Chapter 4

STAR LABS

11:14 AM

"Would it be wrong of me to want to take a selfie right now?" Caitlin asked Cisco.

"I'm going to ask for one later," Cisco assured her. "Besides, it's not like she doesn't do a dozen a day anyway."

"You know, I can hear you know matter how much you try to whisper," Kara Danvers said. "And it's fine. Felicity and Thea took five apiece with me the first time I was in Star City."

"We know," Caitlin said softly. "It's just given the circumstances, it seemed kind of petty. You know apocalypse scenario and all."

"In the business we're all in, there always seems to be some kind of end of the world scenario going on," Kara reminded them. "If there's one thing I learned in the last year, it's that you have to take the small pleasures where they come."

Barry looked at the woman he was rapidly considering a friend. "How do you deal with it all?" he asked candidly. "Handling things here, I still feel like I'm carrying the world on my shoulders. You can basically hear everything that's going wrong. "

"It's not easy," Kara admitted. "My cousin, he admitted it was a huge problem the first year. Eventually, he managed to get to the point where he realized that he had to just handle the big stuff, and leave the smaller problems to other people. One year into this job, I'm still not sure where he gets the strength."

"I feel in my bones. Every time something goes wrong. And it's taken me this long just to admit I needed help in the first place," Oliver said. "I've been doing this longer than either of you, and superpowers aside, I have a feeling this is where it's going to get really difficult."

"Understatement of the millennium," Cisco said.

"He makes a lot of those," Felicity reminded him. "But in this rare case, accurate."

"We're probably going to need your cousin at some point," Oliver admitted. "I'm actually kind of stunned Mulder hasn't already asked for an introduction."

"I've thought about it." Mulder admitted. "Quite a bit. The problem is – and I hope I don't bruise any egos when I say this – Superman is basically the symbol of who the planet turns to when it's in a crisis. The minute we ask for his help, that's a bell we can't un-ring. The world's already on high alert. We don't want it to turn into frenzy until we absolutely have to."

"The fact that three of the world's biggest heroes are already collaborating isn't a sign of that?" Caitlin asked dubiously.

"I'm not going to deny it; people are starting to get worried." Mulder paused. "In all candor, I kind of want that."

"You have a strange way of calming people down," Cisco said.

"Clearly he learned something from Oliver," Diggle said.

"I spent a decade trying to convince the world that colonization was eminent and no one listened." Mulder reminded them. "Now that people are, we have to keep them worrying. As long as they are, at least they're taking us seriously. I realize how fine a line it is to walk and I've never been very good at it." He looked at the group, one at the time. "In a way, that's where the three of you are going to come in."

"You need us to be symbols as well as heroes," Kara clearly got it.

"You do know the reputation I have?" Oliver said.

"We will need the help of Supergirl, The Flash and The Green Arrow," Mulder told them. "We're also going to need Oliver Queen, Kara Danvers and Barry Allen doing work behind the scenes as well."

"Which brings us to a question I haven't wanted to ask," Barry said. "Are we going to have to reveal our secret identities to the world?"

"There's a kill list out there with all of your names on it; your identities aren't secret to the right people," Mulder reminded them. "But the short answer is, no. Nothing good comes from having who you really are broadcast to the world. And this is coming from a guy who believed in total transparency before it was hip."

"So what's our first step?" Kara was back to business.

"Right now, it's figuring out the Syndicate's next move," Scully said. "And I may know what it is."

Caitlin and Cisco had been as good as their word and hacked the mainframe of Henderson Labs. They had found out some of the research that they'd been working on the last few months, but despite their intellects, they'd been having trouble making sense. Scully had asked if she could go over it herself.

"In the past year, Henderson Labs has been undergoing financial trouble," she told them. "So they've been subcontracting to a lot of other corporations. I did some backchannels, and one of them made the bells ring. Roush."

Team Flash was blank. "Why do we know that name?" Felicity asked.

"Because you went over the files with a fine tooth comb," Kara told her. "In the fall of 1997, Mulder and Scully found out from one of their sources that one of their superiors was linked to the conspiracy through a corporation called Roush."

"What does that have to do with the Syndicate?" Barry asked.

"To be honest we thought it was a false flag for awhile," Mulder told them. "Michael Kritschgau, the DOD worker who gave us the name, told a convincing story that the conspiracy I'd spent my life investigating was a lie to cover-up what amounted to a military-industrial complex. I've never been certain how much of it was connected to so much of the human experiments that were actually going on or if it had any connection at all to the larger conspiracy." He and Scully exchanged a meaningful look. "Now I'm guessing it was a little of both."

"Ever since the mid-1990s, Roush Technologies has been involved in the forefront of bioweaponry," Scully told them. "They have military contracts around the world, and have been linked to operations from the Middle East to Ukraine."

"All around bad guys," Cisco said. "But what does have to do with what Betts was told to steal?"

"Over the past year, a lot of money was funneled into Henderson Labs to examine viral weaponry and how it reacts under extreme temperatures," Scully told them. "Something that Mulder is intimately familiar with."

"Could you fill in the blanks for those of us who haven't gone through every word of the file yet?" Diggle asked.

Another exchange of glances between the two agents. "When we first encountered what we could come to know as the Alien Bounty Hunter," Mulder began. "We quickly learned that the colonist's bloodstreams contain a toxin that will kill almost instantly upon exposure. "

"Believe me, I almost learned that the hard way," Kara thought for a moment. "But extreme cold can counteract it?"

"Not quite," Scully said. "When a human body is exposed to extreme cold – like say, the Arctic climate of Alaska – it slows the effect of the virus to the point that it can be stopped in its track." She raised an eyebrow at Mulder. "Of course, that assumes that someone might be dumb enough to go all the way to Alaska and risk hypothermia in the first place, requiring a doctor to yell at the medics that if they try to warm him up, they'll kill him."

Mulder looked decidedly sheepish at this. "I left you a note that time," he said weakly.

"And Skinner had to beat up your informant to get your location," Scully countered.

Felicity looked at Oliver. "And I thought we had trust issues," she said.

"So extreme cold can counteract the virus," Barry said, moving it on.

Mulder shook his head. "It only slows it down. Apparently, it took a group of anti-virals and nearly ten days before I emerged from a coma. Based on what Scully's telling us, it looks like the Syndicate is hoping to find an easier way."

"I'm confused," Diggle asked. "If this is the Syndicate's project, why would they need to steal it in the first place?"

"That I can't answer," Scully admitted. "Maybe because we could never find a direct link between Roush and the old Syndicate. Blevins was executed before we could question him, and that smoking bastard was 'killed' before he might've been able to explain whatever links there were."

"To be clear, we were also concerned with the minor problems of me possibly being prosecuted for murder and you dying of cancer," Mulder reminded her. "And after that, I went through a six-month stretch where I basically decided that everything I had spent my life believing was a lie, which put us in the rare position of Scully being the more open-minded one in the partnership."

Caitlin shook her head. "And I thought the last couple of years had been confusing for us."

"There's another possibility," Oliver said. "How much did members of the old Syndicate trust each other?"

"From what we know, it was next to non-existent," Mulder said. "They had trouble sharing on an international level and on a personal level. That's probably the reason so many of their members were willing to betray them to us."

"And I'm willing to bet what's left of the old guard trusts the new guard even less," Diggle said thoughtfully. "That's just how these things seem to work."

"Given the nature of the new members, I'm willing to bet that's multiplied ten-fold," Barry said. "Still, this kind of stealing from each other, especially in a way that's bound to be noticed? It's a little over the top."

"You've met Malcolm. That's his stock and trade," Oliver said. "Hell, this kind of thing was almost subtle for him."

"There's still something we're missing," Cisco said. "Let's say for the sake of argument Malcolm used Leonard to steal this formula. I saw those computations. Even assuming they have the materials to do it, do they have the minds to do it?"

"The Syndicate always had the top minds in their field," Mulder said thoughtfully. "But even when we were investigated, most of them had gotten pretty old. I can't imagine there are any still alive."

"Waller's had access when she worked at ARGUS and Lillian Luthor probably has a fair share still held over from Cadmus," Kara reminded them. "That's a big pool to recruit from."

"Who was working on the project at Henderson?" Oliver asked Scully.

"According to this, they subcontracted," Scully looked over the papers. "The head of research was a Dr. Carla Tannhauser."

Hearing that name, Caitlin went pale. Cisco reacted nearly as vehemently. "How sure are you that she's involved in this?" he demanded.

"It's very hard to tell," Scully admitted.

"She's involved," Caitlin said in a flat tone that alarmed even those who had no idea what was going on.

"You know her professionally?" Mulder asked.

Caitlin gave a humorless laugh. "You could say that. She's my mother."

Mulder dropped his tone so low that only Kara could hear him. "And I thought I had parent issues."

FXFXFXFXFX

The meeting had more or less broken up after that. Everyone knew that talking to Tannhauser was something that had to be done, but everyone knew that they had to approach it delicately. Not just because of the personal involvement, but because no one wanted to set off a flare in front of the Syndicate.

Cisco, who understood Caitlin's complicated relationship with her mother better than anyone there, had gone off to sit with his friend for awhile. Everyone knew that one of them needed to talk with her, but no one was sure who was best suited for this particularly job. It was settled, paradoxically, by the person who knew them the least well, but who had a complicated family dynamic herself, to say the least.

"I guess offering to take that selfie now would seem a little self-serving," Kara said with a small smile. "May I sit?"

"I don't have any kryptonite, so it's not like I could stop you," Caitlin winced. "I'm sorry. Even given how pissed I am, that was way too far."

"It's okay. I've heard worse when I was late getting Cat Grant her morning coffee."

That actually got a smile out of Caitlin. "Another woman I was hoping to meet from you."

Kara sat down. "I grew up thinking that my mother was a hero. The last protector of my home planet, a noble force. I spent the better part of last year learning that she was nearly as corrupt as the rest of them, and maybe a little worse."

"My mother's not that bad. Hell, compared to some of the mother this little group has, she doesn't even rate. She's just very, very judgmental," Caitlin said. "Even though I followed her footsteps, she's been angry at me ever since I chose to work her instead of with her at Magenta. I don't think she's ever approved of what I've done since."

"We don't know that your mother's involved in this conspiracy," Cisco pointed out.

Caitlin shook her head. "She never would be. She may view life from a strictly scientific perspective, but everything she's done is to try and preserve it for this planet. I don't believe for a minute she'd do anything to try and destroy it."

"So why do you think she got involved in this research?" Kara asked.

Caitlin lowered her head. "Because of me."

Kara looked confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Barry didn't tell you?" Cisco answered his own question. "Of course he didn't. He respected not telling your secret until you were ready; he'd do the same for us."

Kara thought for a moment. "The explosion in the particle accelerator. It affected both of you." She was puzzled. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"Honestly, Mulder and Scully were so nice about needing our brainpower; we felt it might not be fair to tell them about our other gifts yet." Caitlin said. "Though in my case, gift may not be the right word."

Kara wasn't quite as smart as Cisco or Caitlin, but she was good at putting puzzles together. And she knew just how many metahumans they'd had to jail her in the last two years. "Start at the beginning."

"We'll be here for hours if we do." Cisco said. "Let's start with the fake Harrison Wells."

Most of it was second, about how Cisco had learned about his own psychic abilities and how they learned second hand how in another dimension, Caitlin was known as Killer Frost. They had thought nothing of it until a couple of months before Barry had disappeared, when Caitlin had started to manifest the ability to lower temperatures without thinking.

"I was concerned about the possibilities, so I went to see my mother," Caitlin said. "That wasn't an easy conversation to have, believe me. She ran a series of biometric scans, we both went over them, and she said she hadn't found anything. But knowing her, she must have seen something to start poking around."

"Maybe that was just her clumsy way of trying to help you," Kara asked.

"And unfortunately, that's now the best case scenario," Caitlin said sadly.

"Have you been having any more of those flashes since you saw her?" Cisco asked.

Caitlin shook her head. "Thing is, we have no idea what turned the other me into Killer Frost in that other dimension," she pointed out. "For all we know, it doesn't just have to do with biological reasons but emotional ones as well. And you have admit, over the last year, I've really been through the ringer." She looked at Kara. "You think the DAO is equipped to some more advanced scanning?"

"I don't see why not," Kara said. "And anything I can do to help on a personal level. I don't have a lot of women friends in these kinds of scenarios to talk with."

Caitlin smiled at this. "Mulder's going to ask me to reach out to my mother, isn't he?"

"According to Scully, he's racking his brain trying to find a way around it." Kara told them.

"This is the most logical approach," Cisco was confused.

"He's never liked using people as if they were chess pieces," Kara said slowly. "Part of it comes from all the people he lost the first stint in the Bureau, but I get the feeling it's mostly who he is."

"There are definitely worse approaches to take," Cisco admitted.

"And he's going to keep going until he finds one," Caitlin got to her feet. "I think it's time I let him off the hook."

2:21 P.M.

Mulder shook his head. "Obviously, I got into this game too early. Maybe if I'd stared out ten years ago instead of twenty-five, I'd have been exposed to cosmic radiation or found a magical meteor rock or, I don't know, been cursed by a wizard. Something that would've given me the abilities to be, I don't know, helpful in the fight against alien invasion."

Scully looked very amused at this. "I certainly wouldn't have had to spend so much time sewing you up after you ditched me."

"By the way, do you need medical training for that?" Felicity asked. "I think it would be easier to help next time Oliver decides to abandon us to fight a megalomaniacal monster and ends up looking he's been through a paper shredder."

Oliver looked a little hurt at this. "I can handle it myself."

"Trust me," Scully said. "You really haven't been."

"Trust her. She knows of what she speaks." Mulder returned his attention to Caitlin and Cisco. "And sorry for sounding so jealous. I of all people should know just how hard it is to have these kinds of powers."

"Really? Because I thought most of the time they were trying to kill you," Barry said.

"More than twenty years ago, Scully and I were in Minneapolis investigating a series of ritualistic murders of fortune-tellers, "Mulder said. "While we were investigating, we ran into this insurance salesman named Clyde Bruckman. It became clear – at least to me – that Bruckman was a psychic. Now I've had to deliver the worst kind of news to people so many times I lost count, but Bruckman may have been the saddest person I ever met. When I told him he had a gift, he said: 'Yeah, it's a gift. Unfortunately, it's not returnable.'" He looked at Cisco. "I'm guessing you must have an idea what he was talking about."

"I don't like my flashes of the future," Cisco admitted. "But at least I think I can use them to change things."

"Which is where you and he differed," Mulder told him. "He believed more thoroughly in the idea of predestination than anyone I've met before or since. 'If the future hasn't been written, how come I see it?' And it utterly sucked the joy out of everything he did." He paused. "He killed himself when the investigation was over. Neither of us knew why. But Scully later theorized that he did because he knew he did."

"It was sad, really," Scully said. "Mulder asked him: "If the future's already written, what's the point in doing anything?'" His response was: 'Now you're catching on.' I still don't know if he was the real deal, but I think he believed in it so thoroughly that it sucked the joy out of his entire life' It doesn't seem to have done to you."

"Well, give me another thirty years," Cisco said, only half in jest.

"But you know the future can be changed." Barry pointed out. "We've known ever since we saw the paper. I mean, maybe not in a good way. But it can be changed."

"You really believe that?"

Mulder knew this was a very important question to Caitlin. "I'm going to tell you what I told Bruckman. If I know something bad is going to happen, I will do everything in my albeit non-paranormal power to stop it. I know that has to be hanging over your head right now, and from what Barry and Felicity told me, that was how you and Cisco approached things even before you knew were affected by the particle accelerator. I can't imagine that's changed."

"I have to tell you, using a dead psychic insurance salesman may not have been the motivational speech I would've used," Felicity said. "It's still a lot better than most of Oliver's, though."

"I don't know," Oliver said. "How'd that case of yours end?"

"We caught up to the killer. I was chasing him in a kitchen, following a vision Bruckman had." Mulder's eyes were far away. "I stepped in a banana cream pie, just like he said I would. I whirled around, the killer attacks me. At that very moment, the elevator opens and Scully shoots him." He paused. "The only reason she was there was she'd gotten on the wrong elevator."

"Bruckman said the killer was psychic. We'll never know for show," Scully said. "The last thing he said as he died was: 'Hey, that's not the way it's supposed to happen.' He was as surprised as any of us."

"The future isn't written. I'm certain of that." Mulder told them. "Not by genetics, not by some divine puppet master. We make our own luck. And I'm still going to do everything in my albeit non superhero capacity to stop something bad from happening. If I can avoid enlisting Thea or having you in a confrontation with your mother, then we will find a way to do it."

"You met my sister," Oliver said with a smile. "Thea's a Queen. She makes her own rules and she does what she thinks is right. She gets incredibly pissed off whenever I withheld information in some misguided effort to protect her. If she thinks she can help she's going to do it."

"And I think my mother is involved in this," Caitlin said. "I think its more likely for science than it is any part of this conspiracy, but I do believe this involves her. I'm going to find out what she knows and I don't particularly need your permission to do it."

Mulder looked at his partner. "Was I always this difficult to deal with when we were first working together?" he asked.

"Why do you think they had me to observe you in the first place?" Scully looked stern but there was a smile in her voice. "They had the naïve concept that I could reign you in somehow. It was irritating at first, but I got used to it."

"And now I have to be the hall monitor," Mulder heaved a mock sigh. "All right. I've voiced my concerns about what might happen and since you're obviously going to ignore your health and my authority, blah blah blah, how do we do this so you don't end up getting hurt?"

"So you're okay with me going to see my mother?" Caitlin asked.

"Well, I think okay is a strong word in this context, but it's not like I could do anything to stop you," Mulder said. "We just have to make sure nothing goes wrong."

Everybody winced at this. "Why'd you have to say that?" Diggle said.

"Now something is going to go FUBAR," Cisco said.

"Show of hands," Scully said. "How many of us have gone to a meeting that was absolutely, positively, not going to be dangerous and ended up being seriously hurt as a result of it?"

There was a brief pause. Then very slowly, everybody's hand went up. There were some suspicious looks at Kara. "There were some emotional scars." Pause. "And yes, in some cases kryptonite was involved."

"All kidding aside," Mulder said, "however remotely your mother is attached to this research, they're going to have under surveillance. They may not be scouts, but they believe in the motto."

"Then we have to do this carefully," Caitlin said. "Considering we have two actually superheroes, one genuine hero, and a bunch of brains involved, we should at least be as capable of outthinking them."

"It's not the intelligence that worries me," Scully told them. "It's whatever they have in reserve. The conspiracy always had teams of assassins on standby. What they lacked in brains they made up for in firepower and brawn. Considering what was on the ground in Star City.. who knows what will run across now?"

"Especially since Amanda Waller is on their side," Barry looked at Oliver. "That team that she put together, the Suicide Squad, Lyla have any luck tracking them down?"

"Are you kidding? That was priority one as soon as she took over," Oliver told her. "All members went silent the day after Waller's supposed assassination. The first sign we had they were still active came when one of the Bounty Hunters was found terminated. Nothing in the six weeks since then."

"How good were they at their job?" Mulder asked Diggle.

"Too good." John said grimly. "They're the perfect choice for a mission like this. Mercenary, violent, and completely replaceable. Considering how quickly the old Syndicate went through their killers, that's the quality Waller would prize the most."

"She wouldn't just use a good old-fashioned sniper?" Scully asked.

"You ever meet Deadshot?" Oliver said.

"Okay, I think we're all tuning our stations to panic a little quickly," Barry said. "We don't even know for certain thus squad is active, much less on this mission. We've got to take this one step aside. That means we have to with Caitlin's mother."

Oliver looked at Caitlin. "Would she been willing to come to Central City without getting suspicious?"

"We haven't talked in nearly three years; she'd be suspicious regardless," Caitlin reminded them. "Plus she must've seen the news. Any conversation I have with her is going to set off alarm bells."

"Then I think you have to go to her," Barry said. "Without warning. If they've got her under surveillance, we'll have to assume they're tapping her phones and computers. Just sending her a text could put her in more peril than she's already in."

It was basically understood by Caitlin that this meant Barry was going to take her there. "Would it be safer to do this at her company or at home?" Kara asked.

"For all intents and purposes, my mother lives at Magenta," Caitlin reminded them. "She actually had one of the closets furnished so she wouldn't have to 'waste time going home."

Mulder didn't have the nerve to ask how long ago that apartment had been built. Their relationship was complicated enough. "How long would it take to get you and Barry wired up?" he asked instead.

"Less than five minutes."

Scully looked at her partner. "You really want to move this fast?"

"Right now, people with superpowers are the only advantage we have over the Syndicate, and I'm not entirely confident of that," Mulder told them. "We could never act quickly enough all the years we were in the Bureau. This may be the first chance we've had in I don't know how long to get ahead of the game. I don't like having to use people, even those with powers to go against the Syndicate, but it may be our only chance. We've got to move quickly. How better than with the Fastest Man Alive?"

Barry didn't have to be convinced. "Let's get on this."

"You want me to provide aerial surveillance?" Kara asked.

"Be even better if you could do reconnaissance," Mulder said.

Kara nodded, took off her glasses and took off.

"You're still sure this is the right way?" Oliver asked.

"Not particularly. But can anybody hear think of a more direct one." Mulder took a full minute to wait for an answer.

"Barry and Supergirl are on the case," Felicity reminded them. "It'll be hard for somebody to get past either of them."

"Let's hope so," Oliver said. "Because even when we plan these things out, they often go wrong."

MAGENTA LABS

3:02 P.M.

Kara had gotten to the location well ahead of them, and had used her x-ray vision to examine a three block radius around the lab.

For the first time, she saw the flaw in Mulder's plan. She could see how many people were in the building but not identify anybody specifically. Fortunately, that was why Cisco and Felicity were working at STAR Labs.

"We're hacking the security cameras now," Cisco said into her earpiece. "We're going floor by floor with facial recognition making certain that there's nobody here that isn't supposed to be."

"Of course, if one of those shape-shifting bounty hunters happens to be there, we may have a problem," Felicity reminded them. "Not to be a nervous Nellie, but that does seem the kind of play the Syndicate would run."

"Well, I can handle myself against them, so let's keep that on the back burner," Kara decided it would be better not to mention how badly her first fight with one of them had gone. Besides, she had learned from her mistakes. "I've got the DAO running the plates of every car that I spotted. If there's anything that seems suspicious, they'll wire us in."

Felicity sighed. "Irony just seems to follow. I became a hacktivisit because I wanted to rail against government overreach. Now, here I am working side-by-side with Big Brother."

"How do you think I feel?" Mulder pointed out. "I try to look at it as using the evils the shadows would use against them, but I'll admit it does leave me with a sour taste in my mouth."

"It does amaze how an anti-government man like you ended up working for the Feds and not in a trailer park listening for helicopters," Cisco said.

"Remind me to tell you the story of Max Fenig someday," Mulder said.

"Hold that thought." Felicity said. "All right. Everybody in the building is a Magenta employee."

"And Dr. Tannhauser?" Barry asked.

"Third floor, main lab." Felicity said. "You're on."

Barry turned to Caitlin. "You sure you want to go in alone?" he asked.

"You and Supergirl are going to be within a hundred yards of me; I'm hardly going to be unprotected," Caitlin reminded him. "Besides, she's more likely to listen if she just thinks I'm here for a visit."

"That's not going to make her suspicious on the face of it?" Barry asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I appreciate everybody wanting to keep me safe," Caitlin said softly. "But there does come a point where I'm starting to feel a teensy bit offended. Need I remind you that I've been far more dangerous situations merely by staying in the supposed security of STAR Labs?"

"It's kind of what superheroes do, Caitlin," Felicity said into her earpiece. "Barry needs you to say you're safe so when everything goes wrong he can go into a corner and brood about how everything was his fault."

"I think its part of the oath they made Mulder swear to when he joined the Bureau," Scully piped up. "Though it is odd that I never took that particular one."

Everyone was chuckling at this point, except Barry. "All right, you've all calmed the bait down considerably," Caitlin said with a smile. "So now that we're done: Barry, may I flirt with danger?"

Barry was confused. "Isn't it…"

"I'm not using the right title, considering who I'm visiting," Caitlin said. "This is already close enough to a Lifetime movie as it is."

"Go for it," Kara said. "And you've still got the wrong hair color for that film."

Caitlin was not exactly offended that her mother was at the front of the labs personally to see her. For as long as she could remember, her mother had always been more focused on research then anything else, including her family. It would've actually been suspicious if she had been.

She kept looking around, trying to see if she recognized anybody who walked past, but after awhile she knew it was going to be a futile. Carla Tannhauser was as much a taskmaster for the people who worked for her as she was for her own family; the turnover rate at Magenta had always been high.

It wasn't until she got into the lab and her mother had cleared the room for her that Carla approached her. She didn't try to hug her daughter – they'd never been that kind of family.

"I'm glad to see you, but what brings you from STAR Labs unannounced," Carla asked.

"I think you know," Caitlin said slowly.

"What are you talking about?"

"You haven't seen the news the last couple of days?" Caitlin said disbelievingly.

"I've been glued to the microscope the last week. Is something wrong with you and your friends?" Still a detached tone.

"You could say that. There was a robbery at Henderson Labs the day before yesterday. Two people are dead." Caitlin didn't give her mother a chance to react. "The only thing the robber seemed to be after was your research."

That got a reaction. "What? Why?"

"Why were you working with an outside contractor? What did they have that here couldn't provide?"

Carla was quiet for a moment. "There are some things that I don't want people here to know about," she said slowly. "Believe it or not, I don't want people in this company to know what's going on in my family."

Caitlin honestly wasn't sure whether she was happy or upset to hear this. "So you were trying to find out what's going on with me?"

"You told me you were afraid about turning into a mutated frost demon; did you really I wasn't going to do anything to try and help?" Carla said. "I may not have been the best mother, but I'm not a monster."

That still remains to be seen went through Caitlin's head. "What was Henderson Labs working on that had you so interested?" she asked instead.

"For the last several years, I've been following the work of a Dr. Lisa Ianelli, " Carla said. "She was one of the pioneers in cryotechnology and in the last few years, I'd heard that she'd made an amazing breakthrough in a chemical that could allow the human body to survive temperatures of absolute zero. She's been working out of Japan the last couple of years. We've been corresponding ever since I learned about your issues. I wanted to see if there was something that could help."

There was a certain logic to this, and simultaneously there was none. Ianelli's name hadn't been listed at Henderson or Roush, but it still sounded vaguely familiar. "Did you know anything about where she was getting her funding?" Caitlin asked.

"Unless you have our kind of money, everybody has to do a lot of fundraising," her mother told her. "Ianelli's been very elusive as to what the end results of her research would lead to publicly. Privately, all she would say is that there are far-reaching potentials even beyond what she thought there might be at the beginning."

Again, something just vague enough to link to the Syndicate, or conceivably something more along the lines of metahuman research. "Did anyone know you were working with her or Henderson Labs?" Caitlin asked.

"I haven't told anybody. And I've kept all my research on one of my private servers." Dr. Tannhauser said.

"Any possibility it can be hacked?"

"It's got my own private encryption key. Besides, to open it in the first place, you'd need a thumbprint."

A horrible idea occurred to Caitlin. "Mom, we need to get out of here right now."

Her mother was no dummy. "The people who committed the murders at Henderson Labs. You think they're coming for me next?"

And almost on cue, the power in the lab went out. "No. I think they're already here."

"Caitlin, are you there? Caitlin?!" Barry shouted into his headpiece. "Her headpiece is down."

"No surprise. They just scrambled the power in the entire lab," Cisco said. "Barry, I think it's time you and your friend made a stunning entrance."

"Copy that," Supergirl said.

Normally, Kara had a problem busting through walls a la the Kool Aid Man. This time, she was more than willing to make an exception She didn't have too, though; Barry had already made an opening.

They reached the door of the office and stopped, more out of surprise than fear. Caitlin and her mother were in the room, along with three other men. But it was the fourth that had their attention. The other three would've under other circumstances – they were all wearing clown masks. But everybody knew who the fourth was.

"You know, that's the one thing about my old stomping grounds that I kind of thought was lacking. Only guys like me had style. The heroes were always so, glowering. Got on your nerves after while. At least you too have fashion sense."

There was just a pause, and not just because everybody in the room had machine guns trained on Caitlin.

"What's the matter?" The Joker whispered. "Why so serious?"

Yes, this is Heath Ledger's Joker. Accept no substitutes. I spent nearly seven years hoping that Berlanti would try his hand but he never did. So I'm going too,