeping her gaze down so Lena would see the unease on her face.

Chloe was former DEO, but she could also be part of Checkmate.

What did that mean for her younger sister?


Kenzi had known already that she'd needed to find a way to wake the sickly blonde she'd somehow managed to sneak out of Checkmate's clutches. Her efforts redoubled now given the dark-haired man's own attempts to talk the stubborn blonde out of the haze of Checkmate's cocktailed drugs.

She could see the appeal of course. His boyish charms coupled with that surprisingly well-toned form it would be eye-catching to any woman but that smile of his and an obvious genius-level intelligence really had her swooning.

"How's our girl?"

She gives herself a little shake refocusing her eyes from the unmoving form on the bed. "As good as she can be considering." She shrugs carefully setting the comic she'd tried distracting herself with back onto the side table.

"Stopped by the hospital and by a coffee shop on the way back."

Kenzi lets out an audible groan at the thought of food. "You're getting to be worse than her you know." Chole points out passing over the to-go bag.

"Snow is running out of time Clo what else should I be doing other than trying to help her?" Kenzi defends already taring into the sticky bun Chloe had brought her. "If it wasn't so taxing on us both I'd still be trying." Chloe drops her head wrapping her arms around Kenzi's shoulders in what was meant to be a comforting hug.

"I know you're already doing everything you can it's just whatever serum they gave her is too strong. It won't give her up until she sees that everything around her is an allusion and she's nowhere close to doing that."

Kenzi winces at the summary of her latest pulsing headache. "Did Emi have any more advice for waking our stubborn sleeping beauty?" she asks after swallowing a large bite.

Chole lets out a dry chuckle as she drops into a chair beside Kenzi's "No more than yesterday, but she did slip us a few more goodies until then." She nodes toward the duffle bag she'd dropped onto the floor in the little space between the two chairs.

"So, tell me more about that cutie you keep seeing." The blonde asks by way of a topic change.

"Winn." Kenzi corrects licking her fingers clean as she sets the other half of the pastry into her lap giving her stomach time to get used to having food in it again. "And no. Snow is really protective of him. I think he's her boyfriend or something."

"Spoiled sport." Chloe huffs passing over a bottle of water.

"Whatever Sullivan."

They lapsed into silence after that

Chloe thumbing through various screens on her phone. Kenzie going back to monitoring the unconscious woman on the bed.

"Does he look like this by any chance?"

Kenzi only glances at the cell phone screen only to do a double-take when she saw who the fast-taken picture was of. "That's him—I mean the five o'clock shadow is new but that him alright but how—"

Chloe grinned. "Good. For a second there I thought I'd drugged the wrong guy." The thick sarcasm in her tone completely lost on her companion.

"You What?" Kenzi half yelled while all Chloe did was roll her eyes.

"Don't be so dramatic we needed him to help wake her up."

"You can't just go around drugging and kidnapping people Chloe. We're not Checkmate."

"We needed him." The blonde repeats going back to scrawling her phone. "He's in the other room if you want to see him in person."

"What's keeping him from-"

"I cuffed him to the radiator." Chloe cuts in "The thing is ice cold it won't hurt him." She adds when Kenzi's eyes go wide.

"But didn't you say that DEO whatever place would be tracking you since you searched that kryptonite stuff?"

Chloe nodded. "Lucky for me they hadn't thought to do that just yet and on the way back from the hospital I spotted Cutie Mc. Scruffy Jaw in there sitting by himself thought a coffee shop window and decided to bring him along too."

"But how'd you even-"

"You're not the only one that used to work with Checkmate Kenz." The blonde woman reminded. "and they hired me for more than just my skills with a computer." Kenzi nodes once remembering how her best friend had been praised more than once for her skills in hand to hand combat. She'd never had the courage to ask where she'd learned all that stuff about fighting. "and before we both quit that hell place Allie had me pull the surveillance feed from the carnival. He was in more than a few of the shots and your right she is really protective of him." Chloe nods in agreement.

"Fine. I'm going for a shower," Kenzi groans already pulling her shirt over her head as she headed toward the bathroom. "and while I'm in there how about you move our other guest in here with her."

"What do you want me to handcuff him to the bed or something?" Chloe chuckles kicking her feet up onto the edge of the bed after another cursory check of the few bits of medical equipment giving them readouts of Snow's condition.

Kenzi's check flooded with color at the suggestion as she tries to roll out the tension in her neck from sitting still for so long. "If you have to." She shrugged kicking her pants into the corner of the room.

"Kinky." Chloe giggles shooing Kenzi toward the bathroom.