The doors to the med bay slide open and Brainy walks in.
"Director Danvers, Lena... the other three bodies NCPD transferred over to us just arrived," Brainy informs them, "and should be up shortly. Where are we at with Ms. Mason and Psi?"
Lena replies, "We've completed our preliminary scans of each victim. There are no signs of any other physical trauma aside from the puncture wound that Kara discovered on Ophelia. Psi's attack appears to be identical in nature, we were able to locate a similar puncture wound in almost the exact same spot on her."
Alex adds, "Both Ophelia and Psi were in excellent health, no underlying medical conditions appear to have played any part in their deaths.
"Then," Brainy surmises, "I calculate a 98% chance we'll arrive at the same results for our other three victims... which leaves us the puncture wound and Kara's observation about the drained cranial fluid."
"Agreed," Lena concurs. "Brainy, while Alex and I complete the preliminary examinations of the other three bodies can you prep the fMRI? We need to take a closer look at what happened to the brains of each of these victims."
"I'll get on that straight away," Brainy answers as he hurriedly walks away to begin preparations.
"Thanks, Brainy," Alex says as agents wheel in the bodies of the other three victims, carefully placing each of the bodies on open examine tables as Alex and Lena finish preparing for their examinations.
On the roof of CatCo, Kara is once again back in her Supergirl suit. She turns her head as the door to the outside opens and Nia makes her way out.
"You ready?", Kara asks.
"Just a sec," Nia replies as light blue dream energy begins to radiate from her hands, swirling around her form, transforming her attire from her work clothes into her Dreamer garb. "Now I'm ready."
Kara smiles at her as she turns a dial on the device on her wrist. A purple shaded energy portal opens up and the two heroes walk through as the portal closes behind them.
Another portal opens in a small, sparsely furnished, one bedroom apartment in the Heights. Supergirl and Dreamer step through as the portal once again closes behind them.
"Doesn't look like he's been here too long," Nia observes.
"Yeah," Kara agrees, "no pictures or decorations of any kind, minimal furniture." Kara fixes her gaze as she looks around the unit with her x-ray vision. "The fridge and cabinets are almost completely empty, looks like he barely owns enough clothes for each day of the week..."
"Kara," Nia comments, "look at this."
Kara makes her way over to Nia who has picked up what appears to be an apartment rental agreement. Kara looks over Nia's shoulder and reads, "He only signed it last week. Al did say he had only hired him a few days ago."
"Well," Nia asks, "if he's new to the city how many people could he possibly know yet?"
Kara recalls, "He seemed extraordinarily popular Friday night at the bar. Plenty of the patrons seemed taken with this personality and unique skills."
"Maybe," Nia postulates, "someone approached him in the alley at the end of the night and made him an offer he couldn't refuse or wait to take them up on."
"It's certainly possible," Kara acknowledges. "I don't think we're going to find anything useful here."
"Yeah," Nia concurs. "We should head over to the bar and talk to Al and the other employees."
"Let's go," Kara says as she turns the dial on her wrist device, opening another portal. Kara and Nia step through and the portal closes behind them.
Back in the med bay at the DEO, Alex and Lena are completing the examinations of the last three victims as Brainy returns.
"fMRI is ready," Brainy informs them.
"We just finished the last of the preliminary exams," Alex says, "and, as expected, no underlying health issues or other physical trauma. All five victims appear to have been strong and healthy with the only apparent trauma being the five matching puncture wounds."
Lena suggests, "Let's get Ophelia set up for an fMRI scan and take a look at her brain."
A couple of agents lift Ophelia's body off of the exam table, place her on a gurney, wheel her into the adjacent room, and carefully place her onto the fMRI table.
"Thank you," Lena says to the agents as they exit the fMRI chamber.
Alex heads into the chamber to finish prepping Ophelia for the scan while Brainy and Lena make their way into the fMRI's control room.
Brainy sits down at the control board. Lena stands beside his chair and asks, "Any theories?"
"Several," Brainy responds, "each one as far fetched as the others."
"Yeah," Lena agrees, "me, too."
Alex makes her way into the control room and informs them, "We're ready."
"Scan initiated," Brainy announces.
The fMRI table slowly raises up to the level of the large machine's cylindrical opening, begins to slide back into the device tunnel, and the scan begins. After several minutes the table slowly slides back out and lowers down.
In the control room Alex, Brainy, and Lena's stares are fixed on the large curved computer monitor as the scans of Ophelia's brain begin to construct themselves. Alex's eyes widen with surprise as she points at a couple of dark clusters and says, "What the hell could have caused that damage?"
Lena responds in a similarly shocked tone, "I've don't think I've ever seen that kind of concentrated, almost surgical type of clustered damage before."
Brainy interjects in a concerned tone, "I think we have..."
"Brainy?", Alex inquires.
Brainy turns to Lena, stands up, and asks, "Can you pull up the files from the project we've been working on?"
"Of course," Lena says concerned as she takes a seat at the computer and begins typing. She establishes a secure outside connection to the Foundation's research server, enters in her personal access code, and selects a file labeled "CBB Confidential".
"What are we looking for?", Alex quizzes them. "What have you two been working on?"
Lena and Brainy switch places again as Lena turns to Alex and replies, "When Brainy returned from the 31st century he brought back all the data he could from the future about the problems that Colu was having with the Big Brain. He hoped that we could use the information to find a solution that we could deploy in this time. The problem seems to be linked to a degenerative algorithm in the posotronic matrix of the bio-organic hive mind interface, but so far we've been unable to isolate it."
"Spork!", Brainy blurts out. "See the cluster damage in these scans?"
"Oh my God!", Lena replies, "The damage is almost identical to the scan of Ophelia's brain."
"Does that mean?", Alex begins to ask.
"Yes," Brainy interrupts, "whatever attacked Ophelia, and most likely all our victims, is Coluan in origin."
"How is that possible?", Alex asks in an alarmed tone.
Brainy turns to Lena again and says, "We need to check her auditory canals for particulates and radiation."
"I'm on it!", Lena exclaims.
Alex looks at Brainy and asks, "What are you looking for?"
Brainy replies, "Something I desperately hope we do not find, Director."
Alex and Brainy head back into the main med bay as Lena emerges from the fMRI chamber with a small glass dish. She heads over to a particularly complex scientific instrument, inserts the glass dish into a scanning tray, presses a button on the machine, sits down in front of a computer, and begins typing.
"Brainy?", Lena says with a look of concern on her face.
"Sprok!", Brainy mutters.
"Agent Dox," Alex declares, "report!"
"Of course," Brainy says in a somewhat forced, calm Coluan tone, "the radiation levels are minimal, but are the result of elements not of this world. Based upon these findings the damage to Ophelia's brain clusters was the result of Coluan nanotechnology."
With an almost terrified look on her face Lena adds, "It looks like the nanotech attached to the clusters and consumed the brain matter."
"I believe there is a 85% chance the nanotechnology was attempting to integrate with Ophelia's brain, but overloaded the clusters they attached to, and triggered a fatal seizure."
As Alex and Brainy continue discussing this latest development Lena sits down, a glazed look in her eyes, as her mind wanders back to the memory of Kara showing her the video of Jack Spheer injecting himself with his Biomex nanobots and the night in Jack's warehouse when he begged her to shut them down, ending his life.
Alex notices the look on Lena's face and walks over to her. "Lena, what it is?"
"I...," Lena stammers, "excuse me, I need to...".
"Are you okay?", Alex inquires.
"I'm sorry, Alex," Lena says in a scattered tone, "I need go."
"Okay," Alex, concerned for her friend, places a hand on her shoulder, and acknowledges. "Brainy and I will finish up here. We'll let you know if we find anything else."
Lena puts her hand on top of Alex's and whispers, "Thank you, Alex."
Lena stand up, removes her lab coat, puts her overcoat back on, grabs her purse, and exits the med bay.
Outside of Al's Bar, a portal opens up, Kara and Nia step out as the portal closes behind them.
As they start towards the door of the bar an unfamiliar voice calls out, "Nia Nal!"
Kara and Nia turn around and see Jackson standing at the other end of the alley.
"Jackson Seaver..." Kara begins.
"Quiet Supergirl!", Jackson declares authoritatively. "Nia Nal... tell me where I can find Querl Dox!"
"How do you know who I am?", Nia demands.
"My apologies," he responds, "allow me to introduce myself. My name is Vril Dox of Colu, but you... can call me Brainiac."
Kara taps a button on her wrist device and says, "Supergirl to DEO command... deploy all available Tower assets to my coordinates."