Lena asked her assistant to hold all her calls and cancel her meetings when she got the call she was receiving a visitor. Fortunately she was low on obligations today allowing her to do some private and personal investigations for her friends.
Earlier that day she got a call out of the blue from Alex Danvers. It caught her by surprise as she was on her way to a board meeting but she requested some assistance with looking into Axis Environmental. The DEO had been tracing all the records set up by its CEO Carl Carlton over the past few years and L-Corp naturally came up. Lena had heard about the revelations at Axis had was outraged. She was already in the process of dissolving their contract and double checking their own inventory. The last thing she wanted was L-Corp resources sold by a third party, especially those meant to be destroyed. She scheduled a time for her to have a conversation with Alex and Captain Sawyer in an official capacity, promising to cooperate fully.
In the meantime she wanted to look into this Kronos Limited herself. It sounded like a front, the sort of underhand nameless practice her brother Lex would pull off to enact his nefarious deeds. She got her investigators to run the business and received their email moments after Kara called to say she was dropping in. she was at her computer reviewing their findings when Miss Price stepped in to announce Kara's arrival. "Send her in, thank you Miss Price" she said, stepping away from her computer to greet her friend once again.
However Kara seemed more agitated that the last time they spoke a day ago. Lena sensed the apprehension when they embraced, her gaze diverted to the floor. "What's happened?" she asked full of concern.
Kara didn't know where to begin, taking a seat in the guest chair by Lena's desk. "Did you hear what happened in Metropolis?" she asked.
Lena sighed, slipping back into her seat opposite the blonde woman. "I did" she nodded. "That monster Hank Henshaw attacked another fusion reactor" she scowled.
"You know about them?"
She shrugged. "The project floated across my desk a month ago. I saw the potential and helped give advice on its installation here in the city. When I heard it had been stolen I grew concerned. I've seen the specs. In the wrong hands such a reactor could be catastrophic. We're talking about a fusion reaction from a grain of sand that could generate enough energy to power a city, clean energy at its safest. But so far the process is still unrefined. We took every precaution making the reactor safe and prevent an unstable rupture. But without the cage harnessing the power core safely…I hope Hank knows what he's doing. The smallest mistake at this juncture could kill hundreds."
"At least we stopped him getting a second" Kara sighed.
Lena looked at her downcast friend. "Is this about what happened at Axis? What they were making?"
"Brainy thinks the power cores could be adapted to power the Metallo drones" Kara explained.
"They certainly have the power output" she agreed. "But to convert the drones to fusion energy would take significant engineering skill. They'd have to redesign the whole chassis of the machines."
Kara lifted her head to look at her curiously. "How do you know that?"
The raven haired business woman turned her computer screen to show the file her investigators sent her, including the schematics Carlton's people were working to supplied by the police contacts. "I've been looking into this Kronos Limited" Lena explained. "They certainly invested a great deal into Axis Environmental. At first I couldn't fathom why Carlton would agree to their demands until I realised how dire his enterprise truly was. He was on the verge of bankruptcy, even after all the layoffs and loans."
Kara stood up and read the file, the man's desperation laid out in black and white. "He said he did all of this to save his employees and their jobs" she muttered.
"The man has a heart of gold" Lena sighed. "He'd do anything to protect his workforce, even betray his own ideals. I'm disgusted by what he's done but I can condone why he did it. Makes me wonder if I'd do the same, until I realised I've done far worse."
Kara gave Lena a look, seeing disappointment in her expression. Carlton was a good man with a dream to make the world a better place. But if even a man like that can lose his way, how would anyone find redemption. "He made a bad decision" Kara said comfortingly. "Now he had time to make up for it."
"I hope he does" Lena smiled, comforted by the thought. "I'm the meantime, its clear this Kronos Limited was responsible for the creation of the drone army."
"According to Alex, Carlton said they specifically requested Metallo be reproduced" Kara told her. "Before that it was just harmless tech, circuits and power sources, relays, that sort of thing."
Lena pondered it. She'd need a complete list to confirm it, but she believed Kronos was reverse engineering landmark technology for other purposes. Not unlike what she would do, only operating under the table. "So far, all my investigators can tell me is it's a shell company" she said, turning her computer back to read the file. "The paper trail leads to an account off the grid in the camens and a PO Box in metropolis. They're still looking into it. If I find anything I'll let you know" she told her. Kara nodded in appreciation. But it didn't lift her apprehensiveness. "Was there something else?" Lena asked.
"Was there anything else at those facilities Hank's militia could've been after?" Kara asked Lena, who she hadn't realised had helped construct the facility. "What if they weren't after the power cores? Could they have been after something else in the power plant?"
Lena sat back in her chair and thought about it. "There was plenty of new technology in that facility I suppose" she admitted. "But it was all for the function of powering the reactor. The couplings, the harness, the converters, on their own they would be of much value. Why do you ask?"
"It's just…" she said, hesitant to explain why she came here today. Lena was patient, which just made Kara feel worse. "I don't think Hank Henshaw needed the power cores" she confessed.
"What makes you so sure?" Lena asked.
"Because I already fought Metallo" she said, looking Lena in the eye to watch her reaction. "One of the drones attacked me. It was fully functional. Only it wasn't using the stolen fusion core. It was using kryptonite."
Lena's eyes narrowed and then widened as her face paled in shock. "That's not possible" she whispered, rising from her seat to look out the window. "I thought all the kryptonite had been destroyed?"
"So did we" she replied, explaining how Brainy doubled his search algorithms and satellites to scan the planet for the mineral. Somehow they lost all traces of the Metallo drone after it fled with Hank and his militia. Unfortunately the convoy Alex had meant to intercept the trucks was rerouted once the director discovered the presence of kryptonite, letting the militia escape into the wind. "Every stockpile, including Lex's, had been accounted for" Kara explained.
"So if Hank already had kryptonite, why would he steal a fusion power core?" Lena wondered. She had to admire the intrigue though it brought some startling questions and ramifications. She turned back to Kara, understanding that wasn't the most pressing questions. "I made sure all the kryptonite Lex had stashed away was destroyed" she said. "I don't understand where Henshaw could've found more."
"Unless someone knew how to make it" Kara said, the statement suddenly slipping out.
Lena's posture froze as she spun around to look at her best friend, seeing guilt and suspicion in her expression. Her chest tightened. "You can't be serious" she whispered, taking a step back. "Is that why you came to see me?"
Kara tried to say something but words failed her, the confession all over her face. Lena scoffed, looking away in outrage. She thought they were past all this suspicion, moved past the animosity of their conflicted friendship and into a place of trust. And yet here she was the moment a hint of suspicion falls back onto a Luthor…
"What exactly is it you're asking Kara?" she asked accusingly.
She leapt to her feet to face her, her arms out in a sign of support. "I'm not asking if you know anything about this" she clarified. "But I will admit, there was a brief moment where I had to consider…"
"Consider what?" Lena snapped. "That I'm just like my brother?"
"No! No, nothing like that!" she said. "But when we had to ask ourselves where the kryptonite came from, we both know…" Kara paused to take painful breath. She had hoped this confrontation wouldn't get so intense. She should've known better. She knew what she was accusing Lena of. "I thought it would be better if I can to talk to you rather than Alex bringing you down to be interrogated."
"Interrogated?" Lena barked. "For what?"
"Lena, you are the only one in the world who knows how to manufacture kryptonite" Kara reminded her, a feat not even Lex could accomplish. "Now I don't believe you had anything to do with this" she told her, "but is there any way your formula could've gotten out?"
Lena stared at the woman, her best friend, rage and disappointment filling her heart. But she pushed it down. She understood why she was asking. She shouldn't read into it but years of distrust are hard habits to squash. "When I cracked that formula, I saw the horror in your eyes" she said, her voice level on the edge of malice. "When you asked me to destroy it, I did exactly that. I deleted every file, burned every note, every copy was destroyed. It never made it to the company mainframe, all of it encrypted on my personal laptop. My own personal supply was removed and destroyed. I have shared that secret with no one. Not my brother, not my mother, nobody. And I swore I would never share that formula and take it to my grave." She stepped forward, inches from Kara speaking clinically "I did all of that because I valued my friendship with you. I promise you, I wouldn't do anything to jeopardise that. I don't know where Hank got his kryptonite, but it wasn't from me."
Kara stared into Lena's eyes as the woman stood confidently in front of her. Despite how much she wanted to trust her, Kara listened to her heartbeat and measured it carefully. There was no hint of a lie. No tremors, no hesitation. Her eyes started to well up as she released a sigh of relief, turning away out of shame. She couldn't believe she allowed herself to distrust her best friend like that. "I'm sorry" she said, falling onto the sofa in the corner of the room wiping her eyes. "I'm so sorry" she said, looking at Lena apologetically.
Lena's rage crumbled seeing Kara on the verge of a breakdown, the stress of the last few days catching up with her. She let her outrage go and sat beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders hugging her tightly. "I'm sorry too" she whispered.
Kara let out a shaky breath, explaining "after everything that happened at the memorial, all of this has just been… I've been all over the place" she admitted. "I don't think I could've handled losing you too."
"You're not going to lose me" Lea promised, lifting Kara's chin. "Better men than Hank Henshaw have tried" she reminded her. Kara laughed, putting her head on her shoulder grateful for the support. "I meant to ask, how did you date with that guy go?"
Kara groaned. She wasn't ready to talk about that disaster yet. "You what really scares me about all of this though?" she said after a while.
"What?"
"We don't know how much Kryptonite Hank Henshaw has" she told her. "What if he has enough to power his whole army? I'm not ready to take on that many of them."
Lena sighed, embracing Kara comfortingly. "You will be" she told her. "Because you won't have to face them alone."