Supergirl and all related characters and indicia are owned by DC Comics/Warner Bros. This work of fan fiction is written for pleasure, not profit.
Kara In-ze woke up screaming. It took her a moment to realize that she was in her own bed, in her room on the upper floor of the Kent home outside of Smallville, Kansas, instead of standing over the smoking corpse of the man she'd just murdered. Clutching the bedclothes to her breast, as much in gratitude as for comfort, she whispered a quick prayer of thanks that it had only been a dream. Only. She glanced up at the ceiling. Two neat holes were burned through the plaster, the edges still glowing. "Thank Rao there's nothing above me but the attic," she said aloud. She could hear Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Martha heading her way already. She smiled sadly. The Kents had become as close as real relatives in the last few years, and she felt bad about disturbing their sleep. When she first came to Earth, Kara had nightmares about Argo, but those had long since ceased. The new dream, about hunting a man down and incinerating him with her heat vision, had started only days ago. She'd had it several times, and it was always the same. As the door to her room began to open, Kara resolved that, after she apologized to her aunt and uncle, and helped fix the ceiling, she was going to get help.
J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, stared at Kara, his eyes half closed as he probed her mind. They were in the medical bay of the Watchtower, the vast space station that served as the headquarters of the Justice League. If anyone could help her figure out what was going on, Kara reasoned, J'onn could. Eventually he leaned back in his chair.
"I've never really understood the mechanics of dreams," he began. "I don't have them myself."
"Well, this one's doing a number on my ceiling, and Pa Kent is getting tired of patching it," Kara said, wringing her hands.
J'onn regarded her thoughtfully. "I will say this: What I saw was far more linear than ordinary dream logic." Kara's face fell. "But, it didn't seem like a memory, either. It was...inconclusive."
"You mean...I might actually have done those things?" Kara asked, horrified.
"I'm sorry, I just don't know." 'Cold comfort,' Kara thought. Before she could say anything else the intercom crackled, and J'onn was paged. "I'm going to put you on the inactive roster for a few days. Let me know what you find." With that, J'onn rose and left.
Kara sat at a table in the Watchtower cafeteria, absently stirring a cup of tea. Green Arrow, whose real name Kara didn't know, joined her. Kara gave him a faint smile then went back to moping.
"What's the big deal? You had some nightmares." he asked.
"These weren't just dreams. They felt like they really happened," she explained.
Green Arrow shrugged. "I don't know. I've had some dreams that felt mighty real." He turned and looked at Black Canary, who was sitting nearby. "There was this one the other night..." he began. Kara felt a flicker of amusement. She liked Green Arrow. He treated her a lot like her Uncle Del had, like a like a kid sister, but not in a patronizing way either. He was obviously interested in a romantic relationship with Canary, and normally Kara would have encouraged him, but now she felt a surge of irritation.
"The point is, I couldn't live with myself if I really did what I saw," Kara groused. "Now, are you gonna help me or not?"
"Of course, kid," he replied, "But vague memories of a probe, like one of those alien abduction things? Maybe you've been just been hanging out in Kansas too long."
"Wouldn't be so sure of that," a new voice chimed in. A man in a suit and tie, wearing a hat, overcoat and gloves, approached. His face was covered by a featureless mask. The Question. He was an enigmatic figure to most of the Leaguers Kara had talked to. She often wondered how he saw through his mask, but was too polite to use her x-ray vision to find out. The Question pointed at her. "Especially when she's the alien." Kara had to suppress a grin. She doubted the Question had intended his remark to be witty: as far as she could tell he had no sense of humor at all. But he was right about one thing: a lot of people, even ones who knew better, sometimes forgot that she wasn't human. He took a seat.
"Got all the signs of repressed memory," he said. He looked at Kara, who found it a little unnerving, since he had no visible eyes. "People dream what their minds don't want to remember," he went on. "It's easier for them to convince themselves it's all bunk."
"Repressed memories of what? When?" Green Arrow demanded. Excellent questions, Kara thought.
"You've been to STAR Labs," the Question said, "Treated for injuries there." He was only stating the obvious, but his tone was almost accusatory.
"Yeah," Kara admitted. "A few years ago, when Superman was brainwashed, and attacked the Earth." She shuddered at the memory. "I got hurt, and he took me to STAR for help. I was in a coma for part of it."
"Meaning there's a gap in time you can't account for." He turned to Green Arrow and snapped, "That's when."
Green Arrow snapped back. "Ok, enough!" To Kara: "Don't listen to this guy. Everything's conspiracies with him."
"Not conspiracies," the Question shot back. "Conspiracy. Singular."
Kara couldn't explain why she'd followed the Question to his quarters, or why she listened to his speech.
"Since ancient Egypt, there's been a cabal of powerful individuals, directing the course of human history for their own benefit. The common man prefers to believe that they don't exist, which aids their success."
Kara stared at the complex chart on one wall, with it's multitude of newspaper clippings.
"Global warming? Military upheavals in the Third World? Actors elected to public office?" she read some of the headlines aloud. Green Arrow took up where she left off, not bothering to hide his skepticism. "The spread of coffee bars? Germs outpacing antibiotics? And boy bands?" He said the last in a tone of utter incredulity. "Come on! Who would gain from all this?"
"Who indeed?" the Question asked.
Kara frowned thoughtfully, then asked, "But what does any of this have to do with my dreams?"
"If I'm right, you're part of it," the Question said. "You're going to need my help. I'm going with you." And with that, he left the room.
"Hey," Green Arrow called, hurrying after him. "Hold your horses. Nobody asked for more help. This whole trip could just prove that the kid shouldn't eat nachos before bed."
The Question didn't slow down, or even turn his head. He just said, "Peanut butter sandwiches." Kara just about tripped over her own feet. "How do you...What? Do you go through my trash?" she demanded.
"Please," the Question sneered. "I go through everyone's trash."
At STAR Labs Kara told Professor Emil Hamilton about her dreams. The she, Green Arrow and the Question followed him to a surgical bay in STAR's hospital wing.
"This where we treated you when you were in your coma. You were on life support for most of the time you were here, and after you regained consciousness, well" he gestured to a nearby recovery room, "you didn't leave that room for a month. So I doubt you'd have been running around on violent missions before that." The last was clearly for the Question's benefit, and Kara glanced at him. He was leaned against a counter, his arms folded across his chest. "Well, Professor, can you explain why her memories led her here?" Again, his tone was slightly accusatory.
"I think maybe I can," Hamilton retorted. He turned to Kara. "You mentioned a torture device? With robotic arms and a long probe in the center?"
"Cut to the chase, Doc," Green Arrow interjected. "Are you saying you've seen something like that?"
"Judge for yourselves," Hamilton replied. He pressed a button on the edge of the operating table. A panel in the ceiling slid open, and a machine unfolded itself from a hidden compartment.
Kara gasped, and took an involuntary step back. "That's it!" she stammered.
"It's not a torture device." Hamilton gazed almost fondly at the machine. "It's a surgical robot." He took the sterile cover off the tool on the end of one of the machine's arms, revealing a scalpel. "When it worked on you, we fitted it with kryptonite tools, of course." He looked at Kara. "It was the only way we could operate on you, Supergirl." He looked at the machine again and gave it an approving pat. "This robot saved your life." Hamilton looked at her again. "As for the rest of your dream...well, we humans are used to being vulnerable, but to you, surgery must have seemed terribly invasive-" Kara cut him off with a gesture. "I was plenty vulnerable on Argo. I even had surgery, twice. I had the equivalent of my appendix out when I was seven, and I burned my left arm pretty badly when I was eight, so I've been operated on before." She frowned. "Still, you have a point. The most advanced Earth medical technology is, well...how to put this diplomatically? Horribly crude and barbaric, compared to what I'm used to," she finished apologetically.
"No offence taken," Hamilton assured her. "As I was saying though, surgery must have seemed terribly invasive, and, helpless to defend yourself, it's possible your mind constructed a scenario of fighting back."
Kara nodded slowly. Green Arrow spoke up. "But how could she remember anything if she was unconscious?" Hamilton shrugged. "The brain is the organ we understand the least, in terms of how it functions. People in comas sometimes remember things that were said in their presence; and people undergoing surgery sometimes regain consciousness, even under anesthesia, and can see, hear and feel what is happening to them, even though they can't move or speak." Green Arrow shuddered. Hamilton turned to Kara. "I'm afraid that's the best I can do for you, Supergirl," he apologized.
Kara nodded once. "Thanks for your time, Professor."
Outside the building, Green Arrow observed, "Well, I think that explained everything."
"A little too well," the Question replied.
"Not quite, guys," Kara put in. "It explains part of my dream, but not all of it. Not even most of it."
"Still, it makes you doubt the rest of it, doesn't it?" the Question asked.
"Oh, please!" Green Arrow retorted. "Does everything have a sinister motive in your world?"
"Yours too, you just don't know it."
"Uh, guys?" Kara said, as a pair of armed helicopters approached. One chopper dropped a humanoid robot that slammed straight into her, while the other opened up with a barrage of autocannon fire. The robot hammered at Kara with a flurry of punches. She kicked it away, and rose in time to meet it as it charged back. The helicopters touched down and disgorged armed men who opened fire with automatic weapons.
Kara, once she was over her surprise, destroyed the robot in short order. Green Arrow blew up one of the 'copters with a grenade arrow. The second tried to flee, but Kara stopped it easily. After turning the men, small time mercenaries who didn't know who hired them, over to the authorities, Green Arrow asked, "What was that about?"
"What do you think?" the Question responded. "We're asking questions someone doesn't want answered."
"Learn a new tune already. Like this was supposed to put us off? As threats go, on a scale of one to ten, those guys didn't even rate a zero. And that robot? Supergirl tore it apart like it was made of tissue paper."
"Of course she did. It was a standard Z8 combat trainer," the Question agreed.
"Which the League buys in bulk," Green Arrow rejoined.
"But who do they buy them from?"
"The Army, I think," Kara said hesitantly.
"And does it surprise you know that the Z8 project was headed by the same man that put you in the hospital?"
"General Hardcastle?" Kara asked, her eyes widening in surprise. "He's retired, isn't he?"
"Gone," the Question nodded, "And hoping to be forgotten."
"So let's go see him," Kara suggested.
"You aren't starting to believe this guy, are you?" Green Arrow demanded.
"A little." Green Arrow looked disappointed, and Kara explained. "There may not be 'A CONSPIRACY'" she said, making quote marks with her fingers, "but that doesn't mean that there isn't 'a conspiracy' that somehow involves me."
"If there is," Green Arrow opined, glancing at the still smoldering wreckage of the first helicopter, "then it's a conspiracy run by morons."
When they went to see General Hardcastle he reacted predictably, by pulling a gun he claimed was loaded with kryptonite ammunition and aiming it at Kara, along with a barrage of threats. Kara sighed, and the next thing Green Arrow knew, she was on the other side of the room, with Hardcastle's gun in one hand and a look of contempt on her face. To the shocked general she said, "My speed and reaction times are just a 'bit' faster than yours, Hardcastle."
Green Arrow chuckled. "Now be a good host, and tell us a story," he commanded.
Hardcastle did just that. He told them the government had files on each of them. "Well, duh!" Kara had said when she heard that. "If one of us went rogue, the government would need to know how to deal with us. That's simple prudence." Then, perhaps to hide his surprise at her nonchalance, Hardcastle said something about corporations studying mutants and aliens in an effort to acquire new technology. Again, Supergirl was unimpressed. "Technological espionage is as old as technology," she'd said. After that, the ex-army man had mumbled something about 'them' and how you didn't find 'them', 'they' found you.
"I've had enough of this," Kara said, and headed for the door. Outside, Green Arrow said, "Sorry kid, looks like this was a dead end." He snorted. "That was the biggest line of paranoid B.S. I've heard in a long time," he commented. "Assuming Hardcastle actually believed any of it. He might have been saying it for his benefit," he added, jerking a thumb at the Question.
The Question ignored the jibe. "I need some time to process this," he said. He activated his communicator. "Martian, pick us up."
Kara jerked awake. "Hey, easy there," Green Arrow said, laying a hand on her shoulder. "You just fell asleep."
"Excuse me if I bore you," the Question said sarcastically, not looking back from his wall of clippings, which he was rearranging.
"Hey, be nice," Green Arrow chided. He looked back at Kara. She looked despondent. "What's the matter?"
"Hardcastle's gone," she said quietly. Green Arrow quirked an eyebrow at her. "I just know," she shrugged.
"Well, we'd better check it out," he said.
Hardcastle was gone, all right. Gone, as in dead. Dead, as in burnt to a crisp, his cabin torched.
"You still think there isn't something going on?" the Question inquired of Green Arrow as they watched a League forensics team sift through the charred ruins of the cabin.
"Something's going on," Green Arrow conceded, "But no conspirator worthy of the name would be this clumsy. I mean, we meet the guy, and right after, he gets turned into a crispy critter? It's almost like they want us to try and find them."
"Just because that's what seems to be happening, doesn't mean that's their ultimate intent."
Green Arrow smacked himself in the forehead. "Oy! You never give up, do you? Ever heard of the Principle of Logical Parsimony?"
"Don't multiply entities unnecessarily. Occam's Razor." The Question said the last with a slight edge to his voice that made Green Arrow's eyes narrow. "Oh! Don't tell me. William of Ockham was a member of your 'cabal', right?"
"Naturally."
When they returned to the Watchtower J'onn had news for them. "Look at this video. A scientist named Gilbert Halstrom has been reported missing. He's from a biotech firm called Nuvogen." The video zoomed in on a picture of the missing scientist, and Kara gasped. "He's the man from Supergirl's dream," J'onn finished.
"He really exists," Kara breathed. "Or did, anyway."
"And only one network had the story," the Question mused.
"That's the first lead we've had in this thing that I can wrap my head around," Green Arrow exalted. "We'll go to Nuvogen, and find out who this guy is."
"No," the Question objected. "First we find the reporter who broke the story."
"Why?"
"Don't you know who owns the Eagle Network? The real owners?" The Question pointed at one of his newspaper clippings. Green Arrow rolled his eyes and groaned. "Why don't we split up?" he suggested. "Supergirl and I will go to Nuvogen..." He trailed off into silence.
"What?" Kara finally asked.
"How did you know Hardcastle was dead?" he asked sharply.
Kara shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."
"Are Kryptonians telepathic?"
"Argoans," Kara corrected absently, "And no, we aren't." She paused, and chuckled slightly. "Except my sisters, Kari and Kori. Mom always said thatwhatever happened to one, the other knew about it."
"These sisters of yours," the Question said. "They were...?"
"Twins," Kara said, her eyes widening as her voice faltered.
"A biotech firm," Green Arrow said, holding up a finger. "A psychic link." He raised a second finger. Kara jumped to her feet. "Are you suggesting that someone CLONED me?" she bellowed.
"It's an interesting theory," the Question allowed. "And it would account for some of what's happened."
"How so?" Green Arrow asked, a little surprised that the Question was going along with his notion.
"The attack at STAR Labs. Assuming that someone has cloned Supergirl, they may have gotten the DNA they used from there."
"And Hardcastle?"
"He said that corporations wanted to study aliens, to see what they could learn from them. I'd think that any biotech company would be thrilled to get its hands on Kryptonian DNA, even if it was only for honest research."
Green Arrow nodded slowly. "Ok. You check out that reporter. If he's any good at his job he knows a lot more than what was in that report. And, I think his life may be in danger."
"I agree," the Question said.
"How so," Kara asked.
"If you have been cloned, and there is a link," Green Arrow explained, "it must work both ways. Think about it. Every where we've gone to run down this mystery, someone has shown up right after to make trouble. I don't see why this would be any different."
"Good point," Kara agreed.
"There's one thing that puzzles me, though," the Question mused. "You've been having nightmares for what? Two weeks?" Kara nodded. "So the clone, if it exists, has been alive at least that long, but can't possibly be more than three years old. Could a three year old clone do what you saw in your dreams?"
Kara shook her head. Whatever else, she was sure of this. "No. Superman's powers didn't really emerge until he was in his teens. In order to fly, the clone would have to be, physically at least, around fifteen. Which means massively accelerated growth, and a whole slew of problems."
"What kind of problems?"
"Argoans and Kryptonians used cloning for thousands of years," Kara explained, "and we never solved the rapid growth problem. The faster you grow a clone the more likely it is to have severe problems. At twice the normal rate, one in ten embryos won't survive to term, and few of the ones that did would live to old age (which they'd reach in half the time, since you can't slow the growth rate either) 'cause they'd get cancer at the drop of a hat."
The Question pondered briefly. "Let's assume that your nightmares began at the same time the clone was able to start doing the things you saw, that is, when it was physically fourteen. The psychic link would have existed before that though. Have you had any other dreams, or sensations, that might have been a result of such a link?"
Kara shifted uneasily. "Well," she said finally. "After we fought that robot in China, I was sore afterward. Really sore. But there was nothing physically wrong with me that could have caused that."
Green Arrow snorted. "That thing slammed you into a mountain, then batted you half way to Mongolia," he recalled. "That'd make me sore." Kara smiled at him. Then her eyes widened. "You think my clone is only a month old?"
"Possibly," the Question confirmed.
"Rao!" Kara swore softly. "If it was fourteen two weeks ago, it's aging a year a day!"
"Which means," the Question added, "that if you run into it at Nuvogen, you'll be going up against a twenty-eight year old version of yourself. So be careful."
The Question's advice was right on the money. They did run into a clone of Kara at Nuvogen, and it was bigger, stronger, and faster than Kara was. It was also riddled with cancer, delusional, and psychotic. It claimed to have been trained, but Kara quickly had its measure, and put her own years of experience to good use beating the thing senseless. Unfortunately, before they could leave with the clone, the building exploded, destroying most of the evidence. Enough remained for the Feds to move against Nuvogen's owners for misleading their shareholders and violating the ban on human cloning, but of the clone itself, no sign remained.
"That building didn't blow up by itself. There were bombs all through it, all planted where they would destroy evidence, and I doubt they just 'happened' to go off when they did, which means, unless the clone planted them and decided to commit suicide, someone was watching." Green Arrow had trouble believing that it was him that was saying the words. "I guess there really was a conspiracy."
"Still is," the Question corrected.
"Maybe so," Green Arrow allowed, "But if that's the case, 'they' are a lot better at covering their tracks than the clone was."
"True. And it wouldn't surprise me if 'they' try again, using a longer term approach." Kara shivered. They'd just returned to the Watchtower from a visit to STAR Labs, where Kara had questioned Professor Hamilton about the possibility of the DNA sample 'they' had used coming from STAR. Unfortunately, Hamilton hadn't been able to refute the notion. "We try our best, of course, but blood and tissue get on so many things during an operation: tools, sponges and so forth. And you were here a month, after all. Anything you touched, or put in your mouth, like a spoon, or a thermometer, could have had traces of your DNA on it, Supergirl. I'm sorry I can't be more comforting, but I can't tell you what you want to hear."
"That's ok, Professor. I guess I'll just have to be ready in case she, or something like her, turns up again."