Lucy didn't wait long for an answer. She punched a button on Cleo's phone and was speaking almost immediately. "We have a breach. Threat Level Delta. Get Alpha and Bravo to the previous location."
The woman rapping orders was the same one who'd pulled her from the box. Lucy's presence filled the living room – so did her fear. It jangled Kara's nerves until she restrained the urge to grab Cleo's phone and demand details from the person on the other end of the call.
While Kara grappled with the need for violence, Lucy went back to her original call. "Sitrep!" Eyes narrowing, Lucy pressed the phone closer to her ear.
Those eyes were still enraged slits when they met Kara's a second later. She straightened automatically, coming to stiff attention as if General Antiope or Queen Hippolyta had entered the room.
"Cadmus, or the Army is cleaning up," Lucy said. Urgency bled through the soft, measured tone. She continued to speak even as the person on Cleo's phone began to yell at her. "I have an undercover agent embedded on the general's staff. She called to say she thought her cover had been blown."
Each word heightened the blaze in Lucy's eyes and set off a chain reaction in Kara. Her muscles tensed until she trembled on a knife's edge between shattering or screaming a primal challenge.
"I've lost contact." The voice shouting at Lucy…stopped. "It's Alex, Kara. The undercover agent is Alex."
"What?" That couldn't be true. Kara stared at Lucy in disbelief. If it was true, if Lucy wasn't lying… Had Alex been lying all those years? With all the returned letters? With her anger and accusations after Kara saved the plane?
She didn't hear Cleo call her name, or Lucy shout into her phone. All Kara heard was Alex's wildly elevated heartbeat halfway across the city. Fear controlled Kara's actions. Adrenaline and the renewed, warm burst of Sol's gifts fueled her mad dash into the bedroom for The Suit.
Kara cleared the balcony before her cape, boots, and gloves had fully engaged, and a sonic boom rattled (and broke) more than a few windows as she sought maximum speed before clearing the crush of buildings.
Alex.
The name repeated over and over in time with Alex's heartbeat. Kara narrowed in on the sound until it pulled her across National City to a newly "reclaimed" and gentrified neighborhood of pricey apartments and trendy condominiums. Shops and restaurants were neatly tucked into any extra spaces.
She didn't see the pedestrians on the sidewalk stop to stare and point at her pell-mell flight. Kara was only aware of Alex.
Alex, who might not have turned her back on Kara, or on aliens. Alex, who might not have forgotten all the warmth and love she'd given to a scared Kryptonian refugee in Midvale.
No matter the urgency of the situation, though, Kara didn't blast in with no plan. She peered through buildings and glass as she moved closer to Alex's location. A dozen armed soldiers flooded the landing and the main living space of an apartment. There were two people in the apartment. One holding off the soldiers and the other unmoving on the ground.
Kara didn't hesitate. She flew past the building, hoping to find a way in behind the line of Alex's attackers. It wasn't hard to find what she needed. The entire front was glass. Anyone looking would see the fight – and Supergirl crashing onto Alex's floor.
Anger, fear, and that tiny pinprick of hope leant additional oomph to Kara's punches and kicks. Soldiers lodged in drywall or broke through apartment doors as she threw them out of her path. In seconds, Kara and the black-clad and helmeted figure from the night before stood together in Alex's living room.
Alex lay on the ground. Blood drenched her shirt and matted her hair.
What should she do? Kara dithered as sirens wailed increasingly close to the building. The other fighter knelt and picked Alex off the ground, cradling her the same way they'd held Kara in the Cadmus truck.
Only this time, they offered Alex to Kara. "Lucy has a safe location ready. You must take Alex there." They shoved Alex into Kara's arms.
Of course, Kara didn't object. Not with Alex's blood already staining the white of her suit and Alex's skin turning a horrible, waxy gray.
"Take this." A Bluetooth earpiece was unceremoniously jammed into Kara's hand. A second later, a phone joined it. "Use this. Directions will be provided. You must hurry. Cadmus has more soldiers; although, some of them wear the uniform of peacekeepers."
Something in the voice struck Kara. Some hint of accent or the odd turn of phrase made Kara hesitate as she tried to place them.
"Go! Now!" White, blue, and red lights lit up the apartment as shouts and the tromp of booted feet echoed outside and in the nearby stairwell. "You must go now!" Kara was shoved toward the wall of windows at the front of the apartment.
The situation finally caught up with her. Kara raised a booted foot and easily shattered the glass. "What about you?"
"I am no one of any consequence."
Kara firmed her jaw. "I'll come back for you as soon as Alex is safe." Ignoring the quiet huff of laughter her vow earned, she shifted Alex into one arm and inserted the earphone into her ear. The phone fit perfectly into one of the pockets on her equipment belt. The line was live as Kara jumped into the night sky. "This is Supergirl. What's the location of the safe house?"
"Supergirl," Lucy responded crisply. "One of my agents is on the line with us. She'll provide the information you need. Cleo and I will meet you at the safe house."
"Yes, ma'am." A new voice joined the conversation. Kara heard a thin edge of tension beneath the woman's cool control. "Head for Death Valley. We're working with an asset to block all satellite and radar tracking over the US so you don't have to worry that Cadmus will follow you."
Humans had that level of technology? Kara tabled the question for another time and took The Voice at her word. Keeping Alex flush against her front to minimize any drag or the greater risk of her speed to Alex's human body, Kara set course. "ETA in twenty minutes." It was too slow. Kara could be there in seconds if she broke the sound barrier, but Alex would pay for her impatience.
"Roger that."
Uncaring of The Voice, Kara talked to Alex as she flew. "I told you once that you'd be the best and brightest mind on Krypton." Her arms tightened around the slack body cradled against her. "I didn't know you'd also be a general greater than Pir-El or Aunt Astra."
The Voice coughed, pulling Kara's attention away from Alex. "Supergirl, I've got your location from your phone. I'm sending a specific set of coordinates. You can follow those directions to the safe house. You won't see us from the air. We're lead-lined and well hidden. I'll talk you in once you're closer."
"Thank you, Agent." Kara listened to the phone's "voice" provide directions. It was definitely not Siri. The voice was mechanical, clearly designed to be all business and less fun, as it guided Kara to her location as if she were a plane or helicopter.
"Hold on, Alex." Kara pushed her speed a little more. Even with the wind whipping around them, she could hear the wheeze in Alex's breathing and the occasional stutter in her heartbeat.
The Voice responded to Kara's plea to Alex. "Supergirl, we have medical personnel standing by. We'll do everything we can for Agent Danvers." Kara wanted to thank the agent, but she continued. "You're about two minutes out now. We've turned the lights on for you."
There were no lights. Kara employed every bit of her enhanced vision and didn't see… A flash of green. The circle of lights disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. On. Off. "I see it." She'd also glimpsed the armed agents lining the helipad – and a group of people clustered around a stretcher.
That's where Kara landed; so close to the stretcher that her cape brushed the secured rails. Her boots had no more hit the tarmac than Alex was carefully taken from her arms and lowered to the stretcher. She stared after the doctors and techs as they (and Alex) disappeared through a disguised entry. The other non-medical agents followed until Kara was alone, save for one lone figure.
"Supergirl." The agent stepped forward. "Thank you for bringing Agent Danvers home." His voice was a deep rumble. "I'm sure you have many questions; if you'll come inside, I'll answer what I can. Or you can wait until Agent Lane arrives."
She took several steps toward the hidden entrance before she remembered. "I need to go back to National City to get someone. One of your agents? They were with Lucy when she saved me from Cadmus; she saved Alex tonight, too." Kara had no illusion that this man didn't already know her identity after "Agent Lane" had saved simple, human Kara Zorel. "I promised I'd go back to make sure she was safe."
"The agent is fine, Supergirl." His smile was bright in the otherwise dark desert. "Please come into the base, and we can talk." When Kara hesitated, he grew more somber. "You have little reason to trust me, but I promise you that we are doing everything we can to heal Alex…Agent Danvers. The other agent was backup and was not injured. You can speak with her when she arrives. We have recalled all agents assigned to this operation."
All agents, implying Alex hadn't been the only one undercover.
It was too much. Kara stared at the agent across from her in this dark, desert hellscape, drowning from everything that had happened. "Why is Alex…why are you doing this?" she asked, trying to understand and make all the events since rescuing the plane make sense.
Slowly moving closer, the man held out a hand. "My name is J'onn. Please. I know you're worried about Alex. We'll check on her and I'll explain everything. Know that everything we've done was necessary. We didn't have a choice, not if we wanted to keep you and many other aliens safe."
Choices. Everything came down to choices.
It was so loud. All the time. Huddled beneath the bed, Kara pressed bent arms over her ears. It didn't help. She could hear Eliza and Jeremiah talking in the kitchen. Their voices battering at her mind as if they were under the bed with her while they argued.
"I know it wasn't what we planned, Ellie." There was so much exhaustion in Jeremiah's voice. He'd looked tired at breakfast. Alex had even teased him about falling asleep in his oatmeal. "But I…I don't have a choice. We need the money."
"Screw the money!" Kara winced. Eliza's shout floated up the stairs without any help from her enhanced hearing. "You can't do this. What they want…"
Her voice cut off abruptly.
"It's done. I've signed the contract." One of the kitchen chairs, probably the one Jeremiah used for every meal, squeaked along the tiled floor. "This is a short trip. Only a few days. I need you to handle the research while I'm gone. Make sure to keep the notes in the new office safe."
"Supergirl?"
"If I'm going to be staying here for more than a few minutes, call me Kara," she responded quietly as she shook his hand. "If you work with Alex and Lucy, then you already know everything about me."
His smile turned wry. "Not all of our agents know; however, you and…and a few others were the catalyst for this program." J'onn opened the door into the facility. No light spilled out. They stepped into complete darkness that lasted until the door closed and sealed with a hiss. "Now that we have gone head to head with Cadmus and Alex's cover is blown, it may not be possible to keep your identity a secret. I'm sorry."
Kara laughed without humor. "Sorry won't cut it if people close to me end up hurt or dead."
Their footsteps echoed on the polished concrete floor of the narrow hallway.
"I assure you, Miss Zorel, that Agent Danvers was well aware of the danger when she volunteered for her mission."
"And Elenor Porter? Did she know what she signed up for when she followed me out of a rarely used maintenance door at CatCo?" Kara snapped. "Did the agent who helped Lucy rescue me volunteer to die fighting off those men after Alex? What about Lucy? Her father's dead. He was in bed with Cadmus, but he died because I helped break the story of the century."
J'onn didn't react to Kara's anger. He led her through a bewildering hallways in quick, ground-eating strides. "Alex is this way. I'm sure you'll feel better once you see she'll recover."
He reminded Kara of Diana. Calm and controlled and irritating. She throttled the desire to scream at him and managed to unclench her fists by the time they turned another corner into a much wider and populated hallway. Kara caught the universal hospital scent of industrial cleaner and pain.
The agents all wore black fatigues and polos. They were armed. Each stepped politely out of the way and nodded as they passed.
They reminded Kara of the Royal Guard when Queen Hippolyta or Diana moved about the palace, and her muscles loosened. "You're not an agent," she said.
J'onn's grin was quick and quirky. "Not exactly."
"What are you then? Exactly."
"Technically, all of us, with a few exceptions, came from the DEO. We operate the same way we did then." He stopped in front of a large area cut off from the hallway by a wall of windows looking into an emergency room or hospital. Kara didn't see Alex in any of the beds in the room.
One of the scrub-clad medical personnel raised a hand when she spotted J'onn. He waved back before beckoning her to the hallway.
The woman slid one of the glass panes, creating a doorway and allowing her into the hallway.
"Doctor Hamilton, I'm sure you've heard of Supergirl." The doctor nodded but didn't otherwise act as if Kara's presence was out of the ordinary. "How's our agent?"
Hamilton wasn't as stoic when she addressed J'onn. "Hanging on." She rattled off a list of medical conditions that required Kara to dig deep into her years studying for her entrance to the Science Guild and her brief rotation as Epione's assistant.
Her mind insisted on repeating Alex's injuries: collapsed lung, shattered patella, broken ribs, and a torn quadricep.
"She's in surgery now to repair her kneecap, but I expect her to be terrorizing my staff by tomorrow." A warm hand gripped Kara's. "She's going to be fine, Supergirl. Although, you might have to use your super strength to keep her quiet and stationary for the next couple of months."
Kara would tie Alex to her bed with Diana's Lasso of Truth, if necessary. "Thank you," she told Hamilton. "Thank you so much." Relief made her lightheaded. She staggered to the glass and leaned against it.
J'onn and Hamilton gave her space and time. She heard them talking but didn't pay attention. Not until a reflection in the windows showed a ramrod straight figure draped in leather and wearing a motorcycle helmet.
"You!" Kara spun. "I was going to come back, but J'onn said you weren't hurt."
The agent froze. Kara could feel the stare despite the dark faceplate. "J'onn was correct. I am well and glad to see you." Gloved hands rose slowly, gripped the helmet, and slid it off.
Scars, some white with age and others still pink and raised, marred both cheeks and much of the neck visible above the heavy leather jacket. Kara's eyes were drawn to them, to the sheer impossibility of them.
"Kara." The voice was harsh. Damaged. Nothing like Kara remembered. The eyes and the bright white stripe in the dark brown hair, though, hadn't changed since the final days of Krypton.
"Aunt Astra!" Kara jumped or flew across the hall into a pair of strong arms.
"Ehrosh :bem, kir shed."
A/N: Ehrosh :bem, kir shed - Hello, little girl/little one
