6. Offer and Acceptance

"How's work these days?" Barry asked, slowly sipping his hot cup of coffee so as to not burn his tongue – again.

"It's good," Iris West nodded, nibbling a little off the top of her muffin. "They've got me on a sports beat, so I've mostly been covering Central City FC and some other local teams."

"FC?" Barry asked, before wincing slightly as he felt the hot liquid hit the tip of his tongue a little too fast. He blew a bit more on his coffee.

"Football club," Iris explained. "It's a growing sport for the city, and it's really been gaining traction recently. A lot of new fans."

"I see…" Barry trailed off. "And this is soccer-football, right? Not football-football."

Iris laughed, a light sound that made Barry's heart flutter a little. "Right, soccer-football. You'd have to go to Philadelphia if you wanted football-football."

"I would?"

Iris tilted her head slightly. "You really have no idea about sports, do you?"

"Well, I wouldn't say that. I think I saw Ronaldo win Wimbledon recently, or something along those lines."

Iris chuckled again, taking another bite of her muffin. "How about this – you come with me to see CCFC's next game on Saturday."

"Yeah," Barry nodded, a smile forming on his lips. "I'd love that. I mean, I'd like that. Um, I'm down."

"Sounds great," Iris replied. She checked her watch. "Ah, I think I'm gonna have to head out. I've got a piece due at three to work on."

"Yeah, no, go," Barry said, hastily standing up and barely avoiding knocking over his own cup with a thigh bump to the bottom of the small table. "Don't let me hold you up."

"Thanks," Iris said with a smile. "I'll… see you on Saturday then?"

"Of course, I'll be there." Barry paused. "Uh, where is it?"

"I'll text you the details," Iris responded. She leaned in to hug Barry, who reciprocated and let go just as quickly so as to not make it awkward. "Bye!"

Once she left the coffee shop, Barry blew as hard as he could on his coffee and downed the rest in a single gulp, grimacing slightly as he felt the still-hot coffee flow down his throat.

He had to return to reality; there was work to do.

"You know," Aquaman said, twirling his trident in one hand, "this place is kind of a dump. Like I get that your buddy is letting us use it for free, but seriously, it's a dump."

They—that being the five members of the Justice League—were back in the Wayne Enterprises warehouse in the Port of Gotham. Across the Delaware Bay, Barry could see the skyline of Metropolis in New Jersey. As far as locations went, it was fairly convenient for most of them, since Barry was a brief run away and Superman lived across the Bay. But he couldn't deny that the warehouse was rather unsightly, even with the amount of equipment that Batman had moved into the space within the last two weeks.

Batman simply looked at Aquaman for a moment before turning back to his console. Aquaman, for his part, turned to Green Lantern and Flash with a sarcastic wide-eyed expression.

"It should be any minute now," Superman spoke up. "Kara said it would be."

"I don't feel comfortable trusting her yet," Batman stated in his usual deepened timbre. "It's risky, at best."

"She's my cousin," Superman replied, his tone slightly harder than normal. "I trust her."

Batman half-turned to where Barry stood with Lantern and Aquaman, eyeing him out of the corner of his left eye. Barry simply nodded, and Batman turned back to the console.

"If you're right," Batman continued, "then this will be a good test. I've hardened my systems so that the Kryptonians won't be able to break into them so easily like they did last—"

Batman was cut off by all of his viewscreens flickering to black, static crackling through their speakers.

"Wow," Lantern remarked. "I haven't seen Batman eat crow like that ever before."

From Barry's perspective, Batman's glare in the reflection of his screen was enough to end Lantern's life if looks could kill.

"Next time," Superman said gently, placing a hand on Batman's shoulder. The Dark Knight shrugged it off.

"I'll have to cut back to the circuit board-level again and figure out exactly how they're doing this," Batman growled as the screens began to flicker to the same image. Vaguely, Barry could begin to make Zod out on the display, as expected. He stood in front of a wooden podium, which was a little less expected.

What was really unexpected was that it was Zod in a suit. Specifically, a human three-piece.

"Is he… wearing a suit?" Lantern incredulously asked.

"Yeah, that's a suit," Aquaman commented. "And for an alien, he looks pretty good in one."

Superman frowned at them. "I'll have you know that I look pretty good in one too, and I'm a Kryptonian just like him."

Aquaman scoffed. "Look, you're a good-looking guy, Superman – I'm confident enough to admit that. Probably better looking than my own mug. But you're a kid compared to him, and you kind of look like one too. That," Aquaman pointed at one of the larger displays with Zod on it, "is a man. He's mature, he's confident, and he's rocking the crap out of that suit."

"You are way over-analyzing it, dude," Lantern spoke up. "It's just what happens when someone who doesn't have a beer gut like you puts on a three-piece. Stop drinking so much and then try wearing a suit."

Any response that Aquaman may have conjured was cut off by Zod's voice.

"Citizens of Earth," he began, "my name, as you may know, is General Zod. I am the leader of the Kryptonian people. Our world, Krypton, was a planet much like yours very far away." He paused. "It was destroyed, and we have been left homeless as a result. We have come across the stars to find our brethren, who is known to you as Superman, in hopes of finding refuge among the people that have accepted him. The harshness of my words the last time I spoke to all of you was the result of a long, arduous journey and the necessary caution that I have had to exercise to protect my people. Today, we appeal to you as fellow wanderers in a lonely and cruel universe, asking for the shelter of your world as we rebuild ourselves. Along with this message, I have sent a draft offer to the governments of Earth and to your United Nations of what we can offer to you in exchange for what we ask from you. As a gesture of our good faith, we will also be sending mobile supply teams to Earth to aid the impoverished regions we have examined. We hope that this will show our genuine wish for a strong and lasting bond between our peoples." Zod leaned forward on the podium, a certain weariness and vulnerability almost visible from his expression alone. "We request a prompt reply, and we await at your collective leisure. Thank you for your time."

The screens cut to black once more before flickering back to their original states.

The Justice League was silent for a few moments.

"Well, that was some Grade-A, USDA-certified bullshit," Aquaman said.

"I think we can mostly agree on that, right?" Lantern commented. "I mean, these guys can literally fly across space and what, they just want to park on Earth? That's too transparent."

"I concur," Batman agreed, spinning around in his chair to face the others. "It was entirely a ploy."

Superman stayed silent as he pondered deep in thought. Barry, for his part, was unsure of how to react. This Zod seemed so different from the two Zods he had encountered before. The two previous Zods, for all intents and purposes to him, were basically the same Zod – a bloodthirsty killer who had come to destroy Earth for his own ends. Now Zod was dressed like a human and making peaceful overtures to humanity.

It was too suspicious for Barry to ignore, but it was also too different for him to approach like he had more knowledge than anyone else. Who knew what else in his memories was different?

"I think we should scope it out," Barry spoke up, drawing the attention of the other Leaguers. He hesitated momentarily. "Well, you know, it's just that we don't have enough information right now. If Zod's telling the truth, then maybe we have nothing to worry about. Maybe. And if he's not telling the truth…

"We need to know what he's planning so we can counter it," Batman finished. "It's like that his so-called 'mobile supply teams' are a front to move materiel and machinery that he needs to specific locations." He paused for a moment. "It's what I'd do."

"That's… a very reasonable plan, actually," Lantern admitted, one white-gloved hand on his chin. "Very measured. Good thinking, fast-man."

"That just makes it sound like he doesn't eat," Aquaman guffawed, "and I've seen the guy eat. He basically inhales a buffet." Aquaman wiped an imaginary tear from an eye before sobering up into a more serious expression. "But I agree with Barry boy over here. He's got a good point about our current information."

Superman sighed. "It seems like that might be the only way to find out Zod's true intentions." He turned to Batman. "How should we do it?"

Batman was silent for a few moments, but before he could speak up, Barry said, "I can do it. I'm fast. I've got the best chance of not being seen by anyone."

"I could just ask Kara," Superman offered. "I trust her. She'd tell me the truth."

"Even if we were to believe that," Batman contended, "there's no telling whether or not she'd know. Zod could, and maybe should, know that you and her are close. He very likely does know that you two are cousins. If I were him, I'd be keeping information siloed from her just out of caution alone."

"So, I can do it, then," Flash repeated. "I'm the best chance we've got."

Batman nodded. "Agreed. We can keep Lantern and Superman nearby. And depending on the locations that Zod picks for his supply drops, Aquaman can also be on station. I'll monitor and keep command and control from here."

Aquaman shrugged. "Works for me." He turned to Barry. "If you see a sign of trouble, just holler. We'll bail your bright-red ass out."

Barry cracked a crooked smile. "Thanks, Arthur. But I'm really hoping we don't have to do that."

Of the number of island nations that lay within the Caribbean, Santa Prisca was one of, if not outright, the poorest and most chaotic. Its history had been wracked with the worst horrors of colonialism, slavery, civil war, failed revolution, and in the modern age, the most extreme cases of political corruption and societal instability in human history. Its government had become an ineffective hotbed of dishonesty and fraud, its courts existed only on paper, and its streets were ruled by would-be warlords, gangs, and criminal syndicates. Its most famous exports were criminals and the compound Venom; both were courtesy of Peña Duro, one of the most violent prisons in the world. Foreign intervention would be seen as nothing more than the latest round of imperialism; domestic intervention was impossible.

It was in this sort of locale, then, that General Zod had decided to make one of his first overtures to humanity.

"We should call ourselves Justice League International, now," Lantern remarked in Barry's earpiece. "Because I'm pretty sure we don't have jurisdiction overseas."

"Overseas?" Arthur's voice came online. "You don't even have jurisdiction in America. Do you think we're cops?"

"Keep the channel clear," Batman's voice came through. "Santa Prisca is one of the poorest regions in the western hemisphere, if not the world. Zod is doing this here because it'll be a dramatic show of what he wants, and it also puts whatever materiel he wants to drop within a stone's throw of the contiguous United States. Cuba, Mexico, the U.S., and Canada rejected all offers he made, so this was the closest he could get."

"You think he's doing this just to get close to the mainland?" Superman's voice asked.

"He's doing this to every major Earth-based power," Batman explained. "His overtures have failed in many developed regions of the world, but the developing world has embraced his offer – North Africa, Central Asia, the Middle East, some of Latin America, and a good portion of central and eastern Africa as well. He's positioning footholds beside every major power that could potentially retaliate if he decides to strike."

"Geez," Lantern whispered. "He's spreading his influence everywhere."

"He's taking advantage of our existing discrepancies and inequalities," Batman expounded. "It's a systematic approach to divide humanity along pre-existing fault lines and pressure points. And it's a brilliant strategy for war," he begrudgingly added. "Flash, how close are you?"

"Just got past the tip of Cuba," Barry replied. He had been running across the surface of the water from the Florida Keys for a little while, though it wasn't anything that would tire him out too much. "I'll be there pretty soon."

"Once Flash reaches Santa Prisca and makes contact with the asset on the ground, we'll cut off radio contact," Batman continued. "The risk of communications interception is too high for this mission. We don't want to run the danger of the Kryptonians listening in once Flash is on-site."

Barry didn't reply to Batman as he concentrated on running, and soon the horizon revealed land. Closest to him was the city's port, past which rows of structures extended in dense clusters, and green rolling hills and small mountains beyond that.

The most noticeable and out-of-place object, though, was the Kryptonian gunship floating over Santa Prisca's singular port. Underneath it on land, there was a flurry of activity, likely related to Zod's activities. Batman had used his satellites—apparently it was a universal constant that he personally owned quite a few of those—to monitor the port, but there was little visible from orbit that was remotely suspicious, even with high-resolution cameras.

Barry changed course and shot past the port and through a beach before coming to a stop at the tree line. He was a couple of miles north of the port, though the gunship remained conspicuous in its positioning in the distance. The beach before him was sandy as beaches often were, with a few rocks jutting out here and there to break up the shore and the occasional worn-out and abandoned wooden boat.

"Superman," Flash said, "you said we had someone on the ground? I'm not seeing them yet."

"That's funny," a new female voice came online, "because she sees you."

Flash whipped around in a three-hundred-sixty-degree motion before his eyes came to rest on a woman emerging from behind one of the derelict boats. She wore a gray button-up with rolled-up sleeves and a pair of khaki-colored shorts that ran down to the top of her knees.

"For someone calling themselves the Flash," the woman continued, pushing a strand of shoulder-length black hair out of her face, "I would've thought that you were fast enough to scout out the place before running headfirst into it."

"Ha," Flash humorlessly chuckled. "That's a new one. I really haven't heard that before."

"You're going to have to switch up your tactics when they don't work, Flash," the woman teased. She held out a hand. "Lois Lane, the Daily Planet. I'm here on business to cover Zod's would-be humanitarian mission, but I'm also here to escort you into the city."

"Right," Flash nodded, taking her hand. He hadn't really interacted much with the past Lois, but the new Lois seemed to be rather similar in personality, though perhaps a bit more forward, if different in appearance. "I'm Barry. Barry Allen."

Lois tilted her head slightly to the side. "Well, Barry, I hope you don't tell everyone that when you first meet them. It could make keeping a secret identity hard."

"It's not a common thing and all," Flash began to explain, but Lois cut him off with a wave of her hand as she pulled out a phone with her other.

"Our ride's almost here." She turned back to Flash. "You've got something else to wear, right? Because while I'm not going to criticize someone else's choice of fashion, red silicone's not exactly a discreet outfit, you know?"

"It's actually a high-tech poly—" Another handwave from Lois cut him off.

"I don't need the full science breakdown, right now," Lois said, watching the nearby road. "Just change."

Barry sighed as he entered the Speed Force and shrunk the suit back into its ring. Underneath, his clothes, which consisted of a white tee and a pair of shorts that had seen better days, clung uncomfortably to him from the sweat under the suit. He ruffled his blond hair—something that he still wasn't used to despite weeks having passed since it had become his reality—somewhat in a vain attempt to make it look somewhat respectable.

"Contact with asset on the ground confirmed. We're going dark, now," Batman's voice said. "Radio communications only for emergency backup. Good luck, Flash." The commlink cut off just as a small jeep, a little less visually maintained than Barry would've preferred, pulled up to them, coming to a stop on the road.

"Lois!" the man in the driver's seat, a tan-skinned man with dark hair and sunglasses on, yelled in accented English. "There you are! I've been driving up and down these beaches searching for you."

"Gustavo!" Lois greeted back. She gestured for Barry to follow. "Thanks for the pick-up. This is Barry. He needs a ride into town."

"Barry, eh?" Gustavo half-turned in his seat as Lois and Barry piled into the back row. "Brother, did you come out of a sauna or something? It's humid, but not that humid!" The man chuckled as he turned back around, grabbing something off the seat beside him. "Here," he said, tossing a raggedy towel whose color Barry would rather not speculate about backwards, "wipe yourself off, brother."

"Thanks," Barry replied, grimacing slightly as he patted himself down while holding his breath. Gustavo didn't respond and simply gunned it, which in his jeep meant a ratty acceleration from zero-to-sixty in about fifteen seconds.

"So," Gustavo spoke up, his eyes still facing forward, "you a journalist like Lois? Here to report on the big bad alien people?"

"Uh, yeah, something like that," Barry said. Gustavo cupped his right hand to his ear.

"What?" Gustavo said. "I can't hear you! My hearing's been shot since the war!"

"Something like that!" Barry yelled, leaning forward slightly and also using the opportunity to drop the towel-that-desperately-needed-a-wash into the front seat.

"Just kidding!" Gustavo laughed, mostly to himself. Barry turned to Lois with a confused expression on his face, and she simply shrugged as she turned to the other direction to look at the passing jungle. "My hearing's mostly fine. Mostly!"

The jungle on one side of the jeep and sandy beaches on the other soon turned into the burned-out husks of stone dwellings, and Barry could see them quickly enter what constituted the urban center of Santa Prisca. It was an impoverished land, indeed. Many were huddled outside of what had once been homes and buildings. Barry turned away. Two lifetimes had not prepared him for the depth of misery on display. And no amount of his powers could help these people, as much as he wanted to.

So, he kept his eyes averted. Instead, he focused on Lois, whose eyes were focused on the Santa Priscan people. Barry supposed that this was why Lois Lane was consistently an award-winning, world-renowned journalist; every version of her actually gave a damn when most people didn't, and even when those few did, she went a step further and put herself on the front lines of the world.

"We… are… here!" Gustavo cried out, skidding to a stop with a swing of the car as they approached a broken fountain that had seen better days. "This is your stop, boy and girl!"

Lois patted Gustavo on the shoulder with one hand, slipping him a small wad of cash with the other. "Thanks for another ride, Gus-Gus."

Gustavo made a kissing motion with his face as he held a hand up to his head like a phone, thumb and pinkie extended. "Call me!" The man revved the engine of his jeep off, taking off about as quickly as a ten-year-old Prius right after Barry stepped out of the car.

"Okay… that's a weird guy," Barry remarked, watching the jeep splutter away down the road.

Lois shrugged. "As far as mercs in Santa Prisca goes, Gustavo is one of the nicest, safest, and kindest you'll meet." She looked toward the west, where the Kryptonian gunship could barely be seen over the rooftops in the distance. "Let's go."

"It's all relative, I guess," Barry whispered, before turning to follow Lois.

It was a somewhat lengthy trek to port despite the nominal distance, the city being winding paths and blocked roads.

"The Kryptonians have been here for about two weeks," Lois explained as they walked. "In that time, they've set up shop around the port district, mostly taking it over, making it their command center, and offloading a lot of supplies. Every other day, they set up distribution lines for food. It's getting very popular among the locals, and none of the city's power brokers have looked to intervene against the Kryptonians." She looked up into the sky. "That gunship has been making routine trips as well, and they've had a consistent rotation of personnel on the ground as well. I assume it's returning to the mothership to retrieve more supplies."

Barry frowned, something about the whole situation nibbling at his mind. "I've been on that mothership, Lois. There was barely anything there. They can't be getting these supplies from their ship."

Lois turned to him slightly as they continued to approach the port. "Then where are they getting the stuff from? They're shipping in crates of goods from somewhere. I've even seen them bring in a few shipping containers before, too."

Barry felt that all-too familiar knot returning in his gut again. It was yet another change from the timeline he had known and from the Zod he had seen before. This was new, and that scared him. How could he possibly predict what this Zod would do?

"I have to check out their supplies," Barry firmly said. "Whatever it is, when I see it, we can go from there."

Lois nodded. "We're here," she said, coming to a halt in an alleyway at the second-to-last block of buildings before entering the port district proper. There was no one around them. "Just ahead, the Kryptonians have sealed off the roadways and set up checkpoints. This is as close as I've gotten, and it's about as close as I bring you in. Good luck, Barry."

"Thanks, Lois," Barry replied. "It was nice meeting you. Stay safe." As Lois turned and began to walk away, Barry pressed on the release for his ring and swapped into his suit.

"Alright Barry, you've got this," he whispered to himself. "Let's go for a ride." He took off in a burst of lightning.

Instead of cutting down the road, however, he phased through the walls of the buildings in front of him, passing through the living room of a family sitting on a worn fabric couch watching a small television and leaving through the opposite wall. The next building was an empty derelict, and he phased through it without issue and found himself on an open road with shipping containers in front of him. To each of his sides, he noticed an armored Kryptonian standing at the ready, blaster rifle in hand, but neither seemed to have noticed him yet. Barry continued to run, lightning streaking behind him as time was virtually halted, into the rows of shipping containers, finally coming out of the Speed Force when he was safely out of view.

Around him, nothing seemed out of place. The shipping containers were rusty and probably in need of maintenance and a few cans of WD-40, but they were clearly human in manufacture. In fact, he didn't think he saw a single Kryptonian crate in the design of the kind he had seen on their ship in Santa Prisca at all. The most exotic thing he could find were crates stamped with 'Product of Bialya' on the side.

The tension—and fear—returned. He was missing something important.

Barry phased his head through the walls of each shipping container, but they were all the same – foodstuffs, bedding and cloths, the occasional batch shipment of human electronics. Nothing was out of place at all. It seemed to be a perfectly normal port, other than the fact that Kryptonians were running it and a Kryptonian gunship was floating over it. He wasn't even seeing the usual Kryptonian technology that he would've expected to have been brought down as part of their purported aid mission. The only thing that was out of place, other than the Kryptonians themselves, was their gunship.

"Barry Allen?" a voice called out behind him. He turned to see none other than Kara, clad once again in the combat armor with a rebreather mask on, standing behind him.

"Kara? What are you doing here?" he asked, turning to her.

"Me? I've been here for weeks, helping the people here. I think I should be asking you that," she responded. Her hands were on her hips as she stared down at Barry. "You are not supposed to be here."

"Well, I wouldn't be here if Zod didn't try to make himself the savior of Earth. What, you didn't think that we wouldn't find this whole thing suspicious?"

Kara shook his head. "This is not why I told Clark about it. We are doing good here. Did you know how many people are starving in this place? I cannot believe you and your people have let it go on for so long!"

Barry clasped his hands tightly, pursing his lips, for a brief moment before he let go. "That's not the point, Kara. What are the Kryptonians doing here? Where has the gunship been going?"

"Gunship?" Kara frowned. "It has been retrieving supplies for the island. Nothing else."

They were now mere yards apart, staring intently at one another. Her expression gave little away to Barry. Suddenly, her eyes widened.

"Faora, no!" she yelled, a hand raising up.

Barry immediately tensed and entered the Speed Force, but even with his speed, he still couldn't move fast enough to dodge a marginally slower superpowered Kryptonian. He felt what amounted to a steel rod slam into the back of his head, and he went flying across the narrow corridor between the two rows of shipping containers and straight into Kara.

The last thing he felt was her arms warmly enveloping him as he collided into her.

Barry's eyes shot open, and he sat up in the bed, taking stock of his situation as fast as he could. It was an unfamiliar location, but he wasn't chained, shackled, or otherwise tied down like he thought he would've been. The room was windowless, and the gray concrete walls were bare save for the one opposite of Barry that had a television mounted.

The door, a solid metal affair, slid open, and Batman of all people walked in with a manila folder in one hand.

"You're awake," the Dark Knight stated. "Good. We need to debrief."

Barry groaned and rubbed the back of his head. "Where am I?"

"A secure location," Batman cryptically replied. "You were taken here after the fiasco blew up."

"Oh, no," Barry moaned. "Fiasco?"

Batman fished out the front page of a newspaper—the Gotham Gazette—and handed it to Barry. The big headline glared at Barry like a legal indictment when combined with the black-and-white image of a Kryptonian soldier carrying his limp and unconscious figure in their arms:

AMERICAN CAUGHT SPYING ON KRYPTONIAN AID MISSION

Barry swallowed. "Look, Batman," he began, but Batman cut him off.

"Here's another." He pulled out a second frontpage, this time from the Gotham Globe:

U.S. MAKES PUBLIC STATEMENT ON SPYING CONTROVERSY: METAHUMAN NOT A GOVERNMENT AGENT

"The government had to publicly disavow your actions as a rogue agent," Batman stated. "Swanwick has been on us for the last twelve hours, and suffice it to say, but he is not happy."

"I'm sorry," Barry whispered. "I shouldn't have gotten caught. It happened so fast that I couldn't even react. I didn't see who hit me."

Batman pinched the bridge of his mask's nose with a sigh before pulled his cowl off entirely to reveal his face. "No, Barry, it's my fault. I shouldn't have put you in that situation in the first place. As de facto team leader, that was my responsibility." Bruce took a seat on a nearby metal folding chair. "I thought we were ready for this, but it doesn't seem like we were."

"How'd I get back here in the first place?" Barry asked. "I would've thought the Kryptonians would want to interrogate me or something like that."

Bruce shook his head. "They held you for a photo-op, then transferred you to Clark when he showed up a few minutes later." He pressed a few buttons on his wrist and the television flickered to life. "Then they proceeded to throw all the suspicion back at us instead of themselves." The television played clips of human news crews touring the Santa Priscan port with Faora at the lead, pointing out food supplies and other necessities that they were handing out. "It was a trap, and we fell right into it."

"It doesn't make sense," Barry said as he shook his head. He ignored the throbbing soreness from where he had been whacked on the back of his head. "The situation doesn't add up."

"What did you see there?" Bruce asked.

"Pretty much the stuff they're showing on the TV. Food, clothing, some consumer electronics. Bialyan exports."

"Bialya?" Bruce suddenly said. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Barry nodded. "The markings were pretty clear about that."

"Shit," Bruce swore, the first time that Barry had heard that in any of his lifetimes. "I can't believe I missed it." He stood up and strode out of the room, and Barry decided to follow him, hobbling behind.

"Wait, Bruce!" he called out, but the man didn't turn around and respond as he continued to stride away. "What do you mean you missed something?"

"I hyper-focused," Bruce replied simply. They exited the concrete corridor into the larger chamber of what Barry recognized to be the Batcave. Bruce made his way to the large central computer, and he began typing as he sat down. "I've been looking at the wrong thing."

"What's the wrong thing?" Barry asked, looking at the displays. It showed interconnected webs and blobs of information that made little sense to him out of context.

"Santa Prisca. It was a decoy the whole time. The Kryptonians were never setting up anything there to threaten the mainland."

"Lois told me that their gunship was making routine trips, but she didn't know where," Barry stated, trying to fill in any gaps that may have existed as he tried to grasp what Bruce was getting at. "She assumed it was the mothership. I didn't think that could be the case because there were barely any supplies there to begin with."

"She was wrong," Bruce flatly responded. "The gunship's presence was a mere decoy as well, designed to lure our attention because it's one of the larger craft they have outside of their main ship. There." The main display flickered to a world map, dotted lines appearing between different countries.

"What am I looking at?"

"Flight patterns," Bruce explained. "I've isolated every flight path that human systems have managed to capture of Kryptonian flights. It's not complete because it's hard to track their craft, but it paints a complete enough picture." He gestured to one of the dotted lines. "That's the Santa Prisca resupplies. Lois thought they were coming in from the mothership, but that wasn't it. The gunship was actually making resupply missions from Bialya."

"I don't get it," Barry admitted. "What does that have to do with anything? What do the Kryptonians get out of importing supplies from Bialya of all places?"

Bruce turned to him. "Bialya is a Middle Eastern military dictatorship ruled by the crime lord Queen Bee. They have a particular affinity for importing cutting-edge weaponry. Which the Kryptonians can provide."

It began to dawn on Barry. "So, you think that the Kryptonians are shipping weapons and other armaments to the Bialyans, and then moving Bialyan civilian goods to places like Santa Prisca?"

"Precisely," Bruce nodded. He frowned slightly. "What I don't quite understand is why. What do the Kryptonians get out of making an ally out of the Bialyans? They seem to have set up a base of operations there, but for what? There's nothing in that desert, not even oil or significant ore deposits if the Kryptonians were interested in those."

"Can you rotate one of your satellites over Bialya? So, we can see it better?"

"I don't have to," Bruce continued. "I have one in geostationary orbit over the country. There's nothing out of the ordinary there – no Kryptonian ships, no Kryptonian bases, and no large industrial transfers. In fact, there's no activity out of the usual, which is why it's all the more suspicious."

"Why is that?"

"Because we know for a fact from aggregated global data that Kryptonian ships have been coming and going out of Bialya," Bruce stated simply. "My satellite would've caught at least something from that, which means that they're using some sort of camouflaging technology to hide what they're doing there. We need a man on the ground to figure out what."

"I'll go," Barry said.

"No," Bruce firmly replied. "Even if I was fine with you going—which I'm not—the risk of you getting caught and causing a second international scandal is too high. We're operating on a razor's edge as it is, and we can't afford to shrink the thin margin that Swanwick has built for us."

Barry was silent for a moment. "Kara," he finally said.

"Clark's cousin?" Bruce asked. "Are you sure?"

For a moment, Barry wasn't sure. His knowledge wasn't as secure as he had hoped it would be. But then he remembered her expression when he mentioned Clark, how adamant she had seemed when they met in Santa Prisca that Zod was there to do good for humanity. The sincerity in her eyes – that had held true between worlds.

"I—yes, I am sure," Barry said. "I trust her, and she's already embedded in Zod's forces. They won't suspect her if she agrees to scout this out for us. And I think she will, if we sell it in the right way."

Bruce examined Barry's expression for a moment, then nodded. "Alright," he agreed. "We'll rely on her as our woman on the ground. Now, how am I supposed to get in contact with her?"

To Be Continued

Notes:

Casting:

Lois Lane: Rachel Brosnahan (New York Fashion Week 2022)