2. Agent Alexandra Danvers meets Supergirl
Kara Danvers was not paranoid, except about one subject. And on that subject, she had reason to be paranoid. And the person she needed to talk to was even more paranoid than she was – with even more reason.
So Kara took a few precautions as she went home that night. As she rode down the elevator from her sister's apartment, she took her glasses off and looked intently at her purse. By the time she reached the ground floor she was wearing her glasses again. She walked to the subway which was, as usual for this time of day, not too busy. She went to the platform, waited, and when the train came in she was the last person to board, slipping in just as the doors closed. Three stops down the line, she slipped out of the train, again, moving just as the doors closed. She then crossed the platform to the other side, waited by the doors for the next train to come and go without getting on. When she got on the next train, she again made sure that she was the last boarder. Now that she knew that nobody was following her, she got off at the stop before CatCo Plaza and walked to Noonan's.
Kara was a daily regular at Noonan's in the morning, but she had come in on enough evenings that the night staff knew her.
"Hi Kara," said the hostess. "Do you want a table?"
"Hi Maxine, not this time. Can I borrow your land line for a second? My battery's dead."
"Sure." She handed Kara the phone.
Kara turned away and dialed a long distance number. When the recipient picked up her call, she murmured something that Maxine couldn't really hear, got a quick reply, hung up the phone, and handed it back.
"Thanks, Maxine."
"Short call. Hey, what was the language?"
"Oh, that was Swahili."
"Swahili?"
"Yes, I've got a friend who worked with Doctors Without Borders. He's taught me a bit of it, so I help him keep in practice. See you later."
"See you, Kara."
Kara left Noonan's and went straight home. She'd only said one sentence: "The sky is blue." But she knew her contact would be heading for National City as fast as he could, for the language she had used was not Swahili.
It was Kryptonese. And on Krypton, the sky had never been blue.
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Two days later, it was just after five, and Alex arrived at her sister's apartment to drive Kara out to the DEO.
She knocked, and when Kara opened the door, Alex knew instantly that her sister had made the decision that Alex and her mom desperately wanted her not to make. Alex barely noticed that Kara was wearing a female version of Superman's uniform, complete with cape and stylized S, but with a skirt and tights instead of leggings. What told her the bad news was Kara's eyes: normally soft and gentle, Kara's eyes were now strong, certain, and most of all, committed.
Alex couldn't look: all she could do was try not to weep. Kara brought her inside and closed the door.
"What's wrong, Alex?"
"I know I can't stop you, but I love you and I hate to see you to do this: you could get hurt or killed."
"Clark has been doing this stuff for fifteen years and he's still fine. And if you're not spending all your time at the DEO inside your lab, than you might get hurt or worse, no?"
"Can you please tell me why you are going ahead? I thought if I could let you know what you could be up against, you'd see reason. Catching a Fort Rozz criminal is not like catching a plane. These guys are hard, fast, merciless killers. I know, I've been on the teams that have gone up against them."
"And Clark has knocked a few of them on their asses. If he can do it, there's no reason I can't do it. Besides, it's the Fort Rozz aliens who force my hand: I can't let them hurt this world as they hurt Krypton. You see, I knew about Fort Rozz long before Hank mentioned it."
"How could you know that?"
"That time we talked about my family on Krypton, I told you guys that my Mom was a judge. What I didn't tell you is that she sent a number of prisoners to Fort Rozz. I even saw her do it once. It was the Kryptonese equivalent of 'Take your kid to work day.' And now they've escaped. I know what Mom would think about that: more important, I know what she would do about it if she were here. Mom came from an unbroken fifteen-century-line of judges or police and she would move heaven and earth to recapture those people. Mom's not here, but I am: as the Eldest and the Last Daughter of the House of El, I inherit her obligations. And I'm going to fulfill them, so Mom can rest in peace in Rao's light."
Alex knew when she was beaten.
"Will you tell this to Eliza? She'll be heartbroken, and if I tell her, she'll blame me no matter what I say."
"Of course. I wouldn't put that on you. I've told her that I'm heading for Midvale this weekend.
"She wants to see me, too. I'll drive you up if you'll do me a favor?" Her sister nodded. "Don't tell Mom I work for the DEO. Just say that Hank approached you."
"Sure, but maybe we should get on our way to your office."
"Yes, you're right; I'll wait while you change."
"I'm not changing. I'll go like this."
"Why?"
"Whatever I do after this, I need to keep Kara Danvers hidden. And the best way to do that is to play up Superman's California cousin for all she's worth. So I'm Supergirl. The story will be that Hank knew who Superman's California cousin was all along. He put out an SOS to her after the plane save and he assigned you to guide me out today, because you had previously met me at university under my other name and we're friends. If a name is needed for me at the DEO we use Kara Zor-El and we don't use any more than Ms. Zor-El unless absolutely necessary."
"OK, but where did you get that outfit?"
Kara thought it best not to mention Winn right now. "I've been thinking about doing this for a while and some online costume shops have good selections. I've also customized it a bit so it shouldn't be traceable. If I fly you out, can you guide me from the air? Supergirl never goes anywhere by ground."
"Yes I can guide you, but is wise to fly from here? Can anybody see you leave this place?"
"Not if we leave from a back window and I fly really quickly. It's a windowless alley. But you'll need to call your boss, and let him know what we're doing."
Alex called Hank and told him how Kara wanted him to introduce herself to the DEO staff and Hank agreed to keep Kara's earth name, and her relationship with Alex, confidential. When she hung up the phone, Kara spoke.
"Since we have to go really fast, you'd best climb up on my back in a piggyback carry. Then close your eyes until I tell you to open them."
Alex followed her sister's instructions. Kara floated up a few feet, changed her angle to horizontal, aimed herself at the open window, flew out, and turned up so fast that Alex found it hard to hold on.
"You can open your eyes now," said Kara and Alex looked down to see that her sister was rocketing upwards faster than a fighter jet.
"Wow! No wonder you kept asking me to come fly with you."
"It is fun. Now which way do we go?"
"Follow highway 80 over the bridge to Oak Bay. From there we take 580 to 24 and turn north to Orillia. A few miles past Orillia, there's an unmarked side road. I've got it programmed on my GPS app so I'll call the turns and let you know when we get there."
"Right. Meanwhile, I've got a few questions. Tell me about the DEO. How is it organized?"
"We're split into headquarters and three satellite offices. Headquarters has eight 10 person teams. Three of them rotate through active strike team duty on eight hour shifts, another three rotate the same way on watch duty. Every month the teams switch assignments and two teams go on vacation, which is to say two weeks intense physical and mental training and two weeks vacation. Watch duty monitors all news organizations in the US and allied countries. They track possible alien activities and do the preliminary research on potential countermeasures. The strike teams are the guys who get the job done: of the two hundred or so Fort Rozz escapees, we've captured 73 to date. Headquarters also has a small support division that includes my lab, a doctor with experience in alien physiology and a few maintenance and admin people, a small prisoner guard force, plus Hank as Director and a Deputy, currently vacant, due to the previous incumbent being rendered permanently unfit for duty when a takedown went wrong. The satellite offices are directed from the Headquarters watch group. Each office has four strike teams on site under an Assistant Director and they are in Metropolis, Gotham and Jackson, Mississippi. Like us, each team is based at a private airfield outside their cities so they can move quickly to other locations if trouble happens there. That's 580 over there."
Supergirl banked into a turn.
"You mentioned that you've captured 73 Fort Rozz escapees. Were any of them Kryptonians?"
"Yes, most of them."
"How can you do that? I thought we were invulnerable to anything on this planet."
"You are invulnerable to anything that naturally occurs here. But when Superman's California cousin arrived, the DEO's first research assignment was to find something that could take out Superman or his cousin if they ever needed to. Somebody in that first staff group, brilliant guy, knew Superman and had done a lot of work with him on his physiology, and he created a substance called Kryptonite which takes away Superman's powers. Combine a Kryptonite tipped needle and a dart filled with liquid K and we can knock out Superman – or you."
"I hope nobody else knows about that. Although it's good to know if either Clark or I go off the rails."
"We've done our best to keep it quiet."
"Tell me about Hank. What's he like as a boss?"
"He's a strong leader, he demands top performance and he gets it, simply by inspiring his people to be better than they think they can be. He's very thorough in his planning and he's a real bear in training. He always says 'The more you sweat in training, the less you'll die in combat.' Our strike teams are trained to SEAL team level, and that's the hardest training in the US military. He's particularly good at throwing surprise scenarios at us. And that's important because our targets are aliens: they are more likely to surprise us by doing something unexpected than the normal people that our military face off against. And that ability to respond quickly to the unexpected is something you'll need to get training in. There's the turn for 24."
Again Supergirl banked into the turn as she moved to follow the new road.
"What do you mean about training to respond quickly?"
"You'll see when we get there."
"And what exactly do you do when you're out of the lab?"
"I lead the Gamma strike team. And I'm also unofficially acting as Hank's Deputy until Washington assigns a permanent replacement."
"How did you get that job?"
"Hank recruited me during college, originally to do the lab work. But because us lab types sometimes have to go into an active battle scene, we take basic combat training, and I set the record mark for that course. So Hank's Deputy asked me if I wanted to go part time on a strike team. I said yes. After a year's training and eight months in the field, I was Assistant Team Leader, and when the Team Leader got promoted to Deputy Director, he recommended me for the slot. Since then, Gamma's been the top performing team in the National City office and for the last five months I've planned and led all the major takedowns, while supervising the labs and doing my own work when my team goes on watch rotation. But enough about me. We've just passed Orillia and there's the side road you need to follow. When you see two small buildings in the middle of the field at the road's end, that's where Air Supergirl touches down."
