After making a quick, but thorough sweep of the area surrounding Ophelia's apartment building for anything suspicious, Kara makes her way to DEO headquarters.
Built on the site of the old DEO building the unit's new facility is a state-of-the-art structure designed to inspire hope, cooperation, and foster community involvement in their ongoing mission to empower the citizens of National City and the rest of the world to be active participants in the never ending quest for peace and prosperity.
Kara lands on the veranda, makes her way inside, heads down the stairs to the building's central hub where J'onn is waiting for her.
"Did a quick sweep of the area around Ophelia's apartment and came up empty," Kara informs J'onn.
"I'm not entirely surprised," J'onn responds as they make their way down a corridor. "Something very odd about the whole scene."
"What do you mean?", Kara inquires.
"Well," J'onn explains, "it seemed to be almost devoid of any psychic presence. Aside from our victim I'm not sure anyone else has ever been in that apartment. I couldn't sense any other residual psychic energy at all."
Kara's eyes narrow and her brow furrows. "That is odd. Empaths tend to be warm, social beings. I cannot imagine she didn't have and entertain friends at some point. It's hard to believe given her natural abilities that there wouldn't be some lingering emotional energy in her home."
J'onn nods. "Agreed. I can't explain it yet, but it is troubling, indeed. The body arrived about 15 minutes ago. Alex is in the med bay preparing for the physical examination."
"Is Brainy on his way?", Kara asks.
"Brainy and Lena," J'onn replies.
"Great!", Kara exclaims. "We need all our heavy hitters on this one. If there is anything useful on Ophelia's body Alex, Brainy, and Lena will find it."
J'onn and Kara walk past a large glass wall with a sign on it that reads "Medical Bay". As they reach the doorway a scanner overhead activates and says, "Scanning... Jones, J'onn, Operations Director... Danvers Zor-El, Kara, Field Commander... Access granted."
As the doors slide open, Alex looks up and says slyly to her sister, "Hey slow poke, what took ya so long?"
"Made a quick stop to take selfies, sign a few autographs, even got a few phone numbers from some cute guys...", Kara retorts sarcastically.
"Doubt any of them will meet with your, or our, impeccably high standards," beams a familiar voice from behind them as the doors, not yet fully closed, slides back open again.
"Lena!", Kara says enthusiastically making her way over to hug her best friend.
"Hey, sweetie," Lena say affectionately as she embraces Kara tightly. "Brainy's checking in at comms and will be up shortly. Thought I'd head over to see if Alex needed an extra pair of hands and eyes."
"Absolutely," Alex responds.
As Lena releases her hold on Kara, she removes her overcoat and purse, hangs them on a nearby hook, pulls on a lab coat, heads over to Alex, and says, "What have we got, Director?"
As Alex and Lena begin to engage in their examination the doors to the med bay slide open again. This time Brainy enters the room and strides over to J'onn and Kara.
"I need you two down at comms," Brainy says in his typical Coluan tone.
"What's up?, J'onn asks.
"Detective Davies is on secure channel 7," Brainy informs them. "There's been a development."
As the three of them arrive in the central DEO command hub they see a familiar face looking back at them from one of the large monitors on the back wall.
"Director Jones," Adam says in a formal tone.
"Detective Davies, what's going on?", J'onn asks.
"We have received reports of three more incidents identical in nature to Ms. Mason's. Our CSI techs have found nothing useful at each scene and each body found is in a similar state to Ms. Mason. Our ME has authorized them to be redirected your way."
"Understood," J'onn acknowledges. "Anything else?"
"Yes," Adam replies. "Got a call from Central City. They had an intruder at Iron Heights and have a victim similar to our four. Their Captain is personally accompanying the body to the DEO for transfer and autopsy."
"Captain West is on his way here?", Kara interjects.
"Actually...," Adam begins, but is interrupted.
"He's already here," a voice declares from behind them.
Brainy, J'onn, and Kara turn to see the familiar site of Barry Allen's father-in-law, Captain Joe West, in the DEO command center.
"Thank you, Detective Davies," J'onn says as he looks back at the monitor. "We'll keep you posted on our progress here."
"Appreciated, Director," Adam replies. "NCPD out." The monitor switches off.
"Joe!", Kara exclaims as she walks over and hugs him.
"Hey, Kara!", Joe says with a reserved smile as they embrace.
"Captain West," J'onn says as he makes his way over with his hand extended, "good to see you."
"You, too, Director," Joe replies as he shakes J'onn's hand, "wish it could be under better circumstances, and please, call me Joe."
J'onn reciprocates, "Only if you call me J'onn."
"Deal, J'onn," Joe agrees.
"So," Kara asks, "why is the Captain of CCPD personally escorting a body to the DEO for autopsy?"
"Because, this isn't just any body," Joe adds in a serious tone, "she's one of yours... Psi".
"Psi?", Kara replies in a somber tone. "I didn't realize she was in Iron Heights."
Brainy interjects, "After Rama Khana destroyed our old building all Fort Roz and other alien DEO detainees were transferred to the desert facility under joint DOD/HSA jurisdiction. All our meta human detainees were transferred to Iron Heights' meta humans detention facility."
"Any idea what happened, Joe?", Kara asks.
Joe pulls his note pad from his pocket and flips through his notes. "Best the warden can piece together so far, someone or something hacked the prison's security system last night some time between 9:30 pm and midnight. Guards found her in her cell this morning. No apparent injuries, no struggle, no signs of anything unusual, except that she was dead. They would have chalked it up to natural causes if NCPD hadn't sent out their wire about the victims here. When they checked security they realized they had an issues and contacted Star Labs. I contacted Adam and got our ME to release the body to your team."
"Who designed the security system in the meta human wing at Iron Heights?", Brainy inquires.
"Cisco Ramon," Joe replies emphatically.
"That's disconcerting," Brainy says, "I've seen Mr. Ramon's work before and someone would have to be a genius level hacker at a minimum to crack his system."
"Tell me about it," Joe retorts. "I'm going to head up to the Medical Bay to sign the transfer paperwork for Alex and then head back to Central City."
"Joe, we appreciate you bringing Psi here," J'onn says as he reaches to shake Joe's hand again. "Have a safe trip home."
Kara turns, gives Joe another hug, and says, "Thank you, Joe. Give Barry and Iris my best."
"Will do, kiddo," Joe replies affectionately. "Take care of yourself and come visit soon."
"I will," Kara responds as she lets Joe go and he turns to head for the med bay.
Kara turns back to J'onn and Brainy and says, "Looks like our day just got busier."
"Indeed," Brainy replies.
J'onn adds, "Alex, Lena, and Brainy are going to be busy for a few hours examining our growing collection of victims. Looks like we may have a serial on our hands."
"I'm going to head back to CatCo, check in with Nia, and take care of a few things there," Kara informs them. "I'll also have Nia start digging into our victims' lives from a story perspective, see if she can uncover any connections that NCPD might not."
"Good idea," J'onn acknowledges. "We'll let you know when we've got anything useful from the autopsies."
"Perfect!", Kara replies as she turns and zooms out of the DEO.
Kara lands on the balcony outside her office at CatCo plaza, taps the bracelet on her right wrist, and her hero suit begins to dematerialize from the House of El crest out in all directions, leaving her back in her business attire.
As she steps back into her office and picks up the small stack of messages left on her desk by Nathalie, Nia makes her way in. Kara thumbs through the notes at super speed.
"Anything pressing?", Nia asks.
"Nope," Kara responds as she clicks a button on her desktop. "Nothing that can't hold until tomorrow."
Nathalie enters and says, "Yes, Ms. Danvers?"
"Please let Bill and his group know we're going to move our meeting up. I need to see them in 20 minutes. Make sure he knows I'm not expecting miracles, just need to touch base sooner than rather than later to stay ahead of the chaos today is shaping into."
"No problem," Nathalie remarks. "Anything I else I can do?"
Nia replies, "Are you okay coordinating this afternoon with Ms. Grant's assist on your own?"
"If you can spare me 10 minutes to review what we have so far, absolutely," Nathalie replies confidently.
"Excellent!", Nia responds. "Thank you, Nat. We'd be lost without you."
"My pleasure, Ms. Nal. I'll get right on this," Nathalie says with a wide, appreciative smile as she turns and heads back to her desk.
"What's up?", Kara asks Nia. "How come you need Nathalie to take that meeting solo?"
"Well, as I was starting to dig into the lives of our victims I noticed a disconcerting pattern... they are all aliens or meta humans with some form of mental abilities."
"That's definitely not good," Kara says, "anything else appear to connect them?"
"Nothing," Nia answers. "No commonalities that I can identify at all, but that's not all."
"What else you got?", Kara inquires.
"Got a call from Al a few minutes ago," Nia explains. "Remember that new bartender, Jackson, that we saw at the bar Friday night?"
"Yeah," Kara responds.
Nia continues, "He apparently disappeared just after closing and hasn't been seen in two days. Al says he was cleaning the bar area, gathered the trash to take outside, headed out to the dumpster in the alley, but never returned. Al found the dumpster lid left open, but no sign of Jackson. No body, no apparent signs of a struggle, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Did Al contact Jackson's family?", Kara asks.
"According to Al, Jackson has no living relatives," Nia says. "He called NCPD and requested a wellness check, and NCPD informed Al that it looks like he hasn't returned home in days, so he reached out to us."
"Alright," Kara says. "Let's wrap up what we have going on here. I'll reach out to Adam to see if he has anything more on Jackson's wellness check and to let him know that Dreamer and Supergirl are going to check out Jackson's place and follow up at Al's."
"Sounds good, Chief!," Nia declares with a playful grin as she turns to walk out of Kara's office.
"Will you stop that?", Kara says sarcastically.
As she opens Kara's office door, Nia turns her head, looks affectionately at her friend and mentor, and says in her best Tim Curry Wadsworth accent, "No!"
"You know," Kara shouts after her jokingly, "I would freeze breath your feet to the floor if I didn't love the fact you can quote dumb movies like 'Clue' back at me!"
"I know," Nia riposted, grin still fixed on her face, as the door closes behind her.