Supergirl and The Robin Hoods - Chapter 7 - Lena Captured

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Chapter 7: Chapter Seven - Not What They Seem -
Summary:
Lena takes it upon herself to try to rescue Supergirl ... leading them, both, into a tight situation

Chapter Text
Chapter Seven – Not what they seem –
At the end of the nineteenth century the Standard Oil Corporation was depicted as an Octopus in an editorial cartoon that gained traction because of its accuracy. When the Standard Oil Company needed to move product, the company simply purchased – or intimidated – local carriers to give them the best rates and priority. No local carrier? No problem. The Standard Oil Company would create their own. A vertically integrated company that owned manufacturing, distribution, and point-of-sale of oil, gas, and every product in-between. Imagine what John D. Rockefeller could have done marrying his oil empire to the technology available a century later?
Lex Luthor imagined this. With the power of The Monitor, Lex was able to turn his imagination into reality. Lex became the long-armed cephalopod that had everyone, and everything, within the reach of one of his tentacles.

“Why would someone bother to put the earpiece on our Scout Master?” Alex asked, not really to anyone, although J’onn and Dreamer were in the room.
Alex was trying to problem-solve Kara’s disappearance as the three of them lit screens in J’onn’s new Private Investigator / Watchtower home.
J’onn’s 1950’s, “Sam Spade” décor meshed surprisingly well with the technology. A worn, brown desk with a computer screen. A leather sofa with a spectroscopic analyzing machine on the coffee table. Nothing, at all, strange for a Martian-turned-21st Century P.I on Earth.
“Thieves with a conscience?” offered Dreamer. “If you want someone out of the way but want to be sure they’re found safely, you’d do that.”
“Well, at least ONE of them would.” Said J’onn. “According to the statements, the woman seemed most concerned about her well-being. Almost apologetic. The men, she said, seemed rougher.”
While they analyzed the rope and technique, across town - in the Luthor Corp Towers - it was beginning to become apparent that the Girl of Steel had, uncharacteristically, not checked in at the end of the day. Lena was wrapped in her own research and she felt if her mind were filled with ideas, and engineering challenges, there would be no time, or space, remaining for reliving her relationship with Kara. Her exterior was polished, logical, some would say almost cold. Her environment inside was a storm of sorts. Ideas and memories blown about. It would have been easier, she thought, if her half-brother Lex had let her mind be “reset” my The Monitor - along with the billions who went on with their lives, oblivious to changes, both major and minor, that now marked the new, Post-Crisis, reality.
“Where’s you friend?” Lex’s voice broke her momentary trance. Not one to be caught by surprise, Lena regained her inner calm and didn’t look up from her microscope.
“She’s decidedly NOT my friend,” she answer her pseudo-sibling, “You, of all people, know that.”
“I know, dear sister. You’ll forgive my adolescent needling at your expense. Isn’t this what siblings are supposed to do?” said Lex, picking up a piece of tech from the lab, examining it, then placing it back on the clean, glass workbench.
“She never checked in.” said Lena. “I’ll check her comms.”
Before Lena reached her cell phone, it was chiming with Alex’s number. If Alex was calling her former boss, it must’ve been important.
“Where is she?” came the voice from her phone. Not a “Hello…” or “Lena, I need your help …” Instead, an accusation, she felt, immediately.
“Where is WHO, Alex?”
Lena was aware of the relationship. Aware of how Alex and Kara kept Kara’s secret life from her. Aware of the hurt and feeling that hovered – unspoken - in the air between them.”
“Kara … Kara is missing. She was at one of your ‘planned events’ and now all we have is her comm earpiece and a story from a Central City Scoutmaster of three people and a van.”
“Kara’s in trouble …” Lena said to Lex, which piqued his interest because if there was going to be “trouble” and “Kara” in the same sentence, Lex would almost surely be the first to know.
His tentacles had grown, Post-Crisis, to government, transportation, energy, and law-enforcement. If there was an industry - or technology - or bill moving through Congress -that could be altered to Lex’s will, he knew about it.
“I’ll call you back,” said Lena to her phone, as she moved from microscope to computer screen. What J’onn, Alex, and Dreamer had in tenacity, caring, and ingenuity – they lacked in access to the vast resources of Lex Corp. In a few minutes, Lena was using her AI interface and tapping into recordings and streams from a few hours prior at Central City Park.
“I’ll leave you to your super friends and today’s crisis,” said Lex, as he went to leave the lab. “When you catch up with our wayward Kryptonian send her to my office. Tell her I want to have a word with her super ears.”
Lex left while Lena zoomed and scrolled into a fuzzy image of a black van pulling away from the event that afternoon. A van with the infrared heat signature of two people in front, one kneeling in back, and one writhing on the floor.
“Kara …” said Lena, in a whisper to herself.

Lena picked up her cell phone and called Alex while stuffing a large duffel and holding the phone under against her shoulder. “We’re looking for a black van. I have the license … I’ll take care of this.”
Before Alex could respond, give any details about her interview with the Scoutmaster, or even get a word in, the line went silent and Lena was gone.
This was Lena’s chance to show up the Girl of Steel. Her chance to turn the rescue tables and show Kara that she was the better person. Everyone paints themselves as the hero in their own narrative. Lex didn’t see himself as a multi-armed villain. Inside that bald head, he was a savior. A needed anchor to a chaotic world.
Lena wasn’t a villain. Behind her brown eyes she was the victim. Living in the shadow of a brilliant, if unstable, half-brother and a driven and complicated stepmother. She emerged from the shadows as a force for good, not a tool for evil, as she knew she was depicted by Kara’s friends.
At the waterfront, three prols, part of a larger movement made up of people whose minds had been grasping for a Pre-Crisis world they couldn’t, quite, remember, weren’t the terrorists. No, they were the light-givers. The Prometheus’ who would bring light to people everywhere by exposing the greed and power of Luthercorp. If it took blowing up a dam and washing away half of Central City, so be it. The greater good would be served. Prols, and the initiated, in untapped “cells” all over the world, would see a statement play out, and they’d be hailed as heroes of a new resistance. At least, that’s what they told themselves.
Lena’s heels clicked down the shiny hallways of Luthorcorp with duffel over her shoulder slapping against her skirt with each step. Smart cuffs, computer, taser guns, random pieces of tech. She was the hero about to save a former friend to prove a point.



“What did she say?” asked J’onn as he - and Dreamer - looked at Alex, who was – in turn – staring at her phone.
“Nothing we don’t know,” began Alex. “A black van. We know that already. She must have access to street cameras and surveillance that we don’t. Dreamer, can you try and tap into the DEO database? I’m going to find Lena.”
With that, J’onn and Dreamer had their faces covered by the glow of computer screens while Alex, never one to sit in front of a glowing window to the world, went into the field in search of her sister.



Lena didn’t have to drive. The SUV - with tinted windows and her AI - did the driving for her, freeing her hands to tap and click her computer and search for the van on the next camera that was internet-connected. It didn’t take long. “LNC-2…” she was reading the license plate aloud and calculating likely destinations along the path from the park.
“Not to the freeway … so they’re in town.” She said, partly to herself and partly to her AI, ‘Hope’ …”
“Not to the water taxis…”

“Hope,” said Lena to here phone, which had a constant connection to her AI program, “Scan the waterfront. Parameters, the last twelve hours. Find a van matching that description.”
“Yes, Miss Lu-Thor” came the too-polite computer reply.

Perhaps a minute passed. “Miss Lu-thor. I have found the van you requested.”

“Take me there, now!” said Lena. While her vehicle navigated the most efficient route Lena checked her bag.

“Arriving, pier 23.” Said Hope.

It wasn’t an, especially, welcoming destination. A rusted number “23” denoted the pier. There was a corrugated door and a hideous yellow paint that probably looked much better when this was a thriving part of the Central City waterfront and not a forgotten pier that would soon be demolished to make way for the next container-ship unloading facility.

“Hope; pull around the corner and park.” Said Lena. “I don’t want them to know I’m coming.” She said more to herself than to her AI companion.

Lena stepped out, greeted only by a stray cat that gave her a curious look and the yellow streetlights that were going on earlier each night as autumn took hold.
Inside the warehouse, the Girl of Steel had spent the better part of an hour testing her bonds. She’d been stretched, though not uncomfortably, across Shannon’s bed. From headboard to the opposite end. Ankles crossed and bound with her wrists given the same treatment over her head. Supergirl had been compelled to tie herself, partly. And Shannon, who took pride – and her time – in dressing, tightening, expertly completed her helplessness and securing the kryptonite-infused bonds, which held Kara down.

“Hope,” Lena said, quietly as her silhouette passed in front of unused warehouses and broken streetlights, “interface with local scanners. I want to see what’s gong on in that warehouse.”
“Yes, miss Lu-Thor,” came the reply that was a bit too loud for her liking.

Lena turned down the volume on her phone. But, those vibrations were already in the air and Lena Luthor wasn’t the only person in the warehouse district with technology that was incongruous with the surroundings.
Lena came to the front of the warehouse. There was no way to go around. Fences and barbed wire gave way to pilings and the bay. It was the front door.
Not once for stealth, climbing around through windows, or anything that approached some kind of movie-ninja-superhero theatrics, Lena used an approach that was, decidedly, Lena. The direct approach … she knocked.

To her surprise, there was an answer.



“Damn that Lena,” said Alex. “She has every resource on the city. She could find the people who took Supergirl in about five seconds.” Alex downed the glass of wine she’d poured herself; not so much to enjoy but to try to calm herself. It didn’t work. So, she sent another down to keep it company.
J’onn was, uncharacteristically, in his Martian form. Eyes focused on the screen and telling Alex to focus.
Dreamer sat back form her screen. “We find Lena, we find them both. Can’t we track her phone?”
“Right,” said Alex. “We can. I still have some DEO tricks and favors.”

Those two glasses of Chardonnay must’ve been congratulating each other on a job well done. Alex found her focus and her calm in the storm. She worked best under pressure and this certainly qualified.
Clicks of a keyboard and phone calls to friends and she was like an arrow in search of a target. What appeared on her screen wasn’t, quite, what she expected.
“Dreamer. What do you make of this?” asked Alex.

Both J’onn and Dreamer stood behind Alex’s chair … rushing to the point where Dreamer knocked a vase over and J’onn couldn’t have cared less.
One the screen, where a blue dot should have pulsed and triangulated Lena’s cell phone location, there was – instead - about a dozen dancing dots, bouncing around a map of Central City like an 80’s video game where the goal was to gather, or eat, the dots.
“What the hell?” came a chorus from behind Alex.

“Someone is messing with the cell signal. We can’t nail it down …” said Alex, who, at this point, was getting read to send a third member to the Chardonnay party in her system.



Lena did her best to look nonplused by the lady who answered. After all, in a district filled with run-down warehouses on a forgotten part of the waterfront with hardly a person in sight on the street, why wouldn’t someone answer the door? It would be like ignoring treat-or-treaters on Halloween the following week.
“Uh, hello …” began Lena to the green-eyed lady who held the door open just enough for Lena to get a sense that there were other people in the room. “Uhm, Hi. I’m lost .. I saw a light and was hoping you could help me.”
Lena was many things. An intuitive scientist. A, potentially, wonderful friend. Certainly a person of refined taste. But, lying, this ad-lib – nosey reporter, parental questioning, private eye – type of lying. Well, let’s just say that in this field, she left quite a bit to be desired.
“Oh … dear…”said Shannon. “Lost … that’s SO easy to be nowadays.” Shannon was enjoying the moment. Even putting on the subtlest of affected accents. When Shannon was little she’d visit West Virginia with her father. After a week in “the sticks” (as he would call his home town she’d have the slower speech cadence and pseudo-southern drawl down.
“Well …” she continued “… why don’t ya come on in and we’ll get you to a phone, sweetie.”
Lena took a tentative step through the door and Shannon closed the portal behind her so the metal frame echoed through the cavernous rafters of the cold warehouse.
The brief game was over. Lena knew. Shannon knew. Supergirl – squirming and straining against ropes only thirty meters away heard the sounds and knew something was going on. She may have been rendered only “human” strength by the kryptonite in the ropes. She may have had her eyes covered by a blindfold and not able to use her vision that went beyond the visible. But, Kara could still hear, perfectly well, the sounds of doors slamming and people talking. She’d been struggling – to no avail – against the ropes but had also heard the “prols” plan.
A tsunami warning to evacuate the city. Strategically placed charges to breach the Luthor’s power plant in the dam, to wash away the Luthor’s coastal empire – several buildings of which lay down-stream from the massive lake held back by the dam above Central City. This would be their opening statement. Their preamble. Their message to other “prol” cells that dramatic action could be taken to shake up those in power. Not a wonderfully thought out result. But a plan it was … and Tech, Yose, and Jazz – Shannon – were this far down the path, and fate had delivered them one of the Luthors themselves. When things go well … they tend to build on themselves.
“Where is she? Where’s Supergirl?” said Lena … finding a strength in her voice that even surprised Lena.
“Oh …” came the answer from the makeshift command center as Yose rose. “Your friend is safe. And she’s out-of-the-way … for a bit.”
“She’s NOT my friend.” Said Lena.
“Funny ..”added Tech, “she said the same thing about you. You two are complicated. No matter. I think it’s about time you joined her.”

Lena took a step back and pulled from her duffel a small, black box. The purpose wasn’t, immediately, clear. But she held it like some kind of weapon and played her cards, with which she was confident.
“Stop right there!” said Lena. “The DEO tracks me constantly and one push of this and you’ll wake up feeling like you’re nursing the worst hangover of your life.” With that, Lena held her finger over a black button on the even darker box she held.
Tech and Yose would have laughed … but Shannon wasn’t sure their plan would work, so they skipped the gloating and went right to the reveal.
“’Tell ya’ what, sweetheart …” began Tech … “Go ahead and push that button and, while you’re at it, check your fancy phone.”
Lena did.
Yose and Tech looked at each other. Finally, Yose spoke up. “You wanna tell her, or should I?”
Lena’s phone screen was a series of random symbols. Moving, dancing, bouncing around.. but making no sense. The button on her stun device amounted to a soft “click” and nothing more. And her knees … she felt them get a bit weak.
“E … M …. P … Lena dear. Electro-Magnetic Pulse,” said Tech. “Let me explain …”
Lena didn’t need an explanation. She knew what any good high-school physics student knew. An EMP can render electronics useless. An EMP can be created with something as dramatic as a nuclear blast or something as mundane as a Tesla Coil. An EMP was what rendered her stun gun and phone useless. The DEO (and J’onn, Alex, and Dreamer) WERE tracking her signal. But, they were tracking two dozen false signals as well. Their screens would have been a sea of blue blips. Where was the real Lena? You may have well have asked; “Where’s Walley?”
For five full seconds … which felt – to Lena – like five full minutes – an, almost, polite silence hung in the air. Then, Lena ran for the door. It was more of a gesture than a real effort.
Tech took her by the arm. “Jazz … would you like to make our ‘guests’ comfortable?”

Jazz – Shannon – smiled. “Certainly.”

Meanwhile, Yose was picking up Lena’s dropped duffel bag. “This might save you some time.” Said Yose, as he reached in and pulled out a set of “smartcuffs.”
“Planning to use these on us?” asked Yose. “Sorry … I’ve a better idea.”

Lena was led, by the three past the two disheveled, makeshift, rooms then to Shannon’s little district of the warehouse. There, from the doorway, she saw the Girl of Steel. Still in her blue and red, but with arms crossed and tied to the bedpost and her arching back making no progress in freeing her bound ankles and legs.
“Lets see if we can get you two, ‘Knot Friends,” to stay for a while, shall we?” said Shannon.
“It’s NOT friends, …” said Lena … picking up on Shannon’s double meaning.

“Oh … we’ll see.” Said Shannon … as she scooted a heavy chair across the floor and positioned it next to the writhing Supergirl.

“You’re making this too easy.” Said Shannon. She removed Supergirl’s gag and blindfold and Lena saw Kara in a way she’s never seen her before. Vulnerable, helpless, struggling, but almost resigned to her bonds.
“Supergirl,” said Lena.
“Lena” said Supergirl. “I take it the Cavalry isn’t far behind?’
“Not quite …” said Lena.

The “Smartcuffs” were clasped to Lena’s wrists, behind her back, as she sat in the steal chair. A few “clicks” and her ankles were clasped together as well. Lena resisted, and the “smartcuffs” responded to their programming by reaching towards each other and joining -mid-way- to essentially, hold Lena in a seated hogtie.
Kara, meanwhile, had her wrists released from the headboard – but still tied together. Her ankles were untied and released as well.
Yose and Tech positioned Supergirl astride Lena … they were seated face-to-face. Kara’s wrists were released but quickly re-tied behind her back, around her own cape. The Kryptonite still doing its’ work, of keeping her weak enough to submit to the ropes.
Kara’s ankles were retied to the back legs of the steal chair, while spare lengths of the Kryptonite rope were wound around the squirming “friends.”
“By now I’m sure you realized that no one is coming for you,” said Tech. “They’re chasing ghosts. Phantom ‘blips’ on their screens.”
Shannon went to work, securing Kara to Lena. Kara, straddling her once-closest friend. Lena, wrists secured behind her and ankles crossed and bound – again – by her own invention. Together, arching, pulling, straining against their bonds and against each other. This was how they would struggle and writhe until dawn. Until the birds woke the city and the “prols” moved ahead with their plan. Two helpless friends … forced to confront their bonds, and each other. Together …. Pulling and tugging .. but helpless and inseparable.
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