"Alex are you sure that you need to involve Eliza?" Kara asks her sister.
"Kara, I need someone who I can trust," Alex replies. "Her lab does genome mapping, so she's more experienced in it than I am, plus she can repeat the test to ensure this wasn't planted by Max to throw me off. Look, I will send the files to her double blind with encryption, no one will even know that she's consulting on this," she adds looking over at Lucy for approval.
Lucy pauses a moment, "I'll consider it," she replies. "Find out when she's available to meet. We'll need to make sure that her lab is secure before we can transmit any files."
Vasquez enters the lab.
"Ma'ams, I found something on the jump drive," Vasquez says stopping at the doorway, "You'll want to see this," she says heading back out to her desk.
Alex and Lucy rush after her and huddle to look over the agent's shoulder as she explains what she's found.
"These are the same reports that were sent over as print outs," Alex remarks.
"Yes, but there's a virus embedded in the root directory on the jump drive, I'm running it on a closed system now, so that I can analyze it without infecting our whole system," Vasquez explains.
"Are you saying that Maxwell Lord sent over a jump drive loaded with a virus to a government agency?" Lucy asks angrily. "That is beyond the pale, my god this man thinks he's invincible!" she rants.
"Ma'am, the virus acts like malware, I believe that it's devised to transmit copies of all of Agent Danvers reports to Lord Technologies." Vasquez explains. "My guess is that he was hoping that this drive would be loaded into Agent Danvers' system alone," she adds.
Martine is in the lab reviewing the reports on The Detonator when she sees the genome mapping file. Examining it closely, she notices that there are three areas highlighted on it, which she doesn't understand. Curious, she pulls up another genome map from the file and compares the two on a split screen.
"What are you doing in here?" Dr James asks entering the now empty laboratory.
"I was just cleaning up, I'm curious about this report though, what do these highlighted sections mean?" Martine asks, pointing at the screen.
"Those are genetic anomalies, we weren't able to confirm if they were present before or caused by the transformation," Dr James says slowly. "Where did you get this second genome map?" He asks.
"It's one from the employee file, I was just doing a comparison to try to understand what I was seeing," she explains.
"You're sure that this is from the employee file and not another test subject?" Dr James asks.
"Yes, I'm positive," she answers. "Is there a problem Dr James?
"There could be, since the markers are almost identical, we could have another meta human in our midst, I should alert Mr Lord," he says turning to leave.
Martine frowns, if only he would jump out of the window, she thinks to herself. Then it happens. Instead of leaving through the door, Dr James walks over to the windows, picks up a chair and uses it to break the glass, before setting it back down, climbing up on it and jumping out.
Martine gasps in shock. Then a sly smile crosses her face as she realizes that her telepathy is stronger than she ever realized. Walking over to the window, she looks down to see the people rushing to aid Dr James. She screams loudly.
"Martine! What happened?" Max asks bursting into the lab.
"I don't know Mr Lord. One minute Dr James was talking to me, the next minute he was jumping out of the window!" she exclaims throwing herself into his arms.
"Why were the two of you in here?" Max asks looking around the nearly empty lab.
"I came in to clean up and he was looking at these reports," she says nodding at the computer, which only shows the single genome file now.
"This doesn't make any sense, why would he jump out the window?" Max asks concerned. "Did he say anything?"
"He just mumbled something and said that he needed to go. I assumed that he was leaving through the door, but then I heard the glass break and he was out the window before I could react," she explains.
"Okay, well I'm going to run some tests on him. It's probably nothing, but I need to make sure that he wasn't exposed to something here," Max replies, mostly to himself.
"Mr Lord, the police and EMS are here, but they are, uh, waiting for the coroner now," the security guard remarks entering the lab nervously.
"Fine, bring them up and let them look around, but keep an eye on them," Max says watching the guard leave. Then turning to Martine, who has suddenly regained her composure, "Would you shut that computer down and pack it up. All they need to know is that he was in this lab, they don't need to know what he was looking at on that computer," Max says firmly to her, still curious about her response.
"One of Lord's scientists just committed suicide by jumping out of a window on the 20th floor at Prometheus," Kara says into the phone.
"Hold on," Alex says into the phone. Then lowering it she yells over to Vasquez, "Susannah, turn on the news."
"Dr Malcolm James, a research scientist at Prometheus Laboratory, is reported to have jumped from the twentieth floor after breaking a window with a chair. There were no witnesses and no note has been found," the newscaster reports.
"Dr James was just here yesterday afternoon. Kara, he helped transfer the body from the cryogenic chamber to the stasis pod," Alex exclaims. "Was he going through a messy divorce or something?" She asks.
"The initial background is that his wife died and he has no kids. He's worked at Prometheus for ten years, the CATCO investigative reporter just emailed Cat the details, I'm looking at them now," Kara explains.
"You're reading Cat's email?" Alex asks.
"Yes, I'm still screening them for her, Emily mismarked one last week and Cat insisted that I double check them now," Kara explains.
"So there's nothing yet that would indicate why he was suicidal?" Alex asks.
"The reporter didn't find anything unusual. No outstanding debt, no recent purchases or out of character impulse buys," Kara replies.
"Hmm, well it sounds suspicious. The police are investigating?" Alex questions.
"Yes, they are but only to verify that it's a suicide according to the CATCO crime reporter," Kara answers.
"I should call Max," Alex says after informing Lucy of the situation.
"You should not call Max Lord," Lucy replies.
"Dr James was just here in my lab, it's just a courtesy to call to give my condolences," Alex explains.
"Lord doesn't need your condolences. Focus on your research Alex, what if there's something in these reports that Dr James was afraid of and that's why he killed himself?" Lucy points out.
"Pheromones!" Alex blurts out. "What if Dr James was exposed to a residual pheromone from The Detonator that caused him to feel suicidal after the body was transferred to us?" She asks.
"Uh, is that really a thing?" Lucy asks concerned.
"It's not likely, but it's a possibility," Alex replies. "I'll increase security on the stasis pod and put protocols in place to protect our people from any exposure to the body," she adds.
Martine is hiding out in the ladies room. She still can't believe that she was strong enough to make Dr James throw himself out the window. And what was it he said about the genome mapping proving that she had meta human genetic markers, she wonders if she's had this strong telepathic ability her whole life and just didn't realize it. Of course, it's one thing to get someone to ask you out or buy you a drink, but this is completely different..
The bathroom door opens and another woman enters. Martine looks at her and gets an idea. In her mind, she wills the woman to go turn around and leave. And it happens. Then she wills her to return and go into a stall and leave the door open. She does. Encouraged by this little experiment, Martine leaves the bathroom and returns to her office.
"I want to know exactly what James was reviewing on that computer before he jumped out of the window," Max says to the head of his IT department.
"Yes Mr Lord, we'll have that for you as soon as possible," the head of security says before leaving the office.
He passes Martine on his way out and she watches as he enters the elevator, then pulls the taser off his belt and zaps himself with it as the doors close.
Smiling to herself, she enters Max's office.
"Martine, why don't you take the rest of the day off," he says showing concern for her.
"I'm fine Mr Lord," Martine replies.
"Just the same, take a few days. You've been working hard and you deserve the break," he says kindly as he dismisses her.
Mr Lord, we just found Chief Marshall in the elevator. Apparently he was tasered and suffered a heart attack," Officer Robbins explains to Max over the phone. "We used the defibrillator on him and EMS is enroute now."
"What the hell is going on here?" Max questions. "Pull all security footage surrounding both of these incidents, we have to figure out what is happening," he says angrily.
"Yes, sir. Right away," Robbins says as Max ends the call.
"Jesus, Cat call off your news crew!" He demands over the phone as he looks down on a live remote broadcast right in front of his building. "You have a whole team assigned to my lab?" He asks accusingly.
"No Max, that wasn't necessary since your people keep calling the police for assistance, all we have to do is monitor the scanner," she remarks sarcastically. "Unless, you would like to go on air and explain how your chief of security managed to taser himself alone in an elevator?" Cat asks, "I'd even come do that interview myself," she adds cheekily.
"It's speculation, the taser fell off his belt when he had the heart attack," Max explains. "But that's not why I'm calling. I need for you to dial down the coverage, all of this speculation is making my employees nervous and it's not fair to them," he adds.
"Fair?" Cat repeats the word like she's never heard it before. "Max, you can't expect CATCO to not report the same news that everyone else is reporting," she replies.
"I just asked you to dial down the coverage. The CATCO helicopter has been circling over my lab for an hour now," he says angrily.
"Well, these things often do come in threes," Cat teases.
"I'm sending everyone home for the day and closing the lab until Monday, so there'll be nothing more for you to report," he says angrily before ending the call.
Kara looks up and smiles when Cat enters her office and closes the door.
"Hi," she says happily, as Cat crosses the room and perches on the edge of her desk.
"Max Lord just called me to ask that I dial down coverage on his lab," Cat explains.
"Did something else happen?" Kara asks curiously.
Cat smiles. She had two tv's installed in Kara's office, but the girl never turns them on. Reaching over she picks up the remote and turns them on.
"A suicide and a heart attack," Kara notes watching the coverage. "Unfortunately, those things happen all the time," she remarks.
"Or it could be that Max has created something in his lab that is affecting his staff adversely," Cat suggests sarcastically.
Kara looks up quickly.
"Kara?" Cat questions. "Kara has that happened before?"
"Not exactly, but it's not outside of the realm of possibilities," she replies. "Cat, I need to warn Alex." Kara says moving quickly to the door, stopping a moment to kiss her goodbye. "I'll call you later," she adds before dashing into the stairwell.
Max is sitting in his office watching the security footage and he's stunned. Both James and Marshall interacted with Martine prior to their incidents. Then there's the file history on the computer showing the DNA comparison, which only took Max a few minutes to realize what he was looking at. Martine has the exact same genetic markers for meta-human as Raymond Lincoln. There's no mistaking what this means, but he's hesitant to decide how to handle the information. His employees did not actually consent to genome mapping, he collected their DNA from Employee Health mandatory health screenings, which gave him permission to do testing to ensure that they haven't been exposed to anything during their employment.
While he tries to decide what to do, he turns on the tv in his office to what the latest reports are since he shut down the lab.
"The unknown woman entered the bank and within minutes everyone started handing her their valuables, she didn't brandish a weapon of any kind, nor did she talk to anyone," the newscaster reports.
The footage isn't that clear, but Max is fairly certain that it's Martine in the video. He sighs angrily before snatching up the phone.
"Supergirl, can you get to Prometheus Labs immediately? Max Lord wants to talk with you about one of his employees," Alex says over the comms.
"I'm on my way to the DEO, Alex I think that he's created something that's making his people suicidal," Supergirl replies, "You may be exposed to it," she adds worriedly.
"No, that's not it. One of his staff is a meta-human, she's telepathically manipulating people into hurting themselves. Lord wants you to stop her," Alex explains.
"Why doesn't he call the police?" Kara retorts.
"Because she can manipulate the human brain, Supergirl you may be the only one who can stop her," Alex answers.
Supergirl enters the Prometheus laboratory front entrance and is immediately greeted by Maxwell Lord. He quickly updates her on the situation and one of the security guards hands her a photo with Martine's information on the back of it. Supergirl nods and takes off again to locate her.
On the ground, Max heads back up to his office and picks up the phone. "We need to meet. There's been an interesting development," he says into the phone.
"Your pretty little assistant has gone rogue," General Lane says entering Lord's office an hour later.
"How would you know that General?" Max asks sitting back in his chair.
"I have my sources," Lane replies walking around the room carefully. "Now, is that the interesting development?" He asks.
"Not exactly," Max replies, a confident smile spreading across his face.