Supergirl&The Broker : The Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

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Abductorenmadrid
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Hi all,

Here is the latest story in my Supergirl And The Broker series. In the previous story we slowly see how the antangonist, Dr Molly Matthews, influenced by a sick alien mind, conspires to defeat Supergirl and her allies. That story is linked below.

viewtopic.php?f=9&t=27649

Following on directly from that story here is what happens next and if you want some visual reference for some of the characters this is what I have so far ...

Image



= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

FRIDAY

The large gleaming SUV powered over the terrain, its high beams carving through the darkness ahead. Nothing could stop it, the traction control held it to the tarmac, the anti-lock brakes keeping it safe as it swerved to avoid a deer emerging from the darkness onto the country road. Inside the vehicle the anxious father looked across at his wife who herself checked on their child who was safely secured by the pre-tensioning seatbelts. The anxiety inside the cabin melted away as the parents noted the perimeter of airbag panels, ready to protect them if anything were to go wrong …

“The brand new Ranger Terrano-X with QuadDrive - built to …” the voice accompanying the advert announced only to be cut off, instantly revealing a black screen.

Then a newscaster appeared, momentarily caught off guard and not quite ready for his cue. The faint voice of the director bled into the audio for a second, which triggered the news reader to begin speaking. At the bottom of the screen a big red banner appeared with BREAKING NEWS emblazoned across it.

“OK, so, we are bringing you over to us live, these concerning pictures, as you can see are from the White House. What we are watching are scenes of heightened activity as Marine helicopters drop off some cabinet members. Now, the word we have been given is that there has been an attempt made on President Garrison’s life. I repeat, if you are just joining us, an attempt has been made on the President’s life. Now, we have no official word on her condition yet, but we have been told that Airforce One has been despatched and that the Vice President has been taken to an undisclosed location…”

Behind the newscaster in one corner a looping B-Roll of footage was showing Camp David, a smiling and waving President boarding Marine One and the comings and goings of key cabinet members.

“…The President who only the other day was at Camp David had been attending an undisclosed event, which, we are being told may have been a military demonstration of some kind. We are working on trying to get more details about that, and the condition of the President as we speak. Our correspondent at the White House now has been trying to get more information but as you can see, the military and secret service appear to be locking everything down…”

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Cathy Grenfold was diligently transposing some hand written minutes onto her computer. Her office was quite small and windowless though the lighting was bright and almost natural looking. The walls were bare save for a photo of President Garrison and a glass doored shelf unit which was closed, a lock indicating that a key would be required to gain access to the contents. Through the slightly smoked glass were many official looking binders, all arranged in neat rows, by colour and by date. The computer keyboard clicked and clacked as Cathy typed, sometimes pausing as she double checked a word in the scrawled notes of her boss.

Then it happened, a not too frequent occurrence but from time to time it came to be that the blue phone rang. Cathy stopped typing and spun her swivel chair around and ended up facing the special console that was responsible for the blue line. Unlike her main phone which only allowed her to communicate within the building the blue line was a one way phone line from beyond. The person on the other end of the line could be anyone from anywhere and responsibility to deal with it fell on Cathy.

Cathy pressed a key on the console and a screen lit up which showed the number that had dialled her and the number that had been dialled. While the blue line was one line it could be reached by dialling many different numbers. Cathy's first job was to determine who the caller thought they were calling. The console blinked “Loading Procedure” for a second or two before the screen changed, a pre-arranged script appearing before Cathy's eyes.

Oh, not seen this one before

“Hello, Doug's Hardware Supplies, can I help you?” Cathy began, reading her script naturally.

There was a pause.

“Sure can you give me your loyalty card number and those of other members if you are doing a joint order?” Cathy continued, her eyes scanning the script.

The voice on the other end of the line sounded anxious but was clear, solid and concise. Cathy was used to that, though it had been a while since a female had called her last. Usually the blue line brought with it the voices of confident, professional sounding men, which considering what line of work they were in was of no surprise.

“OK, thank you, and how can we help you today?” Cathy asked, her screen flashing that the card numbers were approved.

Cathy began to type into her console as she listened to the voice at the other end. The other woman's words whilst delivered clearly had a hint of anxiety behind them.

I bet this is her first time

“OK, give me the three part numbers please ...” Cathy said as she began typing in the caller's order.

With a steady precise cadence the voice read out the three sets of numbers, nine digits each and Cathy typed them in.

“Very good, and what size and colour options would you like those in?” Cathy asked brightly as she continued through her script.

The keys clicked and clacked as Cathy worked to process the order, the various drop down menus on her screen revealing the nature of the choices being made by the voice on the other end of the blue line.

“I am required to tell you not to read back the following information. If there is an error you are to resend me your part numbers. Do you understand?” Cathy said firmly.

There was a pause and then she heard the voice once more confirming for her to go ahead.

“Very good. Item one – Gender - female - organisation – FBI – Position - Special Agent –Racial profile - Afro-American – Age …” began Cathy, reading back the order slowly and steadily.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

At the other end of the line Neyra Thornton stood, eyes closed, heart racing, her head resting on the edge of the cowling protecting the public payphone that she was using. In baggy jeans and a grey form hugging hoodie which she used to hide her face and her beautiful short spirally hair she sought to prevent anyone identifying her.

Back came the information that had been processed by the lady at “Doug's Hardware”, the reciting of the information coming back to her sounding more like a death sentence at every moment.
McGee, Supergirl, I hope you know what it is you are asking me to do! thought Neyra.

Then the lady at Doug's read back Lucy's details. Lucy had mentored Laura, the fledgling Spydra. Lucy had taught her all that she could, raised Laura from being just an empowered but unguided weapon and turned her into a focused, honed warrior. It was mainly for Lucy that Neyra was now jumping through this hoop of fire. Lucy might be flying into a lot of danger at her destination and Neyra was going to try and get her out of it.

“Item two – gender - female - organisation – FBI – Position - Special Agent – Racial profile…” continued Cathy.

Well thank god that's Lucy taken care of, for now at least

“Item three, gender – female – organisation – FBI – position - Special Agent – racial profile – Caucasian …” , Cathy continued to read through her script though she was close to the end.
Neyra listened intently, mentally tallying each attribute as the woman on the other end of the line red them back to her.

“Is your order correct?” Cathy asked, her finger hovering over a key on her keyboard at the console.

There was an uncomfortable pause as Cathy waited and then with a nod of her own head she struck a key as she heard the voice at the other end of the line respond.

CLICK

“Thank you, your request is being processed, your loyalty card contains details of how to track your order,” Cathy said brightly.

There was another pause and then Cathy smiled as the appreciative voice at the other end of the blue line said their thanks and hung up. Cathy's eyes watched her console as it continued on its own predetermined script.

“INFINITY MEGABIT ENCRYPTION COMMENCING...”

“ENCRYPTION COMPLETE”

“ACTIVITY LOG FORWARDED”

“PROCESS COMPLETE”

Cathy noticed the job was ended and spun around with a sigh and prepared to resume her typing on the other computer.

Just another day at Langley!

Neyra discreetly wiped the handset of the phone down with a handkerchief and set it back on the cradle then glanced cautiously about herself. No one was around and so she headed back towards her car which had been parked a short walk away.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


To Andy Matthews the view ahead was one big blur, pastel pale blue over bland dark grey. The twinkling lights, the myriad of distorted clock faces and rows of thorny spikes formed one continuous blurry wall. And as for the sounds, they were merely notes in a chaotic song that had no melody, no rhythm and no end.

Turn the twirly thing...

The view fluttered black a moment, lazy, drowsy eyelids seeking to plunge the unfocused eyes behind them into perpetual darkness. With a struggle the unfocused blurry view was maintained though his two drunken eyes were struggling to hold a lock on to the row of numbers right in front of them.

Numbers less… less numbers… down… down…

A light coloured snake flopped upwards into view, slapping in to the myriad of frozen pools of water. A groan protested the snake's failure to strike home and so the white serpent continued to slide higher and higher towards its destination.

Why not easy?

The head of the white serpent snaked its way across the twinkling lightning bugs and over thorns in the wall as it sought to go higher. Bashing into ridges and dropping into troughs the snake rose upwards on its meandering path.

Make it not big…

The snake found its way on to a smooth rocky ledge, its jaw lazily opening and biting weakly onto the stem of the juicy mushroom. With a weak squeeze the snake clung on, its writhing torso seeking to twist the mushroom clean out the outcrop of rock it grew from.

Less… less... less...

The white snake began to twist and twist at the little mushroom, a pair of nearby lightning bugs extinguishing their light in disgust. Much to Andy’s delight the snake’s head reared up and slammed down on the mushroom's dome top causing the remaining lightning bugs to flash excitedly.


Wait… better… wait…


The snake, job done, skidded back down the wall, it's long white body coming to rest dangling over a tree trunk.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl drifted down to the grey surface, in her hand a large cylindrical object which she held by a grab handle. Taken from a robotic machine that had attacked her Supergirl had been told the cylindrical module seemed to be a danger to her, though now closed up it seemed to have no effect on her at all.

The green glow …

Supergirl set the module down causing the powdery ground to kick up a momentary cloud which settled back in slow motion. Now curiosity got the better of the heroine and for the first time she began to examine the module. On the one hand it seemed familiar to her, like something from a fading dream, though, she was confident if she had encountered the mechanised behemoth and its dangerous weapons before she would have remembered.

Need to see inside...

Supergirl frowned in frustration as she sought to look inside the module and then flinched as suddenly her field of view was confronted with a hazy white barrier preventing her from seeing inside the unit. Supergirl waved her hand past her eyes, revealing the bone and muscle inside and flexing her fingers with interest before gazing back at the module which was a whited out mass.

It must be lead!

Supergirl shook her head dismissively and decided her current plan was best. Leave the module far away from people, safe from being meddled with or being used against her. If she needed to come back to it she knew exactly where she had left it. But now she had to …

What was I doing before dealing with this?

Supergirl looked up into the pure black void above with its grand light show, the Milky Way glowing in all its glory, and then towards the small pale blue disc that sat above the horizon. Earth.

Ah yes … THAT!

With a silent smile Supergirl took a few confident steps forward and then took off, her playful giggle being generated by her voice box left muted by the lack of air to carry it. Supergirl soared higher and higher and then in the blink of an eye was out of sight from the lunar landscape.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Neyra entered through the front of her house not knowing for sure what she would find within. To her relief though everything was fairly quiet and tip-toeing past the living room she noticed Laura was more or less where she had left her. Under a duvet, TV remote close to hand Laura slept deeply, crumbs of pizza on the plate in front of her and the remaining dregs of cola in the large bottle alongside.

It had been a couple of hours since Spydra had returned from her adventure but evidently she was still reeling from her effort. Laura had mumbled to Neyra how deeply discharged she had become, only able to complete her mission drinking some cola she had been really lucky to find. Now the cute freckled red head was sleeping it off and recharging her batteries on the calorie rich meal she had consumed.

Neyra permitted herself a second to admire Laura, proud of what the heroine had managed to achieve and then moved on to the stairs which she climbed swiftly but quietly. She had to move quickly now and temporarily abandon her current life. Opening her wardrobe she parted some shoe boxes on the top shelf and pulled down the small metal case hidden beyond.

Popping free the latches on the case she took a deep breath and wondered; who was Neyra Thornton becoming?

The six cards, credit card sized, awaited. Three remained in their “Doug's Hardware” state but the other three....

“Nerys, Nerys Jones, Federal Bureau of Investigation” whispered Neyra to herself as she plucked out the first card.

Flipping the card this way and that it looked pretty official to Neyra's naïve eyes. She had to trust they looked just like the real deal.

“Time to ditch Neyra then, I guess,” Neyra reasoned. Popping open her purse she ditched everything that had her name on it. Her driving license, gone, credit cards, gone. Scooping them all up she placed them in her bedside table.

“Luna Wang, no prizes for guessing that one is for Lucy” Neyra said to herself, holding up the next card. Again, marked up as FBI it looked pretty official.

“And lastly, Celine Weiss, which I hope to god is Selena or else I have just caused someone to have a really bad day,” Neyra thought, her stomach doing a little somersault with apprehension at the situation.

Neyra slid the other cards into her wallet and then took a deep breath. She had to get moving and so continued with her hurriedly crafted plan.

Go-bag

In her wardrobe a backpack awaited. On the insistence of the others she had prepared a bag of clothes, some cash and essentials for if she ever needed to hit the ground running. Thank goodness she had done so but she had always imagined it would be about being able to support Laura. She had never imagined she would be called upon to do this by herself though.

Now a burner

In the house were a group of brand new, never opened burner phones. At some point along her new adventure with Selena and her gang Neyra and Laura had been advised to stock up, just in case, and now was the time to break one of them out. Neyra pulled apart the packaging, installed the waiting new SIM card into the cheap looking phone. There was already credit on the phone which was useful and inside the packaging there was a handy card that had the instructions for topping up her credit. Neyra paused a moment then pulled the SIM from her own phone, putting it into her purse.

Just in case I need to call home!

Neyra took a very deep breath and composed herself. Her life, albeit temporarily was being cast off, ready to take on who knew what. To think, Selena was prepared to do it, Lucy too, and at the drop of a hat. How could they do it? Perhaps it was a lack of an anchor to things that mattered, like family and friends. Maybe it was that difference that made doing this hard for Neyra, but all she knew was that the others needed her.

Time to make that call


Picking up her new identity card Neyra consulted the reverse for the new number that the lady at Doug's Hardware said would be there. Neyra powered up her new cell phone and with a deep breath dialled the number. Who would be waiting at the other end?

“Hello,” Neyra began as the number was answered.

“Deputy Assistant Director Ingram speaking” said a male voice at the other end.

“Errrr, hi. I am Ney... err Nerys, Nerys Jones, I was instructed to check in with you,” Neyra said, her opening words spilling clumsily from her mouth.

“One moment Mrs Jones,” responded the voice.

There followed an agonising pause, one where Neyra could feel her pulse in her neck beating into the base of her brain. She was a fake, a phony, a fraud with a pretend identity and without anywhere near the skills to back up her masquerade. What questions might come? What was going to trip her up? What was going to smash this mask she was wearing?

“Special Agent Jones, you are being re-activated, your new assignment is within the OPE, reporting to me. We will bring you in. You have your ID card, correct?”

“Yes, correct,” Neyra responded. She was trying to keep her responses short, tight and limited, she had no idea how much this Ingram guy knew about her. As for OPE, she was hoping to figure that out as quickly as she could.

“Good, nominate a collection point, I will have someone there in an hour,” Ingram said.

“An hour? OK, collection, the bus terminal, Littleton City,” Neyra suggested. She certainly wasn't going to be picked up from her house or her work place. The bus terminal at least gave an illusion of just passing through.

“Littleton City, Bus Terminal, one hour. You will be taken to the nearest field office; you can establish yourself there and then we will talk again. Welcome back to the Bureau,” Ingram added before hanging up.

Oh shit oh shit oh shit, I did it!


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Andy Matthews blinked as the intercom phone rang. The wall ahead of him was starting to make sense. Lights, sounds, switches, dials, all replaced the nonsensical garden wall with its mushrooms, pools of water and firebugs that had confronted him before.

“Where… am… I...?” groaned Andy. Raising his white shirt sleeved arm which mopped his sweaty brow he then turned to …

“Jo? Jeezus … fuck … fuck … fuck …” exclaimed Andy as he saw the captain leaning over to one side, drenched in blood which seemed to have erupted from his neck. Andy recoiled in horror from his grim discovery. The hands and face of the captain were pale blue and a momentary and reluctant touch from Andy confirmed he was cold and utterly lifeless.


WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP

“Are you there? Stevenson! Help us! What's going on!” pleaded a voice from beyond the cockpit door, no doubt one of the cabin crew.

Andy flinched and looked over his shoulder at the door realising it must be locked. Andy reached towards the controls for the cockpit door before his hand recoiled. The dial had been set to “deny”. Then he looked back at Stevenson and that was when he began to remember something, something horrible.

“Did... Did I do this?” Andy said, fear in his voice. Looking around behind his and the captain's seat he saw the makeshift weapon that had killed the man sat alongside of him, on the floor, covered in blood.

Wha... what do I do …?


WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP WHUMP

“Stevenson! Matthews! What is going on!? We have passengers down! We need to get medical assistance for them!” demanded the voice beyond the door.

That was when the intercom phone rang again. Andy blinked then reached to the phone and picked it up.

“Ye... yes ...” Matthews answered nervously.

“Oh thank god, Andy! We have to land … we've got dead passengers everywhere. I … we … we've got to land ...” pleaded a voice. It was Jackie, one of the junior cabin crew from coach class.

“We've had a… errrr... some sort of emergency here, where is your first? Where is Janet?” Andy asked.

“I can't wake her. Janet is down, Carol and Lena too,” Jackie said frantically, naming the three most senior cabin staff aboard.

“OK. Try and round up what crew you can and organise helping the passengers. I... I am going to get us down,” Andy said.

“OK, I can do that, I can do that ….” the voice said, trying to reassure themselves.

Andy hung up and then looked mystified at the controls trying to understand the state of play.

OK, autopilot on. Altitude is … really low … why is it so low? God, depressurisation, hypoxia, we decompressed. When we realised we must have dialled in a lower altitude...

Andy continued to check the rest of the controls, checking speed and the fuel situation and then began to work on working out his aircraft's position. Fortunately the autopilot seemed to be keeping everything on course, only the altitude was wrong. Andy did the maths and quickly concluded turning back was his best option. Pressing his radio button Andy took a breath then spoke.

“Gander Control, BlueGlobe 251,” Andy announced, his voice shaky. There was a pause, the dead silence lingering in the co-pilot's ears.

“Gander Control, BlueGlobe 251,” Andy repeated anxiously.

Again silence was the only reply he heard. With a frown the co-pilot then began to check the settings of his radio only to notice the lights on the control panel were out.

“What the?” Andy said, worrying about the extent of the meddling that had happened in the cockpit.

Glancing to the centre console Andy quickly saw that the transponder was set to off. As far as the rest of the world was concerned they were invisible! Quickly Andy turned the transponder back on then looked to work on the radio.

ACARS …. ACARS

The ACARS system was like one of those special boxes you plug into your car to diagnose a fault which would be been logged by the on-board computer. The plane had thousands of sensors and relays and tiny little components everywhere and this was an effective system to report what was wrong with the complex beast.

Fuses?!

Spinning in his seat Andy went to unbuckle himself to check the fuse panel when he noticed what was caught up in his lap. There was a white slip of paper and unfolding it he quickly saw it was written in his own hand, despite not remembering having done so. With only a few lines they were simple reminder notes...but to himself.

“Pull the fuses, kill the transponder … god, depressurise the plane?! What have I done?!” Andy whispered to himself as he read the note.

Anxiously looking upwards he finally saw one of the key problems of the flight and reset the pressurisation to automatic. Survivors on the plane were going to find the quality of the air supply improve very soon now.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



Will Mitchell maintained his stony silence along with his team of engineers in the back of a troop transporter. They were all sat, wrists bound in front of them with cable-tie type restraints, and had been ordered to stay quiet. Sat nearby stern looking soldiers ensured that their prisoners did not confer with one another.

Mitchell had been the one who had used a spare Mech to prevent Molly from killing the President, but in thanks he had been arrested along with the rest of the engineering team from the tech-demo. Molly Matthews, the brain child of the Mech weapon platform had also been arrested and was in a separate vehicle, as was Captain McAllister who had been the test-pilot of the Mech when everything had gone wrong.

Now the trucks were entering into a military encampment and Mitchell was sure that soon this would all be cleared up and he would be freed together with all his other colleagues who he was sure were innocent. With a hiss the pneumatic brakes brought the truck to a halt, the rear tailgate dropping promptly afterwards.

“Right, everybody out!” a Sergeant gruffly commanded his prisoners.

Mitchell and his colleagues were roughly drawn to their feet by yet more soldiers and guided down from the back of the truck. Mitchell was among the last to leave the truck, his colleagues man handled away from the vehicle and led towards some kind of military building. As Mitchell dropped down to the hard dusty ground behind them another figure fell into a heap in front of him from another vehicle parked alongside the truck he had been in.

The figure looked up at him. It was HER. Matthews. Her eyes widened realising that for this split second she was at his mercy, and she could see in his eyes that he had none.

“You, you fucking bitch! YOU DID THIS!” Mitchell snarled, his foot slamming onto Molly’s chest and forcing her back in to the dirt. Molly’s head was at Mitchell’s feet and with rage in his heart his right foot swung back, ready to deliver his wrath into her face. A cheap shot, but one he had no hesitation in taking.

“KNOCK IT OFF!” a soldier said angrily, his powerful arm pushing Mitchell off balance and away to one side, preventing him from striking.

“PAH!” Mitchell, seeing the gap open between himself and Molly decided to spit in her direction, clear liquid striking her on her cheek.

Matthews glared angrily back, though it was a fearful anger, and then wiped the spittle from her face with her shoulder. Her upper arms were held firmly by a pair of soldiers who hauled her up to her feet and she shrugged them off her once she could support herself.

“Sergeant, get them in their cells, we have to wait for the suits to get here before we can interrogate them. And don’t let them talk, we don’t want them getting their stories straight,” an officer commanded, a shake of his head indicating his disapproval at his prisoners’ conduct.

“Yes sir!” responded a Sergeant who was with the soldiers escorting the prisoners.

Mitchell looked ahead to the building and then saw it was the MP’s section, barred windows evident down one flank of the structure. Mitchell groaned realising that this was all going to take some time to sort out.

“I should have known that genius bitch was a frikking psycho,” Mitchell uttered.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



Marvin Church paced slowly behind the line of air traffic controllers who diligently watched their screens as the daily tide of flights ebbed and flowed through their assigned sectors. Marvin, who was the daily supervisor, was there to lend a hand if things got busy or if one of the junior hands needed some experienced input. Often though Church was merely there to give a supporting nod if an important decision was required to be made.

In front of him one of the duty controllers was signing off communications with an aircraft. Having been slotted into its assigned flight corridor and altitude it was normal for the plane to break communication while it was in the mid-Atlantic only to check in again with the receiving air controllers at the other end.

Then, the controller's phone rang and he picked up the handset.

“Hey, yep it’s me. What's up?” began the controller his voice relaxed.

There was a pause while the controller listened to whatever message was being conveyed, his mouse hand making a quick flick of the wrist as he sought to pull up some information on his screen.

“Yes, BlueGlobe 251 … yeah, it left us on time… yes… yes… thirty minutes overdue? No, you are right, they should have a tailwind. OK, I will raise the alarm here; keep in touch, yeah, bye …. Oh … what? OK crap, I will pass it on …”

The controller replaced the handset of the phone back in its cradle and sank back in his seat, slumping like a great weight had been put upon him. Then, with decisiveness he spun around in his chair to see Marvin his supervisor stood close behind him.

“I don’t like that look, what you got?” Marvin asked, his face mirroring the concern on his colleagues face.

“BlueGlobe 251, it's overdue in Shanwick. They have had no radio contact. There is no transponder signal, no data at all,”

“Speak to tailing traffic; see if anyone has an eyeball on this guy.” Marvin said, leaning in closer to the monitors. Lined up in neat rows in their various assigned corridors there were other aircraft making the journey across the Atlantic, perhaps one of them had seen their errant companion.

“Shanwick already did, they have not seen anything,” the controller added.

“Oh boy, alright, let’s go by the numbers. What equipment is it?” Marvin asked with dread.

“It's a 380… I’ll get you a head count and there is something else you should know. Their company, their maintenance section has just noticed there had been some screwy ACARS information before the feed went down. They spoke to Shanwick first, hoped the flight was in their sector,”

“OK, I need to call this in… wait… what is that?” Marvin said his words slowing as a red tag appeared on the screen behind the controller.

The controller spun around in his seat and noticed the red unscheduled contact appear in one of the flight corridors linking across the Atlantic. The pair drew in close to the screen and eyeballed the red contact.

“That transponder code, that’s them. But, what are they doing! They are into opposing traffic,” the controller said in disbelief.

“I guess they’ve had a decompression or something, that’s more or less safe altitude for that. Separation is good for now down there. There is twenty thousand feet of clearance between them and anyone else coming the other way,” Marvin suggested said as he quickly analysed the emerging situation.

“OK, but I am going to clear out that corridor, just to be sure. I will switch traffic back into it once they have passed. It’s going to get a little gummed up for a bit while I juggle all this,” the controller said, his hand gesturing at the contacts he was going to have to move out the way.

Marvin peered at the readings on the screen in dismay, “See if you can raise the plane while I contact Shanwick and let them know we have them,”

The controller nodded and began to try and raise the rogue aircraft on his headset.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Backpack over her shoulder Neyra must have made for an interesting sight. In a dark jacket and matching trousers she had tried to get that “Fed” look with what was in her wardrobe but her shoes, while practical were not the best match with the rest of her outfit. Glancing around the perimeter of the bus terminal she was trying to keep an eye out for whoever was meant to collect her.

If I were FBI what would I be driving?

As the appointed moment approached Neyra's heart ran faster. Would it be a male, a female, younger, older? Were they going to figure her out straight away, or would they just accept her? Were they going to be high in rank or some lowly agent sent on an errand? She was sure all these questions were going to be answered really soon.

Then she saw it, a dark Escalade making the crossing over a junction, preparing to make a slow drive by of the terminal, the young male driver looking anxiously at the rows of parked buses searching for his passenger. Neyra looked intently back, hoping to draw attention to herself and the pair were suddenly locking eyes on one another. The Escalade parked on the side of the street and to Neyra's embarrassment its red and blue lights lit up with all officialdom, the headlights strobing in sympathy.

Oh jeez …

Neyra trotted up to the passenger door of the Escalade, the window of which electrically lowered. The middle aged man in the driver’s seat leaned closer towards the passenger side and looked towards Neyra who approached.

“Special Agent Jones?” the man asked.

Neyra nodded and produced her purse, revealing her card and passed it through the window. The man glanced at her ID a moment then returned it. Pressing the door lock button on the big centre console the clunking of locks could be heard.

“Jump in,” the man said.

“Wait, your turn, who are you?” Neyra asked, her body language indicating her indecision to enter.

“Oh, sorry … Special Agent Mark Denton,” Denton said, plucking his ID from his inside breast pocket of his jacket.

Neyra made a quick glance between the man and his ID and with a nod entered the vehicle, tossing her backpack onto the back seat.

“Hi,” Neyra said, offering out her hand.

“Hi, I hope you haven't been waiting long. I was suddenly pulled off what I was doing to come collect you,” Denton replied, quickly shaking her hand before preparing to pull away.

“No, I have not long arrived here,” Neyra said, instantly feeling the pressure of the questions, despite them being innocuous.

“Arrive on one of the buses?” Mark asked, continuing with the small talk.

“It's kind of complicated,” Neyra fibbed. It may have been an innocent question, or perhaps the probing had already begun in earnest.

Special Agent Denton glanced across at Neyra immediately intrigued by the attractive woman sat alongside him.

“Uh oh, I know that look,” Neyra added with a smile which always seemed to soften people that she was speaking to.

“Sorry, didn't mean to pry. My supervisor didn't tell me much, just to get you back to the Field Office ASAP,” Denton continued, his eyes checking for traffic in his mirrors as he switched lanes.

“How long do you think it will take us to get there?” Neyra asked, glancing about her, the view from an FBI vehicle looking more commanding than in her usual ride.

“If the traffic is fine, about 3 hours,” Denton said after a thought induced pause to calculate the timing.

Neyra looked at the time and added on the hours. Getting to the office was going to happen late in the working day and she would need to arrange somewhere to crash once she got there. That was the first thing on her mind, but getting in touch with McGee was next.

“So, did your Supervisor mention anything else?” Neyra asked, wondering who knew what about her and her less than conventional entry into the ranks of the FBI.

“Well, just to get you settled in. I will organise a motel for you for tonight and later we can work on something a little better if we need to. I guess then you can get started on whatever assignment it is you have,” Denton offered helpfully.

“I hope they didn't pull you off anything important to get me,” Neyra said, apologetically.

“At the moment everything is important,” Denton said, the cadence of his words broken up as his concentration switched between navigating a busy junction and talking.

“Oh?” Neyra said, glancing at her driver.

“Well, I often liaise with the local police department here and … well the shit is about to hit the fan with these guys. Really I should be around for that. In the meantime I’ve just heard the terror threat level has just shot up…something is happening! And to top it all you arrive…” Denton explained.

And then it came to Neyra. Spydra's hard work overnight had sparked the FBI into life investigating the corrupt “Club”, its police members in particular. Now the bigger picture, the INFINITY plan that Supergirl had given her had come to the fore, Agent Denton trapped between the two. Throw in whatever this terror threat was and it was obvious life was going to be busy for the FBI right now.

“So, where do you want to be, dealing with what is here, or the terror threat?” Neyra asked, her eyebrows rising.

Denton glanced at his perceptive passenger and became guarded at her question. Was she testing him? Neyra read Denton like a book, the miniscule movements of his face, the movement of his eyes, she knew exactly what she had done, albeit unintentionally.

“Hey, it makes no odds to me,” Neyra said, trying to reassure her escort.

“That obvious huh? Sure, what is happening could be another September eleventh, or it could be nothing. But, equally my job is here in Littleton and right now I could be making a difference figuring out what is happening here,” Denton confessed.

“I think I must have missed some developments. I heard on the radio that they were rounding up people on the succession list but ...” Neyra began, evidently the terrorism threat becoming bigger than she realised.

“Heck yes, the word is there has been some sort of plot to assassinate the President. Everything is clamming up shut as we speak, they are going into lockdown in D.C,” Denton explained.

“Oh my god, is there any word on how Garrison is?” Neyra exclaimed. Garrison, being America’s first woman president was obviously held high in her estimation.

“Not yet, but rumour is Supergirl showed up to help save her. Apparently what happened was too big even for the Secret Service detail to deal with. Shit, even the army had been there, apparently,” Denton continued.

“Kara ...” whispered Neyra quietly, her eyes gazing off into the distance in deep thought.

“What was that?” Denton said, not hearing what Neyra had said.

“What… oh… just thinking,” Neyra said innocently though her mind now was churning all the new information.

What did it mean? Kara had told her that Vel's monster was up to something and now there had been an attempt on the president's life. Did it have anything to do with McGee's plea to have Neyra help with Selena and Lucy's plight too? Or was it something else?

“Well anyway, before I can help Littleton or get any new assignments I have to get you back to the office,” Denton said before turning the wheel and taking the Escalade up the on-ramp to the highway.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Andy Matthews looked over his shoulder and caught sight of the air force fighter jet that loitered just off the wing of the giant Airbus A380 he was piloting. Andy was sure if his captain was not dead in his seat he could also have put eyes on another jet off the other wing. The passengers that had regained consciousness were startled and alarmed to see their armed escorts.

Since his escorts had arrived Andy had started to receive instructions by a new voice, a military voice, and was being guided to his new destination. First he had been ordered to dump fuel out at sea. Andy was cynical in thinking it was to prevent him using his plane as a flying bomb, but considered they were planning to land him soon which required he reduce his plane’s weight. Afterwards the route Andy had been given was odd at first and then he realised why. Being over New Hampshire, the green hills were sparsely populated, and, if he did try and plough his plane into the terrain the death toll could be kept down. No doubt any false move by himself was only going to get himself shot down at this point, passengers or not.

Then the radio barked into life in his ear again, his vigilant babysitters handholding the wayward aircraft to its final destination, “BlueGlobe 251, turn left onto heading oh-nine-oh, descend to five thousand,”

“Turn left to ... err ... turn left to oh-nine-oh and descend to five thousand, blueglobe 251,” Andy repeated.

Andy reached forward to the autopilot and dialled in the left turn and the change in altitude.

“Where are they taking me,” Andy wondered anxiously aloud. The course he had been given was more or less going to point them back the way they had come.

“Err, control, if you intend to land me soon can I at least have weather and runway stats please? You may not have noticed but this is a lot of plane I have here, and I have to prepare the cabin, BlueGlobe 251” Andy asked anxiously.

“BlueGlobe 251, for airport equipment see Sierra Whisky Foxtrot. Wind is zero to two knots from the east. Continue and await instructions,”

“Airport sierra whisky foxtrot, waiting for instructions, BlueGlobe 251,” Andy replied then quickly loaded up the layout of airport code SWF and saw …

“Oh, Stewart …” he mouthed. Both an airport and National Guard airbase it was capable of at least landing his large plane. The much respected Galaxy transport plane operated from the base and if it could land here then so could he.

“Crew prepare cabin for landing,” Andy said, his thumb resting on the button to transmit to the cabin.

Andy had the aircraft flight computer import the SFW airport settings into his various flight computers, the ILS frequency and other navigation aid settings and then computed the correct flap requirements and airspeeds for landing. Just then the plane levelled out, the turn to the east completed just as they reached five thousand feet. In the distance the twinkling white lights of the runway threshold were visible.

“BlueGlobe 251, you are cleared to land on runway zero-niner, await crossing and taxi clearances,”

“Cleared to land runway zero niner, awaiting crossing and taxi clearances, blue globe 251,” Andy responded, as was his second nature to.

Andy picked up the glide slope to the runway, the ILS system showing him the way. The auto-throttle played gently on the controls as the descent continued.

“Flaps two,” Andy said instinctively his hand resting on the flap controls. He glanced at his captain, ready for his assent and then the young second in command remembered he was dead. There would be no reassurances. No corrections. No advice. Andy was on his own. With a gulp Andy reluctantly pulled the flap control lever.

VWEEERRRRR

Now it was time to do some manual work, Andy reaching for the throttle controls, killing that feature of the autopilot. Andy teased at the throttle, holding the aircraft’s speed at a seemingly impossibly slow one hundred and sixty knots.

“TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED” the aircraft’s warning system barked.

“Gear down,” Andy announced instinctively despite knowing no one was there to hear him.

CLUNKCLUNK…………..CLUNK

The gear-down lights illuminated, the immense metal struts that would take the weight of the plane on the ground were all locked into position. Onwards the plane went, the ground slowly getting closer and closer.

“Flaps three,” Andy said, though this time more quietly. Nothing could supress the disciplined mind of the pilot from going through with his drilled call-outs.

The fighters surrounding the plane continued to shadow the airliner though one powered on ahead and climbed away from his view. Andy checked his speed, his glide slope and then set flaps to full. Gear was down and locked. Flaps were set.

“TWO HUNDRED – MINIMUM!”

Andy’s nervous hands worked the throttle gently, his eye momentarily distracted by the Humvees parked on the taxiway to the side of the runway.

“ONE HUNDRED”

“Speed good, sink rate, good,” Andy murmured to himself as the giant plane passed over the threshold of the runway, the ‘piano keys’ swiftly passing by beneath him.

“FIFTY … FORTY … THIRTY … RETARD… RETARD … RETARD” the automated voice ordered.

Andy pulled the throttle back and the nose up slightly, flaring for the landing. There was a pause and then the plane subtly touched down.

DUMPF ………

Andy put the thrust reverses into action as he heard the spoilers deploy, all helping bring the aircraft’s speed down to a respectable taxiing speed.

THUD...DUD…THUD...DUD ….THUD…DUD …. THUD …DUD… The staccato rhythm of the wheels passing over the rough seams between the tarmac segments that made up the runway surface played like drums through the undercarriage.

“BlueGlobe 251, clear to cross runway thirty four and expedite exit at Alpha Five, taxi via Kilo and Stop,” ordered the voice that had micromanaged him since the jets had intercepted him on the way back to the mainland.

Overhead the other fighter jets powered by with a roar, their shepherding over with for now. Little did Andy know that the first jet that had passed by before had already done a loop around and was far enough behind to check he was committed to his landing. If not … well … the cannon in the nose of the fighter would make sure the airliner never took to the air.

“Roger. Clear to cross thirty four, expedite exit Alpha five and taxi via kilo then stop, BlueGlobe 251,” Andy responded.

To one side of the runway on the taxiway the Humvees drove at speed, escorting the mammoth aircraft as it headed towards its destination. The large machine guns mounted to the top hatchways of the Humvees were manned, the guns trained on the aircraft.

The aircraft tentatively reached taxiway Alpha 5 and turned, passing between Humvees which were guarding against any escape attempts and steering the plane towards the area of the airport segregated for military use. Lined up in neat rows ahead was a small fleet of Galaxy transport planes but between him and them would be his final destination. An aircraft handler with coloured batons waved Andy to approach and once the plane reached the desired spot crossed the batons over his head, the signal to stop.

“Shut down and prepare for boarding,” the voice on Andy’s radio ordered.

Andy reached to the controls and shakily began to power down his plane, the whine of the engines slowly fading. On the tarmac fleets of troop transport trucks arrived, the men in the back disembarking and forming up into rows while another airport vehicle drove into view, its sole purpose to carry sets of stairs to gain access to the plane. Hidden from Andy’s sight were men with chocks who began to imprison the wheels of the aircraft, preventing it from moving.

Then the fleets of military ambulances came, their blue lights flashing. They lined up close to the ranks of troop transporters and then the medics began to disembark too, some officers approaching them, no doubt to discuss their plans.

Andy pressed the intercom button and spoke, “Crew, disarm doors and cross check,” then, with remorse, he put his head into the palms of his hands and sobbed. BlueGlobe 251 was more or less home, but far from its intended destination and no doubt with fewer living souls on board than when it left.

Jackie Gould was now, by virtue of the death of several of her colleagues the senior steward of flight BlueGlobe 251. Together with the remaining cabin crew they had begun segregating the living from the dead and trying to give attention to those that needed saving. Hastily they had put together a list to help the emergency services locate passengers in jeopardy, a list which now was in her hands as she looked out the window of the port side door with the cabin PA phone in her hand.

“I need everyone to stay in their seats while the authorities board the aircraft first, thank you for your patience,” Jackie announced shakily. The ordeal of the flight, coupled with her sudden and unwanted rise in responsibility had hit the woman hard.

Passengers looked out the side windows of the plane and could see the soldiers forming up on the tarmac together with the ambulances behind. The alarm in the passengers’ voices was evident as the consequences of their terrifying flight now became apparent. This was something more severe than a technical problem that had struck the flight. Jackie released the door mechanism of the plane and swung it open to be confronted by a soldier, his gun raised.

“GET DOWN! EVERYONE GET DOWN!” raged the front row of soldiers who forced their way in.

Jackie dropped to her knees sobbing, piece of paper in one hand that was clasped on her head. Soldiers passed her, guns raised as they worked their way into the plane one after the other. The sobbing and terrified passengers recoiled in their seats, some wailing and shrieking in fear at the demonstration of force. Then some officers entered next, the first cabin section now secured meant it was now safe for them to enter.

“Are you in charge!?” demanded a Major of Jackie.

“No, no, err, Captain Stevenson is but ... but I’ve not spoken to him, only his first officer, Matthews,” Jackie replied defensively.

“But you are in charge of the cabin, correct? Correct?!” the Major demanded.


“Yes, I guess yes … I … I have numbers… souls… we should …” Jackie stammered, trying to recompose herself while offering out her sheet of paper.

“But who took the plane? Was it a passenger?!” demanded the Major before he even looked at the information he had just been given.

“No... no one … only the two pilots are on the flight deck, no one took the plane,” Jackie replied in confusion as she gestured to the doorway guarding the cockpit.

The Major glanced at the Asian woman who was covered in a blanket and placed in the recovery position lying against the cockpit door.

“What’s her story?” The Major asked.

“Her … she … she was in Business class … she … she was seen pleading to the flight deck before … well … before we descended. She, she seems to be unconscious now. We have to get her seen to as soon as possible, she is on the list,” Jackie replied, retelling what she had seen while she had been trapped in her seat, sipping air on the shared emergency supply.

“I see,” the Major responded with suspicion before gesturing to one of his men who then slung his weapon over his shoulder and moved towards the blanket covered woman.

The Major then looked at the piece of paper he was just given and cussed under his breath, “Jeezus... this is a shit-fest,”

In his hand was a list of seating locations for the hastily triaged passengers and a quick tally at the bottom.

Souls On Board
Total 536 (From h/c) +2 on flight deck
62 Dead (inc 4 crew)
92 Non-Responsive (inc 2 crew)
131 Minor
251 OK

Passengers On Board 514
Crew On Board 24
Total 538 – 536 = 2 unseen on flight deck (Cpt Stevenson / FO Matthews)

All the while the Major assessed the situation more soldiers poured onto the aircraft, the men filtering through the two decks and working their way back to the tail and ensuring the plane was secure.

In business class an army captain stepped into the opulently furnished cabin, his Sergeant giving the nod that the area was safe and clear. The captain walked up to the first few groggy passengers and gave his assurances that everything was going to be ok. Moving on he was about to do the same again when …

Selena who had been unconscious began to awaken, the now redundant yellow oxygen mask still on her face. As her eyes struggled to focus she locked on to the outline of a face that was in front of her. Slowly the face began to come into focus, the nose, the eyes, and the shape of the mouth sharpening into one coherent image and…

“Yo….you...” exclaimed Selena weakly before falling back unconscious. The hint of recognition of the man that had been in her eyes was unmistakeable.

The Captain recoiled from the woman in front of him in shock. Could it be? Could it be ‘her’?

“You’re shitting me! … Err, Sergeant, detain this woman, have the MP’s put her in the lock-up,” the Captain exclaimed.

“Yes sir!” the Sergeant responded, immediately selecting two men from his detail to carry out the Captain’s orders.

The Captain was gobsmacked. The red headed woman looked normal now but those eyes had betrayed her. Her glare he knew from when he first met her would haunt him till he met his grave. She had been in his custody while he was a Lieutenant after she had been captured in the desert in a far off Middle Eastern hell hole. The lie he had been told was that she had been a sympathiser who had been helping Islamic fundamentalists.

It was while this lie had been allowed to prevail that her mistreatment at his and his colleagues’ hands had taken place. His only saving grace, so he felt was that she was a criminal of a different kind and was promptly sent to Leavenworth. It was not long later he learned that the hideously scarred woman he knew as ‘The Thing’ had escaped that prison and was loose. Now the Captain was going to be sure that she returned where she belonged once he confirmed her identity but he was very sure that who he saw in front of him was her. And, if he was to relive a little fun while he had her in his clutches, then so be it … playing with ‘The Thing’ had always been an enjoyable experience.

“And the greatest thing is, they will thank me!” the Captain thought.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



Special Agent Denton led Neyra, or Nerys as her fake ID now named her to the elevator that was in the basement garage and that would take them up to the second floor, as high as she could go on her current identification.

“OK, I will hand you over to the administrators and then I have to check in with my section head and try to find out what the heck is going on,” Denton said with a sigh as he swiped his ID card on the elevator control panel.

Neyra was filled with dread knowing that she was going to be separated from the man who she barely knew yet had built up a rapport with on the car journey to the field office. He had accepted her at face value but now she was going to have to pass the imposter test again with new people, administrators.

The elevator did not have far to go before the doors opened again and Neyra found herself on the second floor and a low tier administration section. Denton stepped forward a moment, his foot holding open the elevator door as he pointed the way.
“OK, this is where we part company for now,” Denton began, offering out his hand, “Down there, second on the left you’ll find personnel, between you and them they will get you to where you need to be,”

Neyra reached out to the agent and the pair shook hands.

“Thanks for getting me here,” Neyra said, casting a nervous glance down the corridor.

“Don’t sweat it. Right, I have to go I will see you around,” Denton said, backing into the elevator, “and don’t look so worried, they don’t bite down there,” he said with a chuckle.

“What? Oh? Yes, sure … and bye …” Neyra responded. Then with a ping the elevator doors began to close, letting her see her one and only friend in this hostile place slowly get put out of view.

Neyra looked one way then the other and knew what she had to do. One charade had ended, now another was about to begin. But at least if she could do it once she could do it again.

OK, I can do this

Neyra walked down the corridor, passing the first door on her left then arriving at the …

“Oh,” Neyra said quietly as she found herself in an open plan office with several desks that were taken up by smartly dressed men and women.

The man nearest to the entrance looked up and saw the new face in front of him, “Hi, can I help you?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, I am Special Agent Nerys Jones, I ... I have just been recalled,” Neyra explained, clumsily.

“Recalled? Odd. Do you have any identification?” the man asked, sitting up attentively at his work station.

“Oh, sure,” Neyra responded as she patted a pocket and produced her card. Having once been emblazoned with the title ‘Doug’s Hardware Supplies’ Neyra was relieved to see it was still transformed into a FBI ID card.

“One moment,” responded the man has he began to transpose details of the card into his computer, “Oh, you are OPE right. We … we got a flag on the system that you were going to turn in somewhere. Welcome back, well, assuming this is what you wanted…”

“This. Well, someone has to do it I guess,” Neyra responded nervously.

“I just need to create a new OSAC for you Special Agent Jones and then you can get up where you belong,” the man said, dryly as he drew a set of keys from his desk drawer.

“OSAC …” mumbled Neyra. Yet another acronym she needed to know, assuming it was important.

The man rose from his chair with his keys in hand then spun away from his desk, “I will be back in a moment,”

Thoughts of doubt whirled through Neyra’s head. Had she been found out? Was she going to be turned in and placed under arrest at any moment? Neyra looked around the open plan office, each glance at her, each hushed phone conversation potentially about her, that she wasn’t who she claimed to be. When was the end coming … when was the …

“Here you go, Special Agent Jones, sorry about the delay,” the man said returning to his desk.

Neyra jumped in surprise and then realised who had spoken to her. The man held out yet another card, this one featuring a magnetic strip along with what appeared to be the same photo she had supplied for her current driving license. INFINITY had to get the images from somewhere it seemed and had stripped the information from the only place it could.

“Oh, thanks,” Neyra replied, taking the card from the man along with a nice new lanyard.

“Do you know where you need to go next?” asked the man.

“I have…” Neyra began taking in a breath, “…absolutely no idea,” confessed Neyra as she clumsily mounted the new card into its holder before placing the lanyard over her head.

The man scoffed with a smile, the response was common from new site visitors, “OK, take the elevator up and …” he began to explain.

Soon Neyra was in the elevator again which responded to her whims now that she had a card of her own. Studying the card in the privacy of the elevator she discovered that OSAC was the ‘On Site Access Card’ which allowed he to move through the various security doors and make use of the elevators, something her basic identification failed to provide.

PING! Announced the elevator as she arrived on floor four where the OPE section was housed in this particular field office. A useful floor directory told her where she needed to go, office 4200.

“Four-two hundred … where are you?” Neyra said to herself quietly before seeing the way.

Strangers moved through the corridors barely noticing Neyra as they focused on their work though no doubt a few comments about the attractive newcomer would be made at the watercooler. How long would this anonymity continue, she wondered. When was the charade she was playing going to step up in difficulty?

Neyra rounded a corner and was greeted by a large open plan office again, some glassed walled offices marking the perimeter. Some desks were unmanned while others had either agents or administrative staff carrying out their duties. At one desk a suited man was sat, looking at his computer while another older man stood leaning over his shoulder looking at the screen. Neyra’s arrival caused the pair to look in her direction though and the senior man patted his seated colleague on the shoulder, ending the conversation.

“Agent Jones, I presume?” the senior looking man said, rising from his leaning posture. A little over weight, his baldness leaving two flanks of short grey hair either side of his head confirming his … experience.

“Yes, err, Sir,” Neyra responded feigning some confidence though inside she died a little more from yet another compounded lie passing her lips.

“Good, my office, let’s talk,” he responded. Was that a hint of sarcasm, annoyance, or badly conveyed nicety?

The man spun around, a trailing arm beckoning Neyra to follow him towards what appeared to be a corner office. Neyra followed, her heart pounding again as she sensed confrontation was imminent. What was this man going to want to know? What was he going to say? This nightmare that Neyra had freely jumped into seemed without end. The man swung open the door and entered then turned, beckoning Neyra once more.

Neyra entered, and saw the man’s desk. On it, facing her was a nameplate, ‘ASAC Edward Rowland’. On the wall behind him, President Garrison smiled down at the pair.

“Please, take a seat,” Rowland said, closing door behind Neyra and walking around to his side of the desk, planting himself into his leather executive chair. On his desk sat a pair of reading glasses that he put on, resting them on his slightly pointed nose and peered at his computer screen.

With a few clacks of the keys there was a pause as Rowland read something from his computer screen and then with a sigh he reclined back, then gently tossed his reading glasses onto this desk again, taking in the sight of Neyra in front of him.

“OK, so what is it, Special Agent Jones? It’s not often Deputy Assistant Director Ingram calls me so, to have him buttering me up about my budget allocation this year and then casually dropping you into the subject has my alarm bells ringing. Why are you here?” Rowland asked.

Neyra sensed that Rowland must already be sensitive about something. Anyone at ease with their boss would not be suspicious about anything they might do. So it was easy to see Rowland’s distrust of his boss was going to reflect onto her. She had to remove any sense of collusion from Rowland’s mind if she was going to make friends with him.

“Well, sir, I merely had a call from the Deputy Assistant Director telling me to report in. I was being ‘Recalled’, he said. It is only coincidence that I am here; I was travelling when I got the call near Littleton. Half an hour later and I would have been on a Greyhound and probably would have ended up in a different field office,” Neyra explained, building on her lie.

Rowland processed what he was being told. He recalled the chatter being that Agent Jones was being collected from a bus terminal.

“So, your assignment isn’t specific to this office?” Rowland frowned.

“No Sir, not that I believe,” Neyra responded quickly seizing on Rowland’s softening mood.

“Ingram told me you were to report directly to him. You can understand how that makes me feel left out the loop just a little,” Rowland confided in Neyra.

“Yes sir, but I suspect that I am going to be mobile, I don’t think I will be working from your office, if that’s any consolation. I was just in the area when this all started,” Neyra explained, taking a crumb of comfort from the seed of truth buried in the lies.

“No doubt the Deputy Assistant Director will do me the courtesy of telling me. Do you know what your assignment even is? I saw in your file your background is in business so, white collar crime perhaps?” Rowland asked, fishing for answers.

Neyra’s mind whirled. Certainly her real life skills were art based but she had some qualifications in business too and these seemed to have rubbed off onto her alternate identity’s CV thanks to INFINITY. Her father bad been quite wise in ensuring his daughter had a backup qualification if art did not work out for her but it was Special Agent Jones who was reaping the benefits, having a solid education to rely on.

Neyra took in a breath, about to respond when there was a tap at the door. Rowland looked up to see one of the administrators at his door, a large thick padded envelope in one hand, the other hand gesturing between it and Neyra. Rowland beckoned the shirted man to enter.

“Sorry Sir, this just came in for Special Agent Jones,” the man said.

“You are a popular person, Jones. Ok Peter,” Rowland said, nodding to the newcomer who passed over the large package.

“Oh, for me?” Neyra asked in surprise accepting the package.

“Peter, what offices do we have free? I imagine Jones here wants someplace where she can get herself organised,” Rowland said.

Peter glanced between Rowland and Special Agent Jones, who in his eyes was probably the most attractive creature he had seen in the ranks of the FBI.

“Peter?” Rowland pressed Peter into action, seemingly being lost in thought.

“Oh, umm, two-oh-six is free,” Peter responded, flustered a moment, “I will show you where it is,” he continued, looking at Neyra.

“OK, Jones, you’re good to go. I am going to get onto Deputy Director Ingram and check what it is we are meant to do with you,” Rowland said as he leaned forward, gathering up his reading glasses once more.

“Yes Sir, thank you sir,” Neyra said before rising.

“Please, come with me,” Peter said quietly, gesturing with his hand towards the door.

It was a short walk to one of the offices that made up the perimeter surrounding the desks of all the rest that worked there. Peter tugged the door open and let Neyra in, then hit the light switch, illuminating the inside.

“Your extension number is on the phone, and there is a directory in one of the drawers. If you need any help with anything site related, well, I’m your guy,” Peter said, his tone highlighting his shyness.

“Thank you,” Neyra said as she spun around in the office, taking in what her fake persona had obtained for her.

“OK, well … I hope you settle in ok,” Peter said, retreating to the doorway.

Neyra moved behind the desk and took her seat and placed the package on the desk glancing between it and the man who now stood at the door.

“Yes. Now, thank you, but I should get on,” Neyra responded, confidence rising slightly.

Peter nodded and spun away closing the door behind himself and locking out the sounds of the office beyond. Peter made a fleeting glance at the black beauty he sought to know then relented, returning towards his desk.

Neyra paused, then with a sigh tugged open the padded envelope dreading what may be inside. Beyond the glass wall of her office no one looked in her direction, her office being no more different than the hundreds of others. With a subtle angle Neyra carefully tipped the contents onto the cleared desk of the previous occupant. First, a black leather wallet. Neyra opened it. Inside was a gold badge.

Federal Bureau of Investigation - Department of Justice

“Oh fuck,” Neyra said as the reality set in, but how much worse could it get? She tipped the envelope further.

CLUNK

A clear plastic grip seal bag appeared next with its heavy contents inside, a Glock with a field maintenance kit and two clips, both full to the brim with nine millimetre rounds.

McGee, I will … I would … oh McGee what have we done? I fucking hate guns and now… I have to wear this thing. And what about Kara? Does she even know what I am having to do in her name? And what about Laura?

A holster kit slid out next, then a set of handcuffs, a pouch to hold them and the keys that went with them.

Well that’s just great, McGee, just great!

Next was a plastic bag with some items in it. Neyra’s eyes widened as she saw the contents. A passport and driver’s license for Nerys Jones, a personal credit card, an FBI expense account card, and a health insurance card. Neyra’s mind processed what it meant. These things had to come from someone who was “in on it”. Someone had made sure that the INFINITY persona Nerys Jones could do whatever it was they were meant to do. Lastly a cell phone appeared with a charging kit.

Neyra drew the cell phone towards herself and turned it on. There was no lock set yet and a message reminded her as such. Being technologically minded she knew her way around the menus in the phone and checked the contacts list and found it had only a few entries.

DEPUTY ASISSTANT DIRECTOR INGRAM
SPECIAL AGENT CELINE WEISS
SPECIAL AGENT LUNA WANG

This was her world now. Those three names. Well, it was Special Agent Nerys Jones’ world at least. She had brought two of the others into the world with her phone call and Ingram was their boss, or so she thought. Or perhaps she hoped, she wasn’t sure. She still needed to speak to Ingram and feel her way around the problem of figuring out exactly what he knew about her. As soon as she resolved that the easier it would be to progress with her mission which was what McGee had asked her to do, save Weiss and Wang, err Walsh and Wuan, from whatever their fate might be.

Neyra looked out the windows of her office and noted that the world continued in ignorance of her clandestine mission, save for Peter who cast a glance at her, only to feel spurned as she ignored his desires. Neyra’s heart was, after all, held back for a special someone else. Neyra stared at the contacts list and with a deep breath dialled out to Ingram, clamping the cell phone to her ear.

Beep boop deep deep bip bip beep doop de dooop da beep – dialled the phone.

BEEEEEEEP … BEEEEEEP – fuck it’s ringing! Neyra had half hoped it would be a busy tone, and forever, but no. This was going to be a painfully fast encounter it seemed.

“Ingram,” answered the Deputy Assistant Director.

“Sir, it’s me, err, Nerys Jones,”

“So I saw,” Ingram began, referring to the caller ID that appeared on his own phone, wherever he was. “You have your package then, good,”

“Yes Sir,” Neyra responded. So far, so good, but what did he really know about her. “Sir, I am a little confused, I am not sure what you know about my .. errr … recall ….” Neyra continued, dipping her toe into the murky water of intrigue. Was it full of happy goldfish or were there a load of piranhas ready to devour her to the bone.

“I know what you are not, understand? The OPE is the best place for INFINITY generated FBI personas so here you are. I don’t like it but somehow it seems to work, so, here we are. Now then, you have called in but the other two, Weiss and Wang have not. What is the hold up?” Ingram asked with concern.

Shit, what should I tell him? I guess I should start with the truth if I am to get him to trust me.

“Sir, Weiss, Wang, they are on a flight to Amsterdam,” Neyra began recalling what McGee had told her.

McGee suspected that with Andy Matthews installed on the flight as replacement pilot, and Lucy and Selena on board as passengers it might be a trap. All he could do to protect them was have Neyra change their identities. If they did survive whatever it was they were facing it could help them escape later, being bullet proof INFINITY identities, rather than the aliases they were using.

“WHAT! What? Not BlueGlobe251!” Ingram blurted before reigning himself in, “You only just got these identities for them. You’ve switched them out mid journey?”

“Yes sir, I had to …” Neyra began to try and explain.

“Are you… this is a …” Ingram was speechless.

“I know it’s not ideal but …” Neyra began to try and say something consolatory.

“NOT IDEAL? Have you any idea what trouble that is going to cause? They are Weiss and Wang now but they will be carrying the passports they used to board the flight. When they run checks on all the passengers and … jeezus Christ,” Ingram fumed.

“I don’t understand. Why would they do that?” Neyra asked, trying to placate the stranger’s voice.

“Turn on the news! That flight, it has turned back! You better pray your two friends aren’t responsible for that or …. Jeezus…,” the voice growled.

“Oh… god... ok … ok … we can fix this …” Neyra stammered. McGee had told her that Kozny knew something was up with the flight but nothing quite like this.

“No, YOU will fix this. If you jeopardize the INFINITY system there are safeguards to burn you all, understand?” Ingram said, his tone threatening.

“OK, OK, I am on it. At least let me try and figure this out,” Neyra pleaded.

At the other end of the line there was a sigh, obviously indicating he was thinking due to the pause before he spoke again.

“If they double check the passengers you need to come up with a credible explanation as to why they were on false travel documents. Do that and I will do what I can to make everything line up this end, you understand?”

“Yes sir, I’ll work on it, I promise,” Neyra said firmly. She didn’t have the answers now but she was sure that with time and maybe some input from McGee she could come up with something workable.

“Fine but if this starts going south I will pull the plug, understand? I can give you a heads up before it happens but Wang and Weiss? They will be on their own,” Ingram warned Neyra.

“Yes, sir, I get it and no doubt my first move should be to meet up with them both and get them on board,” Neyra said. Sure she had screwed up and the man she was speaking to was angry at her but he was all she had, she had to build a plan with him.

“That would be my first move too, but hurry before I pull the plug on them, now good bye, Special Agent Jones, and don’t call me until you have some positive news,” CLICK!

Neyra recoiled from her phone and pushed the red disengage button, terminating the call from her own end.

“McGee … I need McGee. It was him that got me into this mess anyway,” she fumed. Putting her newly issued FBI phone to one side she fished in her pockets. Out came her burner phone and with some sleight of hand she inserted her personal SIM card back into it.

MCGEE

Doop dip deep dip beep boop deep dip dup up beep – it dialled.

Neyra listened to the ringing tone patiently. Once, twice, three times … four … fuck McGee, pick up, pick up, pick up!

“McGee here … oh Neyra, thank god” McGee answered.

“Don’t give me ‘oh Neyra’! Where the hell are you? I am dying here!” Neyra hissed into the phone. In the open plan office Peter caught sight of her outburst then averted his eyes.

“Neyra, keep your head! Have you seen what’s going on? The flight, I have just heard. It’s coming back.” McGee said calmly.

“Yes, I just heard. My INFINITY boss is pissed because I activated the new ID’s for Lucy and Selena half way into the flight. They are going to have their own passports on them when …” Neyra continued with her protests until she was cut short.

“OK, ok, I understand. You need to get to them. I thought this trap was going to play out in Amsterdam or … well … in the air, but okay. We have to deal with what is in front of us.” McGee said, he sounded a little tired.

“Where should I go, McGee? I need to hook up with Lucy and Selena as soon as I can. I hope to god they just get turned off that flight as innocent bystanders,” Neyra asked.

“Head east. Get to the eastern seaboard, that’s where they should be. New York probably,” McGee said thoughtfully.

“Are you sure?” Neyra asked.

“The news is they’ve landed near there, details are sketchy at the moment,” McGee said, his voice highlighting his concentration as he thought on the subject.

“OK, McGee. New York it is,” Neyra agreed.

“Listen, I know you have a rush on but you need to be patient. Whatever has happened on the plane has triggered a ground-stop. Nothing is taking off. It is going to be days before things return to normal. Believe it or not no badge is going to make you get a flight any quicker,” McGee explained.

“Fuck, what am I going to do? Don’t they … we …you know, the FBI have transportation of its own?” Neyra asked anxiously. She was desperate to move on to New York and out of the goldfish bowl of an office.

“Yes but you’re going to be real lucky to find anything free right now. If you’re a lowly SA you’re going to be bottom of the pecking order. Get in touch with your travel office and see what they can … no … wait. Let me do it, I might be able to swing something more quickly for you,” McGee explained.

“McGee, thank you. I’m sorry I snapped at you before," Neyra said with relief in her voice.

“It’s okay. You’re doing well, just hang in there, I am on your side,” McGee responded.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Last edited by Abductorenmadrid 5 years ago, edited 11 times in total.
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As always with AEM, one gets an intricately plotted story that keeps you entertained and guessing at the same time. Plus his wonderfully-realized characters are people you enjoy spending time with as they go through the trials and tribulations of their perils.
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Abductorenmadrid
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DrDominator9 wrote:
5 years ago
As always with AEM, one gets an intricately plotted story that keeps you entertained and guessing at the same time. Plus his wonderfully-realized characters are people you enjoy spending time with as they go through the trials and tribulations of their perils.
Thanks DrD, I love writing stories with multiple pieces which hopefully all fall together at the end. Maybe newcomers to the series might enjoy following 'Special Agent Jones' as her makeshift team try and figure out the events surrounding Supergirl and the assassination attempt on president Garrison without even having to read the previous story...

EDIT - Part 2 will be out early September when I return home.
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My current story is Supergirl V Bane


This is all the stuff I've done here but don't tell anyone about this!
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President Garrison was sat at modest conference table, several aides around her as they watched some imagery playing out on the large TV mounted to the wall. Flicking between normal vision and thermal imaging the scene that was being observed was the giant A380 aircraft that had recently landed at the Stewart airfield north of New York city.

The video feed of the plane was provided by a small drone as it hovered over the plane capturing events live for the commanders on the ground to assess. Injured passengers were being taken off the plane using a large scissor jacked re-supply platform that rose and fell with each load while those that could walk were using the steps the troops had entered by. In the background ambulances were taking the injured away, while those that could walk were escorted to other transportation.

“This is a nightmare without end,” Garrison said with a shake of her head. Having been witness to so much death and destruction first hand already it was sickening to see even more innocent people suffering.

Frank Green, chief of Homeland Security appeared on a smaller screen which was set into the table in front of Garrison, “Well, the good news is that this doesn’t look like another September Eleven. All aircraft in the air are accounted for, and, after a ground-stop for security checks air traffic has started to get moving again. There is going to be travel disruption for a few days but at least our citizens are safe.”

“That’s the good news?” scoffed Garrison, “the death toll today is, well, it is just tragic! We have, what is it, sixty two unconfirmed dead on that plane? Thirty, forty, fifty at the Mech demonstration on top? And how many people are in a critical condition from both incidents?” Garrison gestured at the screen.

An aide slid a piece of paper in front of the President as she spoke. It was an update from the test range where the Mech demonstration took place, and it was more bad news.

“Yes, I am sorry, you are right of course,” Frank replied apologetically noting Garrison was distracted by something. Garrison sighed as she consulted the fresh news on the piece of paper in front of her, her eyes darting across the lines of writing.

“Dear god, Daniel. Are you still on the line? Have you been told about this? These soldiers that were in the mortar team?” Garrison asked in disbelief.

Daniel Slater, secretary for defence appeared on the video link looking off camera to one side, nodding in silence as an aide whispered something in his ear. The shock of the news appeared slowly on his face, like photographic paper slowly developing an image in a dark room.

Daniel looked ashen as he turned to face the camera, “That news has just literally got here too. The mortar team was away from the main site for the demonstration. The Evac team has just located them now. I am sorry, they are all dead. They think the Mech doing the air defence demonstration was responsible,”

The President processed what she had been told. She remembered the mortar demonstration and the Mech way out in the desert. It must have marched all the way back to the main site, killing the mortar crew on the way before destroying Marine One and…

“They were killed, before our very eyes and no one saw …” Garrison said in shock. She knew now that as the crowd was awed by the Spider’s demonstration right in front of them that in the distance the mortar team had been executed, unnoticed.

“I know it must have been an ordeal, the Mech ….” Sandra Payne, the Attorney General began to say, seeing how affected Garrison was.

“The Mech? Neither of those Mechs did anything on their own. They are not intelligent, not sentient, not even we would create something like that. No, it was either directly piloted by someone or programmed and I want to know by whom. Who killed all those men? And how is it tied to this plane, if at all,” Garrison growled. The attempt on her life, the military lives lost, the civilian casualties, it had all put an edge on the usually even tempered President.

“We are already working on that, seeing if there is a link between the two events. You can imagine though these are two large crime scenes in two different places. The plane in New York, the Mech demonstration out in the desert test range,” the Homeland Security chief explained.

“True, I am aware of that,” Garrison nodded.

“But, there is something else you should be aware of that may be significant,” Frank Green explained. Being in charge of Homeland Security meant he would be a key leader in trying to figure out what the nature of the emerging threat was.

“What is that?” Garrison asked, head cocked. She wasn’t sure if it was yet more bad news or something better.

“I think it would be best if we cleared the rooms,” Frank said, his tone grave.

Garrison turned to her aides and motioned with her head. Her aides nodded and swept up their papers and began to leave, filing out of the doorway one by one.

“Thank you,” Garrison said softly as her aides departed the conference room and then the door closed with a clunk behind them. There was a respectful pause and then Garrison turned to face the video conferencing camera again.

“Are you all alone?” Frank Green asked.

“Yes,” Garrison replied, as did Sandra.

“Me too,” Daniel Slater answered.

“What is it, Frank?” Garrison asked, leaning forward towards the camera.

“Today, some time around the attack on yourself and while BlueGlobe 251 was in the air I was given a report of three hits on the Doug’s Hardware Supplies subset of the INFINITY grid,” Frank Green explained, his voice low.

“Wait, that’s the subset you allocated to Supergirl, correct?” Daniel Slater asked.

“Doug’s ... yes … I remember when I gave her the cards,” Garrison responded, her eyes glazing a moment as she remembered the event.

Garrison and an inner circle of cabinet members had decided to make use of a special system that the nation’s intelligence services had created. The system called INFINITY was set up so that operatives could assume specially created alternate identities. Using these identities they could fulfil their tasks, whether it be undercover criminal investigations or something more clandestine.

After the whole Sanderson crisis which was only just averted Garrison’s team wanted to continue to aid Supergirl in her fight against the alien minds that seemed to be causing havoc. Of course, there was a suspicion that Supergirl’s allies came from all corners of society and perhaps some could not step into the light. But, by using INFINITY, perhaps they could still join the struggle.

There were rules though and Supergirl’s more dubious contacts still faced legal perils if their criminal pasts caught up with them and their true identities. To complicate matters Supergirl was never going to run this program herself, her desire to be seen as neutral to international eyes was of paramount importance to her. So … in her place, a trusted ‘someone’ was charged with being Supergirl’s representative… but who was it?

“What else can you tell us, Frank? Three hits means three identities, correct?” Daniel asked.

Frank Green nodded, “Yes. But as I explained, the people who call in, their true identities are put inside the INFINITY lock box. I could find out what new identities INFINITY spat out in return but then things would become complicated. As it stands we can distance ourselves from them if they screw up. But if we peek to see who these new identities are then it would be a whole lot harder to deny anything if we needed to.”

Garrison took a sharp intake of breath as she considered her options. Certainly it was simpler not to open Pandora’s box than to try and shove everything back in if things went wrong.

“Do you think their activation has something to do with what happened to me? Or to the plane maybe?” Garrison asked.

“Well, Supergirl knew to come to the test range and just in time, that was just before INFINITY was activated. But we can only guess if she knew about the plane or why she has chosen to activate her INFINITY team at all,” Daniel Slater speculated.

“Either way, it seems the threat vector has been slammed shut. If there is more to the threat then Supergirl’s INFINITY team is supposed to bring us up to speed. And if there is nothing more they can all slink back into the shadows,” Frank Green reasoned.

Sandra looked displeased, “Well, let us hope that’s the case and the Genie gets put back in the bottle. This is thin ice we are all on. If these three people get caught up in something and INFINITY gets exposed a whole load of good work could be undone. From what I can tell INFINITY was meant to be in the hands of professionals, not some ‘randoms’ picked by some well-meaning amateur,”

“Sandra, your objections as ever are noted but I think we are doing the right thing for now. We wait and see. Now then, I will see you all soon back at the White House, Air Force One is making good time,” Garrison said as she leaned back into her chair.

“Yes, Madam President,” replied the others.

Outside of the specially modified Boeing 747 the shadows of its fighter escorts loomed large as they held formation, guarding against danger. The sun was ever lowering in the sky, evening was here, and the bright vibrant colours of the plane were diminishing as daylight faded.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


A small team of army engineers used their cutting torch and began to slice through the metal cockpit door. It took a moment but the metal glowed and soon a dark scorched track was left in the bright glowing light’s wake.

“Come on, open up, you can see it is inevitable,” the Army Major urged the cockpit occupants.

An army captain stood nearby shook his head with concern. The cockpit had been quiet during the evacuation of the passengers, the dying and the dead. Now only those who had been piloting the doomed flight were left, locked behind the one remaining closed door.

The cutting torch proceeded, the large portal taking shape as the engineers continued to cut. The top cut was done, the flank too, and now the bottom was being slowly carved out.

“Don’t make this any more difficult than it has to be. Stevenson, Matthews, open the door!” the Major called out again.

“If they were going to open it surely they would have done it by now,” the Captain added in a low voice.

The Major nodded in agreement though he knew he had to at least try and convince the holdouts to come out of their own free will.

Behind the officers a couple of men were preparing to storm the door once it was breached. In full black tactical gear they made a formidable sight. The air was filled with the sounds of magazines being snapped into the place and weapons cocking as the men double checked their gear one last time.

The cutting torch rose as it sought to complete the large ring around the perimeter of the door. Armoured and code locked the door was never going to be defeated by whatever a regular passenger could bring aboard and no hacker was ever going to break the code. There was no backdoor code either, not even the manufacturer could reset it and if the door was set to ‘DENY’ then no one was ever going to get in by normal means alone.

Finally the cut out ring was done and the engineers and the officers stood back, a nod to the lead member of the assault team indicating it was time to break in.

“OK, the key,” he said, beckoning with one black gloved hand.

Two men stepped forward, a heavy tube of solid metal in their hands, and swung into the weakened door.

WHUMP-THUD!

The cut-out burst loose sending the broken panel into the cockpit and then the key men stepped aside as the other members of the assault squad forced their way in. The heavy footsteps of the two men were deadened through the flooring of the cockpit and then there was a pause.

“CLEAR! …. Major, you best see this,” One of the men called from inside the cockpit.

The Major ducked through the cut out in the doorway and saw one of the tactical team shake his head as he holstered his sidearm.

“Jesus Christ,” the Major said with a growl.

In the captain’s seat was Stevenson, his neck punctured several time, the drying blood caked around his shirt collar, down his stomach and all around him. He was very cold and of the two men evidently dead the longest. In the other cockpit seat was Matthews. His wrists were slit vertically up the length of his forearms and now hung at his side. A hand written note was sat in his lap and his weapon was lying on the floor below his right hand covered in blood.

“Don’t touch anything, we better hand this over to the civilian police,” the Major ordered.

= = = = = = = = = = =


Lucy Wuan lay asleep on a bed, oxygen mask over her face, monitors beeping in response to her every heart beat and every breath. She was gently rocked in her bed for a moment and then lay still once more. Then she was bathed in artificial light as a door slid back open and then a light gust of wind blew over her, causing her hair to flutter just a moment.

“OK, let’s get her off,” said a voice over the wooshing sound air and the sound of a turbine engine.

Lucy’s bed was lifted from its resting place and drawn out on to the helipad. Overhead the rotors were starting to slow, the whirling blades cutting the air at an ever decreasing rate. The whine of the turbine engine also revealed the craft was powering down. A crew member from the medical evacuation helicopter stepped forward, clipboard in hand and passed it one of the medics who quickly went through the notes that had been made.

“OK, we will take it from here,” the medic said with a nod, the pilot giving a thumbs-up in reply.

Lucy and her bed were now on a trolley and the team of medics began to wheel her across the helicopter pad of the Hackensack University Hospital and to the waiting elevator. The team entered with Lucy and one of them pressed a button which set the elevator into motion.

“This is one of those from the flight right? Hypoxia they think,” started the chatter.

“Yeah, they are sending them everywhere they can find space,”

“What the hell happened up there?”

“Who knows? Some screw-up with the plane. This one is lucky, they have a few dead on that flight I heard,”

“A few? I heard it was like fifty,”

“Jeezus, really? That can’t be, can it?”

Lucy slept on, oblivious to her surroundings and the conversation of the medical team who shepherded her towards her next destination.

PING! The doors opened, the sounds of a hospital permeating into the elevator. Wheeling Lucy along a short corridor the group arrived at a nurse’s station which was alive with chatter.

“Which cubicle do you have free? We need to do an assessment,” asked one of the team members that had been escorting Lucy’s trolley.

“We have been expecting you, cubicle five is ready,” the nurse replied as she gestured to one of her colleagues to go with their incoming patient.

Nearby a suited man and two uniformed officers from the New Jersey State police came forward.

“That’s the one,” the suited man said as he approached Lucy’s bedside. In his hand was the passport Lucy had used to board the flight and he did a quick check to compare her likeness with the passport photo.

“Excuse me, you are?” asked a medic.

The suited man produced a wallet and flipped it open revealing his ID and badge, “I am Special Agent Vaughn with Homeland Security. This … patient … is to be detained until we can question her. Men from the State Police will be responsible for keeping her in safe custody until then,” Vaughn said, before nodding to the officers.

“I am sorry but …” the officer began, pulling out his handcuffs.

“Hey, is that really necessary? Can’t you see she isn’t going anywhere,” protested a medic.

The cop and Vaughn exchanged glances before the Special Agent spoke, “I am sorry but yes. Don’t worry, an officer will be on hand if you need to remove her restraints, but until we can question this woman we can’t afford to have her go anywhere,”

The medics looked between each other, reluctantly accepting their patient’s fate and then the handcuffs went on, securing one of Lucy’s wrists to the frame of her bed. This had probably been the easiest time ever that the Asian mercenary had been cuffed, something she would not be proud of, assuming she ever found out.

= = = = == = = =





Selena slowly stirred. First her limbs moved, then her head turned to face upwards as her eyes widened. Focus was slow in coming but bit by bit but the texture of the ceiling became sharper and sharper in her view. The ceiling was grey, and Selena’s flinching head brought the wall in to view only to see that was the same. Twisting her head around Selena then saw the bars of her cell, beyond which…

A female corporal, MP emblazoned on her upper arm sat at a desk in the room that was in front of the cells. Hearing movement the corporal glanced up and looked towards Selena who groggily pulled herself up and sat on the edge of the bed she now found herself on. The corporal picked up the handset of the phone on her desk, dialled then waited.

“The prisoner you brought in is awake, sir,” the corporal began before pausing waiting for a reply, “Yes sir,” she continued before hanging up.

The corporal rose from her hard wooden chair and stepped aside before walking purposefully towards the bars of Selena’s cell. The corporal was easily over six foot tall, her brunette hair shorn very short beneath her cap. She filled her close fitting uniform well, her bottoms tucked into her boots which were shiny and black. On her belt was her sidearm, a nightstick and some handcuffs.

Selena held her head in her hands, wincing as she looked at the approaching guard.

“What happened? Why am I here?” Selena asked, each syllable hurting her head as she spoke.

“You were detained upon your arrival. You are at Stewart …” the Corporal began.

Selena lifted her head quickly, “Stewart? As in New York, Stewart?” she asked, immediately regretting moving so fast.

“Yes. You are being held while your identity is being confirmed,” the corporal explained.

Selena looked suspiciously back at the corporal and around the other cells, quickly noting that they were empty.

“I see I am the only one to be singled out for this,” Selena began, fishing for information.

“I wouldn’t know. An officer is coming to explain why you are here,” the corporal said, matter-of-factly.

Selena tried to get her vague memories in order. The oxygen masks had dropped. Lucy had … LUCY. Selena noted Lucy’s absence, was she detained there too somewhere? Was she … dead? Selena was worried by that thought, but knew Lucy was capable of taking care of herself. But if death had befallen her, well, coming to terms with that would have to wait. Besides, asking Selena’s jailor about Lucy might not help her own situation. What else had happened? Well, they had been on the flight in order to give them some room to work on the Vel problem. No, the Molly problem. Selena had worked to decrypt what Molly’s plans were and … oh god.

“Is … is the president safe?” Selena asked anxiously. Molly’s plan might well have been to assassinate President Garrison.

The corporal cocked her head, “The president? Yes, of course. Supergirl stopped whatever happened,”



Selena processed the brief reply and decided not to press it any further. Kara had succeeded in stopping whatever it was that Molly had been planning to do. Then a doubt entered her mind but, like the fading memory of a recent dream she could not think what it was.

What was it …

The Corporal noted Selena deep in thought and softened a moment, “Hey, are you okay?”

Selena blinked and nodded as she looked back at the Corporal, “Yes, just … tired … it was scary for a while up there. I thought I... well... all of us were going to die. Is, is everyone okay?” Selena hoped to learn something about what had happened while also appealing to the Corporal’s human side.

“I can’t tell you anything concrete, I’m sorry, I don’t know,” the Corporal apologised.

“Not even any rumint? Please, how bad was it up there?” Selena pressed.

The corporal’s eyes narrowed a moment, hearing Selena utter army slang. Selena didn’t look the military sort to her eyes.

“Please,” pushed Selena again, thinking the corporal was considering telling her something.

The corporal’s head dropped a moment like she had a burden on her mind before she spoke, “Rumint is there are tens of dead; some were crew but most were passengers. I guess they will be setting up a phone line for people to check the survivors list, I will see what I can do to get you put on it, or ask after anyone if there is anyone you are interested in knowing has survived,” the corporal said.

Selena rose and moved closer to the bars and noted that the corporal kept a safe distance on the other side, the MP's hand resting on her night stick, wary of trouble. It was then that Selena realised there was something familiar about her too which she couldn’t quite place, for good or for bad.

"Thank you. That... that would be good. So, where are my clothes and my things...?” Selena asked.

"I imagine you will get those back if everything checks out. The aircraft's baggage hold was emptied and all the luggage has been temporarily impounded," the corporal explained.

"I guess I am under arrest or something? Did I do something wrong?" Selena said, testing the water.

“I am sure Captain Walker will..." the corporal began to explain, hands crossing behind her back at ease as Selena backed away.

"Walker..." Selena uttered almost silently, a memory flooding over her a moment.

Then, at the barred doorway entrance he arrived... Captain Walker.

Speak of the devil and he shall appear

"That will do, Corporal," Walker said, a grin on his face while he was behind her back.

The corporal turned her head and saw the captain then spun away from Selena’s cell and headed to the entrance to let the captain in. Selena saw Walker and didn't know what to do. Should she sit on the bed? Back up to the cell wall behind her? No, she decided to stand her ground, not in defiance but to feign naive innocence.

The corporal unlocked the entrance and the barred gate groaned as it swung open, letting Walker inside. Walker took a few steps then stopped, causing the corporal to stand to attention and giving a salute before putting her hands by her side.

"So... Miss Walsh... we meet again," Walker announced across the room.

"Excuse me?" Selena replied, cocking her head.

Walker scoffed as he spun to face the Corporal, his studious eyes looking over the attractive and powerful looking soldier in front of him.

"Really, Selena. Surely you don't think I would fall for that passport you are travelling on, do you? While you were sleeping we took your prints, your true ID will come back to us soon and I can put you back in Leavenworth where you belong," Walker said. As he spoke his hands brushed over the corporal's shoulders, flattening the fabric of her top that was slightly out of place.

"Who is this Selena person you are talking about? It must be a mistake! Please, I, I'm just trying to get to Amsterdam like everyone else," Selena continued to act.

"Oh please. For a fleeting moment I saw you for who you really are. Sure, you look different now but I am sure if we look hard enough we will find the old you in there somewhere," Walker continued, his hands provocatively brushing down the chest pockets of the desert digital camouflaged tunic top and inevitably catching the corporal's modest breasts.

The corporal's expression made her dissatisfaction known; the captain was certainly skating on thin ice.

"You're making a mistake, I'm not who you think I am, " Selena protested.

"At ease, Dakota" Walker said slyly.

The corporal's eyes burned with hate but she complied, her hands crossing behind her back, her legs parting on hearing the order.

"We will see, Selena, I always find out the truth..." the Captain continued as his roving hands ran down the corporal's flanks before settling on her behind, "do I not, Corporal?"

"Yes, sir" the corporal responded bitterly.

Walker spun around sharply and approached Selena's cell, leaving the corporal to scowl behind his back.


"You can't do this, I'm an American citizen, I have rights," Selena protested.


"You are an escaped convicted military prisoner and once I have proven what I already know I'm going to send you back where you belong. But in the meantime I will very much enjoy reacquainting myself with you, THING," Walker said, threateningly.


Selena backed away from the bars, Walkers voice and his old pet name for her, sending shudders through her body. It had been while she was a scarred physical wreck years before that Walker had abused her. Back then he was of a lower rank, and rather than being the instigator, Walker had been used as a weapon by his superiors to torment Selena, or The Thing, as they often called her.

“Please, let me go, you … you’re making a mistake,” Selena’s fake pleading echoed off the cell walls.

All the while Selena stayed clean travelling as her favourite alias she was relatively safe from being intercepted by the authorities. Selena though would never be able to avoid the conundrum of what would happen if she was ever detained and had her prints checked. In the US those prints would always bounce back with the reply … Selena J Walsh. Despite Selena’s best hacking efforts she had never managed to break into the databases holding her prints and remove herself from the system. Those prints they had taken while she had been knocked out were going to end her freedom. All she could hope for was that she would be freed before the reply came back.

The corporal walked behind Walker at a discreet distance, peering over his shoulder and at the prisoner. Was their prisoner’s past really in the military, was that how she knew their slang? Perhaps the prisoner was not as innocent as she looked after all if Walker’s claims were true and she really had broken out of Leavenworth.

“Give me the room, Dakota” the captain said, his sick grin hidden from the Corporal’s view.

“Sir?” she replied, cocking her head with a frown.

“You heard me, give me the room. That’s an order!” Walker said more firmly, looking over his shoulder at the Corporal.

Selena hugged herself defensively, acting nervously for the Corporal to see as she watched this momentarily battle of wills play out in front of her.

“Sir, I must remind you that the CO’s standing orders for the cell block are that the duty key holder is to remain in the cell block at all times until relieved by the duty guard commander,” the Corporal said, a hint of nerves fluttering through her confident words.

“Damn the standing orders and get out, NOW or perhaps you want me to drop you like a rock…” Walker began to bark with venom.

At the open doorway a Sergeant appeared, his stripes and MP insignia showing on his upper arm.

“Is everything ok, Captain?” the Sergeant checked, glancing at the Corporal.

“I have asked the Corporal to clear the room, TWICE. I am not here to be quoted the standing orders, I am here to deal with HER” Walker growled, his arm gesturing at Selena in her cell.

The Sergeant looked between the corporal and the Captain.

These two, again , he sighed.

“Sir, the Corporal is correct, if you need to …” the Sergeant began to explain.

“FINE. Set up an escort, I want the prisoner transferred to the interrogation wing, NOW,” Walker said before turning to face Selena again who realised the power balance was not working in her favour. Walker had power, the ones with stripes only had regulations to work with and Walker was going to circumvent them.

“Yes sir. Corporal, make a note in the log,” the Sergeant commanded as he picked up the phone on the desk.

“Yes Sergeant,” Dakota responded obediently.

The Sergeant held the phone handset to his head, “This is the duty Sergeant, send down an escort. Captain Walker wants a prisoner transferring to the interrogation wing,”

Selena and Captain Walker made eye contact which only served to reinforce his confidence. His favourite play-THING was back and he had time to torment her while they re-established her identity. Selena knew now that nothing was going to protect her from her former abuser. Her alias was no use. Her rights were non-existent. She was doomed.


= = = = = = = = = = =


Neyra waved her thanks to Special Agent Denton who pulled away from the small car park in the front of the motel. As he had promised he had sorted out somewhere for her to stay for the first night not knowing for sure where fate would take her next. Neyra saw the black Escalade head out of sight and then she turned to face the motel. From the outside at least it looked ok and so she entered the reception area.

A middle aged lady was stood behind the reception desk and had been organising fliers that were in a small display rack. The fliers were brightly coloured and advertised local eateries and stores in the area and caught Neyra’s eye.

“Hi, how can I help you?” asked the receptionist as she slid the small rack tidily to one side.

“Hi, you should have a reservation for me?” Neyra began as she unzipped her bag.

“Sure … the name?” responded the lady as a few stabs on the keyboard awoke her computer from its slumber.

“Thornton” Neyra responded without thinking as she reached into the bag ready to get her ID.

“Hmmm … Thornton … Thornton …. That’s T-H right, not an F? I don’t seem to be able to ….” the lady asked.

“Oh …” Neyra’s heart leapt. “Sorry, I mean Jones. It’s Jones …. Nerys Jones,” Neyra said anxiously. Her eyes clamped closed as she castigated herself silently inside her head.

“Jones? Ah yes, Nerys … so... congratulations perhaps? A newlywed?” the lady smiled as she read details of the reservation.

“What? Oh, no, no … it’s complicated,” Neyra responded as she produced her wallet.

“Well, I need to take a copy of your identification for our records,” the lady asked with a hint of concern.

“Sure,” Neyra said as she slid her new driver’s license across the reception counter top.

“Thanks! Oh, that’s a nice new shiny license,” the lady said with surprise as she studied the license.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it,” Neyra responded, eager to put the lady’s concerns to rest.

“Now let’s see, you are reserved for one night, payment is on check-out but I need to take a small deposit which you will get at the end of your stay. There is a room safe facility which is another four dollars a day if you need it,” the lady continued as she copied the license and the printer behind her desk spooled up and began to print some paperwork.

“Safe, oh, yes, I need that too,” Neyra replied as she passed over her newly acquired credit card which was promptly swiped.

“OK, I will get you a key, the instructions for setting up your own combination are with the safe,” the lady explained as she returned the driving license from the copier.

Neyra glanced over the fliers and saw one for a department store and so pulled it out of the rack.

“Oh, that’s not far from here,” the lady commented as she slid the room key card, safe key and a form for Neyra to sign along with the driving license.

Neyra signed the form carefully. She had needed to sign the reverse side of several cards that she had received that day and the scrawl of Nerys Jones still needed to bed in a little more before it would become second nature to her.

“Oh, well, I think I need a few things before I move on, this might be just the place I need. But that’s for tomorrow, today I think I’ve had enough,” Neyra said with relief.


The lady smiled, “Well, I hope you have a nice stay, even though it is short,” she began before pointing out the window, “now cross the courtyard and your room is on the second floor of block B. It’s not the best we have but it’s a non-smoking room and the view out back of the skyline is not bad,”

“Thanks, but I’m just grateful to have a place to stay,” Neyra responded.

Soon Neyra found herself in her room. She tossed her go-bag onto the bed and then got to work. She consulted the safe’s instructions and then using her programming key created a combination for the digital lock. She tested the lock a few times, satisfying herself how it worked then, relieved, finally unholstered the Glock that was hidden beneath her dark navy suit jacket.

With care Neyra ejected the magazine from the weapon and then pulled back the slide mechanism. In her head she could hear Lisa Kozny and Lucy Wuan telling her to check the open chamber was fully clear of any rounds and then, tugging the slide back she released it, letting it slide forward, closing the chamber again. Now came the bit she hated. No, feared. Neyra glanced around her and decided which way to aim her weapon, winced and then …

CLICK!

Having pulled the trigger the weapon was now as inert as it could be. She eagerly yet respectfully put her dangerous gift in the safe, along with the clip that had been with it and the second one she kept slid in a pouch of her holster. Mission done she closed the safe door and the wardrobe door that contained it.

“Thank god for that,” Neyra sighed, backing away from the hidden safe like it still posed a threat to her until she hit the edge of the bed.

How had it come to this, she wondered. Her eyes widened as she thought of Laura. Poor exhausted Laura who she had left behind to recharge her batteries after everything she had gone through.

I should call her

Neyra flopped backwards on the bed with a sigh, mentally exhausted. Sweeping her hand over the bed she gathered up her burner phone, her personal SIM inside it and made her call.

The ringing tone lasted a little longer than Neyra liked but then Laura picked up.

Laura instantly spoke, her words pouring out of the phone into Neyra’s ear, “Oh god, there you are, I ... I’ve needed to speak to you for hours and your phone has been …” Laura began, she sounded upset.

“Oh baby, I am sorry I had to run out on you, how are you feeling?” Neyra responded.

“Forget me. The cop … the cop … she … she got shot. They are trying to help her but … what have I done?” Laura replied. Neyra suspected that Laura was near the edge of tears.

“Cop, what cop?” Neyra asked, quickly pushing herself upright on the bed, concern appearing on her face.

“The masked cop, the other woman in black. I think she went to confront her father’s killer, and that sniper shot her!” Laura explained, her voice getting faster as she spoke.

“Oh no! Is she... is she dead?” Neyra exclaimed. During a previous adventure the ‘woman in black’ had rescued Neyra while she was in the process of being abducted, something Neyra was very grateful for.

“It’s not good; the news says she’s in critical condition. I thought the sniper had shot Kohl, I thought … Neyra, I could have stopped him…” Laura blurted.

“Baby, if you could have stopped him you would have done. What you did took you to your limit, remember?” Neyra said, trying to reassure Laura.

“Where are you? What time are you coming home, I …“ Laura pleaded.

Neyra took a breath. It was inevitable that Laura was going to ask questions about her absence.

“Listen, Laura, I … I’ve had to leave town. I will be gone a few days but I …” Neyra began tentatively.

“Days?! What for? Where are you?” Laura demanded. It was after all without notice that Neyra had just left.

“Look, it’s really complicated but I hope to get back as soon as I can, okay?” Neyra said, trying to calm Laura down.

“Does Carl know you are gone?” Laura asked. Carl, Neyra’s father was also her boss at work too, Neyra being the resident artist at his new architect’s office in Littleton City.

“Oh shit, father. Ok, ok. I need to make some calls. Look, I can’t explain what it is yet but when I get home I will tell you everything. Everything is going to be okay,” Neyra said as her free hand rose to her forehead. There was so much to organise.

“Wait … is … is this something to do … well … with the others?” Laura asked tentatively. Neyra recognised the tone of Laura’s voice, she was figuring things out.

“You know I won’t lie to you, so yes it is. But I can’t say what …” Neyra confessed quietly.

“But why? I …” Laura protested. She after all was the heroine of the two of them. Why would Supergirl or Selena … well, any of them need Neyra when they had Spydra to help them?

“Laura, not now … PLEASE …” Neyra snapped back.

“Fine … okay … tell them all I said thanks a lot!” Laura fired back sarcastically and then hung up.

“Laura! What?! What the!” Neyra flinched hearing Laura hang up. There was a pause as Neyra’s face revealed her disbelief at what had just transpired. “Well that’s great! Don’t worry about me, Laura, I’m fine!” Neyra sighed, tossing the phone onto the bed.

Neyra was left to fume a moment before she drew a deep breath then planned her next move. She needed to speak to McGee, then her father too. And tomorrow she had to prepare for her trip to New York in the evening. Hopefully she would be able to figure out what she was meant to do on a commercial flight and the small matter of her gun, which she was no doubt expected to take with her. For now she was grounded though and there was nothing more to do except get ready. Being an FBI agent, she now realised, was tougher than she had imagined.

Little did Neyra know that at that very moment in New York Lisa and her partner Gomez were on a stakeout watching over at a hotel room from a hotel room of their own. Gomez watched on enthusiastically with binoculars at the target room, waiting for the occupant to return. Lisa on the other hand was less eager to watch. This was a stakeout as part of a murder investigation, one in which she herself had a dark secret to keep.

At first it was a murder like any other but quickly Kozny and Gomez had been dragged into something more sinister. The victim was a pilot. The killer, they learned, was a proficient assassin called Neomi Delacroix, someone who did not like being investigated. The motive, well, in the back of Kozny’s mind she suspected it was something to do with getting Andy Matthews put on the flight to fly in the victim’s place but since then she had been on a stake out after having tracked Delacroix down to the hotel. All Kozny had been able to do was clue McGee in to what she had discovered.

During the investigation Delacroix had tried to kill Lisa, twice, and it was during the second attempt Delacroix had met her own demise. Unfortunately the slaying had taken place in Lucy’s apartment and with everything else that was going on Lucy had chosen to cover up the death rather than get embroiled with the police. And so, here was Lisa, watching, waiting, for a woman who she knew was never coming back having witnessed Delacroix’s death.

“If she doesn’t come back …” Lisa began, trying to temper Gomez’s expectations.

“She better come back. I’m looking to bust her ass. She shot you, partner. I’ve never had a partner get shot,” Gomez said, his pride evidently wounded.

“But if she doesn’t. We are going to have to go in there. There could be something in that room that could be useful. If the trail goes cold …” Lisa began to reason with him.

Gomez looked on thoughtfully before he nodded in resignation. “Sure, you’re right. Tomorrow then I guess. If she does not come back while the night crew keep watch then … tomorrow,”

Gomez feared that with their luck the moment they searched the room with uniforms in the building Delacroix would probably show up then get spooked, never to be seen again. Glancing at his watch Gomez noticed there were still several hours before his shift ended. Still a chance she might appear while he watched, he hoped.

“I will let the Captain know,” Lisa responded as she saw her partner raise his binoculars, ready to pounce on the next hint of movement. It was crushing her inside that Gomez, the good cop that he was, was being wasted on a task with no chance of success. Delacroix was dead and her blood was on Lisa’s hands.

= = = = = == ==


Supergirl descended from the late evening sky and landed at trot before coming to a halt in a forest clearing. Kara was alone in a small picnic area where wooden benches and tables were dotted all around her, some beneath the canopies of trees for those who might like to eat in the shade while others were in the open where they might be in the sun, during the daytime at least. Now though the sun was about to set and the sky had phased through vibrant oranges, pinks and onto deep purples before the imminent darkness was due to arrive with the first twinkling stars.

Supergirl sighed, shoulders dropping.

I feel lost. Why do I … why do I feel like I have no idea what I am doing? I am Supergirl, right? I try to help people all the time. I… I try and stop bad guys… rescue people. Don’t I get to make a mistake once in a while? And who am I really? Surely I have a name…? Think! What do I remember?

Supergirl pondered the questions. She remembered a fight with the Mech and the bright light and the sore head afterwards. Before that the Mech had tried to kill the President. And before all that? She remembered nothing at all! And now, well she was left to contemplate how she had been out of sorts all day and performing rescues and helping people hadn’t been as easy as she thought they would be.

Maybe I need to just rest, not that I feel tired or anything. But, where do I go? What do I do? Or is this it? Is there a home waiting for me? Or do I just normally sleep out? I mean, it’s not like I feel cold, or hot, or, well, anything to be honest…

Supergirl patted herself down looking for anything that might be on her to tell her something about herself but found nothing.

It’s late, I will figure this out tomorrow

Spinning around, Supergirl’s cape played on the air, her eyes settling on one picnic table near a tree.

That’ll do nicely! Supergirl thought to herself, trying to raise her own spirits.

The heroine walked up to the table and effortlessly lept on to the wooden surface and lay down, drawing her cape around her. She looked up to the night sky through the branches of the trees and tried to romanticise her predicament. Alone, in peace, with the heavens above. With the power to do more or less anything she wanted she should be happy and content… except… she knew it was a poor attempt to disguise the reality she felt alone and abandoned and forced to sleep rough on a park bench.

I will figure this out, won’t I?

= = = = = = = =




Selena was sat in a wooden chair in the centre of a bare concrete room. Along one wall was a mirror which Selena could observe herself in though she suspected others lay beyond the one way glass. Her wrists were restrained to the arms of the seat, her ankles locked to the chair legs. She was comfortable, but unable to move. She had tried to relax, but she knew with every passing second the fingerprint tests they had done on her were going to come back with bad results. The prison at Leavenworth beckoned and it was unlikely she would be able to escape a second time, her worst nightmare had been realised.

Behind the mirror Captain Walker watched his prisoner, arms folded, his eyes lustfully looking at his favourite plaything from a time gone by. He still had no idea how she had recovered from the desert’s painful kiss, her good looks now in place of her burned mottled skin but he could see in her eyes that she was Selena J Walsh, convicted murderer, failed covert operative, and escapee from Leavenworth, and again she was within his grasp.

There was a polite knock at the door and Walker turned his head to face it.

“Come!” Walker said sharply.

The door opened, a Sergeant from the MP section entering, document in hand.

“A communication for you, Sir,” the Sergeant said going to attention and saluting before offering out the paperwork.

“Very good,” Walker responded as he eagerly pulled apart the sealed document, reading the confidential information inside.

Walker’s eyes scanned hungrily over the sheet of paper, looking for vindication, looking for Selena’s name. But, what was this?

“Sir, what is the prob…” the Sergeant began to ask sensing there was a problem.

“No! NO, NO, NO! What horseshit is THIS? How can this be right?!” Walker growled, shaking the paperwork at the Sergeant.

“We ran the request twice, hence the delay. It is correct,” the Sergeant explained, his tone conciliatory.

“Get out, GET out, GET OUT!” Walker ordered the Sergeant who merely gave one firm nod of the head and spun away.

Walker spun around and faced Selena through the glass, his lower jaw in danger of grinding his teeth to dust in rage. The veins on the side of Walker’s forehead bulged as his blood boiled and then he broke.

Pacing out the observation room Walker turned and entered the interrogation chamber, slamming the door closed behind him. Selena flinched hearing the door open and slam again, Walker looming large behind her in the reflection ahead.

“Very good, THING, very, very, good! I salute you!” Walker said, his hand raising and casting off a lazy salute.

Selena glared back at his reflection, unsure what he had found out about her that had triggered his wrath.

“When are you going to let me go? I am not who you think I am,” Selena said, feigning innocence to the dying end of her charade.

“Oh, so I see. Why you are flying on false documents I do not know but… truly you have become more capable than I could ever have imagined. False identities are one thing, but … altering the fingerprint database is something else!” Walker continued. It was obvious he was sticking to his assertion that he knew who Selena really was. And he was right of course, and yet …

Selena cocked her head. The Holy Grail? If Selena could change the fingerprint database then she certainly would be rich. But knowing it was not her who had tampered with the database, then who? Vel? Oh fuck, what identity had Vel given her now?

Walker misread Selena’s expression, thinking she was faking her innocence once more. In reality it was the thought that Vel was setting her up for something even more savage if PLAN A, killing her on the plane did not work out, that scared her now.


“Don’t play innocent with me! Celine Weiss? Special Agent? FBI! This is HORSESHIT!” Walker ranted, waving the folder at Selena before slamming it down to the floor and stamping on it with a boot.

Selena flinched as the boot struck the floor. Walker marched in front of Selena to face her directly, blocking her view of the mirror, which like a TV had revealed to her the drama playing out in the room behind her.

“You may have screwed the system, THING, but I am not going to trust a computer when there are people like you who can fuck with them. Back in Leavenworth they have files. Paper files. Hard copies. There they have everything! I am going to have them go through those filing cabinets and bring me your prints, understand? And once they do we can finally lay this shit to rest,” Walker said, hate in every syllable.

Selena’s mind raced. How could it be? Who would have changed her identity in such a way, and why? For now though being this Weiss character might actually save her from her fate. But how hard should she commit to being Weiss? If Vel had done it, it might be a trick, but if someone else had done it, perhaps it was to rescue her.

“All I can say is you are making a mistake. Let me go and I won’t report you for your… errors. So far, no harm, no foul, but …” Selena said, trying to take back a little control of the situation.

“I will show you harm, deceitful bitch!” Walker snarled. Placing his hands on Selena’s shoulders he grabbed at the fabric of her top and ripped it over her shoulders, baring her flesh.

Selena yelped in fright at Walker’s sudden loss of self-control. Now he was stepping over the line sure that Selena was the escaped prisoner from Leavenworth and his to use and abuse. To him Special Agent Weiss was a lie; nothing was going to come back on to him for assaulting her.

“I am sure if I look hard enough I will find the real you here somewhere!” Walker continued as the top continued to pass down to her elbows. A yank here, a tear there and soon her front was exposed, a black bra covering her breasts.

With clenched teeth Walker tugged at the bra, ripping it open at the front and left hanging off her shoulders in pieces. Selena’s breasts were free and Walker grasped one tugging it upwards, studying it with his eyes.

“What are you … no … get the fuck off me!” Selena demanded, powerless to stop him.

“Right weight, right size,” Walker said with a sneer, as he held Selena’s breast in one hand, the other hand patting down on it before giving it a squeeze and then a slap.

“Aaah,” Selena growled before attempting a head-butt which Walker easily saw coming, a shove pushing her torso back into her seat.

Selena’s pants were next to face Walker’s assault, a firm yank tugging at buttons and popping them apart. Selena sought to keep her thighs firmly shut but Walker’s roving hand was able to tuck under the waistband of her panties and...

SHRIP!

Tugging fiercely Walker pulled Selena’s panties free, the Captain drawing them to his face and drawing in her scent with a strong intake of breath through his nose. Selena could only watch, humiliated by Walker’s swift destruction of her clothing and his perverse pleasure at sensing her body.

“Aaaaaaaaah” Walker exhaled and stepped back triumphantly, “It IS you. But, I will let you have a chance to remember your old life before I organise some games to play tomorrow,” his hand sliding into his pocket and pulling out a small tape cassette.

“Fuck you! You are a disgrace! When they find out what you’ve done here …” Selena began to protest only to trigger Walker into laughter as he waggled the cassette in front of her eyes.


“I can see you need some time… so … I have prepared an old favourite … perhaps it will stir some fond memories,” Walker continued. Walking past Selena he trailed the panties up her chest and over her face and leaving them on her head.

“Please, don’t leave me like this,” Selena demanded, shaking the panties off herself only for them to fall in her lap.

“Good night,” Walker said his laughter dying as he pulled the door closed behind him.

Selena clenched her teeth as she took in the sight of herself in the mirror. Bare chested and restrained it was a long way from the business class seat she had had on the plane. Now she felt a chill, her nipples hardening which triggered goose bumps on her arms. She struggled in her restraints and realised it was no use to fight. She was not going to escape any time soon.

Then the intercom clicked into life.

#SIT BACK, RELAX, AND PREPARE TO ENJOY THE CLASSIC OF GITMO#

From beyond the glass Walker could see Selena cock her head.

“Let us see how you react to this. Special Agent Weiss indeed!” Walker scoffed as he put the cassette into a tape recorder and patched it through to the interrogation room. Adjusting the controls Walker put the tape into action, set to play on loop.

Selena, sat in her bondage, heard a familiar hiss through the speakers. Even the short few seconds of the white noise, seemingly random, was still etched in her mind. She knew each pop, each hiss, and she also knew what was coming next. It was what she listened to night and day during her stay at Guantanamo before she was finally sent on to Leavenworth.

Then the harp began... in six-eight time, its beautiful soft torturing notes, its haunting echo. Selena clamped her eyes shut hoping to block out the memory, block out the voice, block out the pain, but nothing she did would ever stop the the angelic voice from coming to her...

# Ave Maria! Jungfrau mild #

“You can’t leave me like this!! LET ME GO!” Selena began to struggle in her restraints once more, harder than ever.

#Erhöre deiner Kinder Flehen#

“That’s a good THING” Walker said before walking out of the observation room. He was going to torture Selena with music overnight. By morning she would be softened up, and with luck he would get her to confess who she really was.

# im Tal der Tränen sei uns Schild #

“Come back you bastard!” was Selena’s fading scream as Walker marched away.

# lass mein Gebet zu dir hinwehen#

Selena tried to block out the music again. She tried to put her mind in a happy place. But the haunting music, the angelic voice, how could anyone possibly know how it tore at her mind?

# Wir schlafen sicher bis zum Morgen,#

That very music had been used to cover the evil deeds she had experienced while in Guantanamo. It had disguised her terror. It had covered her pain. It had hidden her pleas. It had masked her screams.

# dein Sternenmantel deckt uns zu.#

Now the memories came back. The electrodes. The floggings. The forced sex. The forced orgasms. The… disgusting things… they did. Over and over, Walker had broken her.

# O Jungfrau, siehe unsere Sorgen,#

It was now that Selena was burned with regret. Her revenge. She had taken it not on any of them that had been there. She had taken it out on Supergirl. It was her that got to face this very music herself. It was her who Selena had broken in revenge. Supergirl, she thought, had been near the root of how she had come to be where she was. Selena’s keen mind had thought it was the logical thing to do, but now no longer. Her revenge had been miss-spent.

#O schenke unsern Herzen Ruh!#

“Kara, I … I’m sorry … I’m sorry … I’m sorry … save me … save me … save me … please please …please … save me…” Selena whispered, her eyes reddening, the prelude to the tears.

#Ave Maria!#
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


This is all the stuff I've done here but don't tell anyone about this!
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Abductorenmadrid
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Part 3

SATURDAY


It was a glorious early Saturday morning, the sky was clear and the mountainous terrain glowed orange, the clean white snow on the Alps forced to imitate the colourful dawn sky above. As the shadows receded during the ascent of the sun the Swiss town of Hattenberg was revealed, its ten thousand inhabitants mostly sleeping or awakening to a new day. Ever vigilant though were the emergency services which never sleep. Inside the control center sat the emergency phone operators, waiting to deal with whatever might come next. Nearby in a server room a bank of analogue tape machines slowly whirred, recording the events as they played out over their telephones and radios….


TRANSCRIPT
SOURCE : HETTENBERG EMERGENCY SERVICES PRIMARY SWITCHBOARD (112)

TIMESTAMP 2018:xx:xx xxh:xxm:xxs
OPERATOR STATION 7
Incoming call meta data: efab72aacegbbae7b1212efbad
Phone number REDACTED
Cell Network : SuiseTelNet.
Call Triang: Hattenberg Grid Z04 0020:0890

Operator Station 7[OS7]: .... 112 ... Which service do you require?

Caller: There's a fire, I'm at...

OS7: Transferring you now.

Caller: Plea...

CALL TRANSFERRED TO HATTENBERG FIRE SERVICE CONTROL CENTER SWITCHBOARD
Call duration: 06seconds.

= = = = = =


TRANSCRIPT
SOURCE: HATTENBERG FIRE SERVICE CONTROL CENTER SWITCHBOARD

TIMESTAMP 2018:xx:xx xxh:xxm:xxs
OPERATOR STATION D1
Incoming call meta data: efab72aacegbbae7b1212efcbf
Phone number REDACTED
Cell Network : SuiseTelNet.
Call Triang: Hattenberg Grid Z04 0020:0890

Operator Station D1[OSD1]: Fire Service, please state your emergency…

CALLER: Please, there is a fire, I'm in the Dort road tunnel.

OSD1: Dort road tunnel?

CALLER: yes, please help! There was a collision. Some kind of fuel tanker has caught fire and...

OSD1: Ok, I need you to remain calm sir. How many people are with you? Is anyone injured.

CALLER: …there is my friend with me... She.. She is ok but the tanker driver... I can't... I can't see him, and the bike.... [Coughing – unintelligible]

OSD1: OK, Caller, there will be emergency exits along the side of the tunnel. Signs will show you which are nearest. Can you see them?


CALLER: …too much smoke ... [unintelligible] … maintenance …

OSD1: I know it is hard. Identify the safest exit and leave. Take the other person who is with you, too. A unit is on its way to you.



[AT THIS POINT CALLER IS DISCONNECTED BUT LINE STAYS ACTIVE FOR 5 SECONDS WHILE CONNECTION TRIES TO RESUME]


OSD1: Caller are you there? Have you identified the exit yet?

CALLER: [DISCONNECT TONE]

OSD1: [Expletive]

Call duration 22 seconds.

= = = = = = =


TRANSCRIPT
SOURCE: HATTENBERG FIRE SERVICE CONTROL CENTER RADIO COMMS


[Fire engine Pump H24]Control, Two-Four, over

[HFSCC] Go ahead Two-Four, over.

[H24] Control, We are on the move now. ETA nine minutes to Dort tunnel. Do you have new information? Two-Four over.

[HFSCC] Two-Four, incident information as follows. Suspected RTA with fuel tanker and fire. Number of casualties unknown. Two civilians at risk known to be on scene. Ambulance team HP-1 and HA-3 despatched, ETA to Dort thirteen minutes. Pump Two-Seven ETA is twenty minutes.

[H24] Understood, Control, Two-Four over.

= = = = = = = = = =

From the edge of Hattenberg a red striped silver Audi estate car with its blue emergency lights flashing powered into the country road that led up to the mountainside. From above a large black painted “HP-1” was evident on the roof of the car, the identification used for emergency helicopters to help guide their ground based colleagues to their goals.

Mia, the forty year old paramedic held onto the inside car door handle to brace herself while Luca, her twenty eight year old junior medic and driver sped along a subtle curve in the road. Between Mia and Luca was a pair of styrofoam lidded cups which held their coffee. The dark liquid banked up one side in empathy with the g-forces acting on the car as it made the bend, causing it to test the clear lids which held fast. Mia had been inside the store getting their mid shift coffee when Luca got the call, a quick blare of the siren causing her to hurry.

“So, what did they say again?” Mia asked as she grabbed a clipboard, the hand that had gripped the door handle bravely reaching for her pen in her top pocket.

“Vehicle collision and we think there is a tanker of some kind with a fire, the details were real sketchy. The phone of the person who made the call dropped out midway. Might be a signal issue, it’s in the Dort tunnel, do you know it? The word is we may have four casualties at least,” Luca answered as he began to slow for the first hairpin bend of many that would mark the route up the mountainside.


Mia glanced at the GPS and confirmed to herself where it was they were headed to.

“Yes, Dort, that’s the old way through before they built the new Euro expressway. You sometimes see the small gasoil tankers go up that way still. There are people living up there who have fuel storage tanks,” Mia explained. Her grandparents had been those that had lived the old style life higher up and so she was speaking from experience.

“I’ve never really gone over this way much …” Luca said before his voice trailed off as he concentrated at the hairpin. Slowing, the automatic gear box stepped down ready for when he accelerated onto the next straight.

Mia braced herself while cocking her head for a better view, being on the outside of the bend. For a moment the professional in her took over as she checked for traffic, “You’re good, go …”

“… and now I know why! You guys had to do this, just to get into the next valley?!” Luca exclaimed. Younger than Mia, Luca had passed his driving test after the EU funded expressway and shiny new road tunnel had been constructed. He rarely had made the ascent on the now orphaned old routes and Dort was merely a name on a map to him.

“Hey, I’m not that much older than you. You make it all sound ancient. Besides, just remember this will happen to you one day! You will be this side doing my job while some hotshot hover car pilot asks you how you used to deal with tyres and ooooh where did THAT come from!” Mia managed to get out while the breaking force of the car caused her torso to press into her seatbelt. A stray cow dominated the right side of the road and with care Luca had to navigate around it before speeding off again.

“Frikking cow! Who leaves a cow in the road?” Luca cursed as he glanced in his mirror, confirming he had left the beast far behind.

“That’s nothing. Back when I was the driver you used to have a whole herd in the way!” Mia replied with a light laugh.

“Well let’s hope we don’t meet them one by one or this is going to become one slow climb,” Luca replied, the tempo of his voice highlighting his concentration on the road. Luckily his mood was tempered by Mia’s good humour. Her experience in the field certainly helped keep his perspective on what real problems were and busy work at the steering wheel was low down on the list.

Dashing from one hairpin bend to the next the Audi with its pulsing blue lights must have made for a hypnotic sight when seen from a distance. Back and forth the car would swing, slowing, dashing, slowing, dashing, all the while closing in on the road tunnel high up in the distance.

= = = = =

TRANSCRIPT
SOURCE: HATTENBERG FIRE SERVICE CONTROL CENTER RADIO COMMS


[Fire engine Pump H24]Control, Two-Four, over

[HFSCC] Two-Four, go ahead.

[H24] We have arrived on scene, dismounting now. Incident is at the far end of the tunnel. Assessing situation. No sign of casualties yet, over.

[HFSCC] Two-Four, copy, HP-1 advises ETA in four minutes, over.

[H24] Control, copy, two-four over.

= = = = = =

The road was deserted save for the few vehicles that had collided somehow at the far end of the road tunnel. The fire engine’s senior officer strode to the mouth of the smooth concrete walled tunnel driven into the mountain side and felt the heat. His position was slightly uphill from the source of the fire and the tunnel acted like a funnel which drew the smoke and air towards him. The other men dismounted behind him and began to prepare their breathing apparatus while their commander decided on a plan of action. It would not be long before he would decide what to do.

The officer in charge assessed what it was that he was looking at. The tunnel was four hundred meters long with a subtle curve, such that he could see only a thin crescent shaped light from the exit at the far end. Something had ruptured on the tanker and something was now alight. Fortunately this was not a full sized tanker but rather a cut down version of one with a much more limited cargo. Then the decision came.

“Check the dry riser. I am not taking the ol’ lady into the tunnel while that tanker is at risk and four hundred meters is too far for our hoses,” the commander said, glancing back at his men over his shoulder.


Behind the senior officer his men began their drilled routine. Running the length of the tunnel was an empty pipeline, the dry riser, which had intermittent connection points and valves along its length. First they would hook their fire engine up to the pipeline. Then they would do a quick pressure check, then advance up the tunnel and hook up their hoses at the connection points nearest the fire.

“OK, guys, I want a two hose knock down, both teams with BA. Watch for flash over,” barked the senior officer with a clap of the hands.

Already the men were double checking their breathing apparatus before slinging heavy rolls of hose over their shoulders. A fireman opened a valve on the pipeline system while another ramped up the pressure from the pump, a tap on a pressure dial indicating that the pipeline system was not leaking. Being as high up as they were there was no local water pressure to tap into; they had to preserve what they had in the fire engine’s tank.

“Pressure good!” came the cry as the water pump growled louder and louder.

The senior officer glanced at his men and with a nod they began the team made their advance up the tunnel. Walking in two neat columns of four the men made their way onwards with the smoke whirling past them but over their heads in the roof of the tunnel.

“Only mask up when you need to lads, if we need to beat a hasty retreat we will need all the Oh-two that we can get,” the commander said wisely.

On they walked, their voices echoing back to the man running the fire engine’s pump which he was prepared to ramp up into full flow the moment his colleagues needed to extinguish the fire.

= = = = = = = =

Luca was relieved to see the last of the hairpin bends behind him and in the distance around the head of the valley he could see the fire engine’s blue lights flashing. Of course he would have to follow the road around the edge of the mountain side but journey’s end was near and then the real work could begin.

Mia pulled out the plan of the car’s storage layout. The estate car they had been issued with was capacious in the back to keep all the items they might need in the field, perfect for the paramedic team. They had everything an emergency room might have and a little more and it was all kept in its right place. What might they be facing when they got there? Burn injuries? What about injuries from vehicle collisions? Each injury had to be treated differently and Mia was making sure she had all the bases covered.


Luca took a moment to glance at Mia to see what she was doing then back ahead. “Not long now,” he said quietly, more to himself than to Mia but she heard his words. She thought it was a subtle warning to be ready but in reality it was his relief at having made a quick yet safe climb to the scene.

“I know, I just wished we had more information on casualties,” Mia cursed, looking towards the fire engine that was coming into view.

Luca cast a glance back at Mia, surprised at her reaction to his comment. In reality it didn’t matter now, they were almost there and soon they would know all they needed to know about what was going on at the scene. Rounding the final bend at the head of the valley the Dort tunnel which cut through the mountainside was dead ahead.

Luca pulled up to an abrupt yet controlled stop and just short of the fire engine.

“Control, HP-1,” Mia said into the car’s radio handset.

“Go ahead HP-1” replied the control center.

“Control, we have arrived on scene with HP24” Mia responded.

“HP-1, control, understood,”

Inside the car the sound of seatbelts clicking undone could be heard before Luca and Mia exited, the doors making a firm clunk behind them both. The fireman with the engine spoke into his radio then beckoned to the paramedics adorned in their snug fitting luminescent green and yellow jumpsuits.

“Go make friends while I grab our packs,” Mia suggested. Luca nodded then turned and trotted to the fireman.

“Hey, welcome to the party, Luca, enjoy the drive?” the fireman said, his voice loud enough to be heard over the growling yet idling pump. There were many firemen but few paramedics and so Luca was remembered by name.

“Only the straight bits. So what have we got? We’ve not had much information,” Luca said as he looked towards the tunnel.

Behind him Mia had raised the tailgate of their car and had drawn out her own and Luca’s basic first aid packs and with a cursory glance married together what she had seen in her plan of the supply inventory and what was in front of her.

“The boss and the crew are approaching the fire now. They have just told me they can hear voices calling for help in a maintenance area to one side,” the fireman called out over the sound of the idling water pump.

“Is there a way through?” Luca asked as he heard the sound of the tailgate of the car slamming behind him, no doubt Mia returning.

“The boss is going to use one line to open up access and once we know what’s inside we will work on getting you to them, or bring them out to……” the fireman said before breaking off and looking towards the tunnel.

From the tunnel a terrible roar could be heard, the dark interior suddenly flaring a bright orange. Then suddenly a wall of flame filling the entire bore emerged, its twisting jet of flame reaching out towards them and ….

“LOOK OU…”

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

TRANSCRIPT
SOURCE: HATTENBERG FIRE SERVICE CONTROL CENTER RADIO COMMS

[HFSCC] Two-four, control over.
[HFSCC] Two-four, control over.
[HFSCC] Two-four, control over.
[HFSCC] Two-four, control, over.
[HFSCC] All units – comms check, control, over.
[H27] Control, Two-Seven.
[HFSCC] Go head Two-Seven.

[H27] Control, we read you loud and clear. Last message from Two-Four was dismounting at scene. We are ETA 2 minutes. Fire remnants visible at tunnel mouth.

[HFSCC] Two-Seven – ask two-four for comms check when you arrive, over.

[H27] Control, we copy, two-seven over.


= = = = = = = = = = =


The sun was crawling up into the dawn's early light and the star spangled banner was as usual still there, fluttering over the White House. Within the famed building President Garrison carried her morning cup of coffee to her leather armchair with a subtle limp and took her place. She sipped some of the piping hot beverage before setting her cup down and then glanced at the grandfather clock that ticked on monotonously. It was now that Alice, Garrisons chief of staff popped her head through a doorway and noted Garrison was ready.

"The National Security Advisor, Agent Westmoreland is here Madam President," Alice said in a low voice.

"Very good, send him in. Oh, and thank you for the flowers, it was very thoughtful," Garrison said, gesturing to the vase of colourful flowers on a small table near her presidential desk. With them had been a message of good health from Alice and her staff after the attempt that had been made on Garrison's life.


Alice nodded, grateful that her effort had been noticed then backed away out of sight a moment before ushering in Westmoreland. Westmoreland nodded with a smile, content to see Garrison in the flesh.

“You’re a tough one,” Westmoreland said with a wink, offering out his hand to the seated President. He already knew she was carrying a limp, he was not expecting her to stand.

“Thank you but with a Secret Service detail and Supergirl in the mix I owe my life to my protectors more than any toughness on my part,” Garrison replied, a light friendly shake of the hands with Westmoreland marking their greeting.

Behind Westmoreland the door to the oval office closed with a clunk behind him and the President and her advisor were finally alone.

“Oh I have heard being man handled by the Secret Service can be worse than any assassination attempt,” scoffed Westmoreland.

Garrison was grateful to Westmoreland for his attempt to make light of what had happened but in reality there had been a lot of deaths. It was up to him to deliver the daily morning briefing so she could plan to make things right, it was time to get down to business.

“Please, Clive. Sit, tell me what you have,” Garrison said, gesturing to the seat opposite her.

Clive sat and with the folders on his lap he opened the top one, the ETTA file, or Extra Terrestrial Threat Assessment. In days gone by the first item of the briefing had been to discuss naval matters, “where are the carriers?”. Nowadays the first thing in the briefing was what the alien, Supergirl, or Guardian as she was codenamed, had been up to. Now, since the discovery of the presence of Vel and his monstrous side, he too also figured in the discussion.

“Of course,” Westmoreland replied, his tone now switching to match the seriousness of the conversation.

Holding up a piece of paper marked CLASSIFIED Westmoreland began with the first item.

“These are the latest tracks for Guardian,” Westmoreland began, referring to the codename given to Supergirl, “As you can see she seemed to break earth orbit after her engagement with the Mech at the demonstration. The tracks show she first descended back in to the US. She passed westward across the north Pacific towards China and Russia. Later we received track information of her crossing into NATO airspace from the east. She moved into the Mediterranean from Turkey, then crossed north through Italy over the Alps into central Europe where contact was lost until she was later detected in NORAD airspace passing back into the United States this morning. Her current whereabouts are, as is typical, unknown. The ongoing assessment is that she has some sort of base of operation on US soil but of course we have no idea where,”

“So, nothing unusual? This is typical of her just patrolling?” Garrison said, almost dismissively.

“Not as methodical as she can be, but, she is known to be, hmmmm, playful from time to time,” Westmoreland replied thoughtfully.


Garrison paused a moment, “OK, what next?” Garrison asked, absorbing the first set of news.

Westmoreland put the first piece of paper aside and produced the next one.

“You may recall there was the hacking event several days ago which was considered to probably be the work of Eight-Ball... err, that’s the new codename for Vel, sorry,” Westmoreland began.

“Hmmm,” nodded Garrison, her hand gesturing for him to continue.

“Analysts are trying to establish if the re-emergence of Eight-Ball and the events of yesterday are related,” Westmoreland explained.

“Good. I expect to be brought up to speed personally if there are any developments. No middlemen, understand?” Garrison said.

“Of course, I am at your service. Now then, on to the Naval situation and the carrier groups. This is the set-up of our naval deployments as of oh-six-hundred hours local time today,” Westmoreland continued, producing a sheet of paper showing where the many US naval fleets were positioned.

Busy was the life of a president. Little did she know that this was only the calm before the storm.

= = =

Far inland, at an army base, the morning ritual of duty assignments was being executed among the many sections that made the base function. Among them were the MP’s who served to protect the base, not only from those outside, but from the antics of those within. MP’s were there to make sure the men, when their behaviour slipped outside the lines, were there to drag them back again.

Lined up in rows and columns the day shift of MP’s stood at ease for the Master Sergeant who glanced over his men and women proudly. Then the duty officer entered the room.

“Attention!” called the Master Sergeant before he too snapped straight and ready.

Captain Walker approached the Master Sergeant, clipboard in hand and the pair exchanged a salute before the clipboard changed hands.

“Master Sergeant,” Walker said with a salute.

“Sir,” the Master Sergeant replied with a salute of his own.

The pair locked eyes and then the Master Sergeant looked down at the roster. Most days it was the same though sometimes there were events or special circumstances that meant that the roster would need some special attention.

“Very good, sir,” the Master Sergeant said as he glanced down the list.

“Good, carry on,” Captain Walker responded with a nod then spun around and left the room.

“Right, here is the roster …” the Master Sergeant said loudly as Walker left.

Among those on parade a certain Corporal dreaded what was to come. And so she waited, listening for her role in the day’s proceedings. The assignments then came, name by name. Some NCO’s to man the gate. Some to patrol the base perimeter in the MP’s vehicles. Someone to man the armoury. Someone to be key holder in the cell block. Someone to man their main desk, some to patrol on foot… on and on went the assignments…

“Corporal, you are on special assignment, interrogation wing, reporting to Captain Walker,”

The corporal nodded hesitantly, “Yes, Master Sergeant,” she replied, dying inside just a little more.

= = = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl had slept poorly. Every bug from miles around had been picked up by her ears, a problem she did not ever recall having had before and now, as the weekend was here people were visiting the park. Supergirl felt a little unkempt and as she looked down over herself she noticed the state of her cape.

“What… how…? How did THAT happen?” noting little black charred marks on the normally pristine crimson surface.

Supergirl was also now covered with little bits of leaf, bark and other parts of the tree that had fallen while she had been trying to sleep beneath it and so brushed herself down sending the little bits of debris to the floor. Her knee length boots were also a little scuffed with their encounter with the picnic table and Supergirl licked her thumb and sought to quickly buff out any imperfections. Some things she managed to cover up, but otherwise there were marks that only some proper attention could fix.

Where do I … how do I … man this sucks! Supergirl thought with a scowl on her face. She realised she had been feeling not quite for barely a day and already she felt scruffy and unkempt.

Then she heard voices approaching, no doubt a young family preparing to enjoy a day in the forest. Looking down at her self Supergirl decided she did not want to be seen in the state she was in and so with an anxious glance the blond heroine took the air and left before anyone saw her. Once in the air Supergirl looked out at the scenery and tried to figure out where she was and where she would go.

Where the hell am I? This is ridiculous, I don’t even know where I am let alone where I want to go…

The sun had risen ahead of her, and thinking carefully she decided that east was the best way to go. The voices she had heard in the park were American. The east coast meant cities, big cities, important cities, perhaps there she would be able to figure out some things about herself because right now… something wasn’t right. Things hadn’t been right since… since the bright flash. Since … Molly. Yes… that was her name.

Supergirl shook her head dismissively. She needed to stay focused on the problem at hand and with determination in her heart she faced into the rising sun and sped off.

East, I am going east!

VWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!

= = = = = = = = = = = =


Detectives Kozny and Gomez had decided to raid Neomi Delacroix’s room. The overnight shift of detectives that had kept watch had reported no activity and so Kozny and her partner had gone ahead with a search. Entering the cheap hotel room with guns raised they double checked to make sure the place was empty. The split bathroom and bedroom layout provided little opportunity for anyone to hide but the pair of detectives checked carefully that they were alone.

“OK, clear,” Kozny said, her eyes checking that her partner was satisfied they were safe too.

“Yeah, clear here too,” Gomez nodded, a hint of relief evident as he exhaled the lungful of air he had kept stored up in his chest.

The pair slowly holstered their weapons and then looked to the two uniformed officers who were following close behind them.

“Ok, we are good here. Do us a favour and canvas this floor will you. You have her photo right?” Gomez asked of the two officers.

“Sure thing detective,” one of the officers replied before turning to his companion, “come on partner,”

The uniformed officers backed out the room and began to move on the next room where they politely tapped on the door.

Kozny snapped on some latex gloves and glanced around the room, choosing where to start the search. The bed drew her eye first, it looked like some rough and tumble had happened there, or perhaps Delacroix had just never remade it. Kozny carefully raised then lowered the pillows first to check beneath then slowly peeled back the bed covers.

In the meantime Gomez had cautiously opened a wardrobe and found a small suitcase which was carry-on sized. With a quick lifting of the case Gomez could tell it was more or less empty. There were also some clothes in the wardrobe, sportswear among it which the detective drew Kozny’s attention to.

“The owner has not split town,” Gomez concluded, highlighting to Kozny the things in the wardrobe.

“Shit, I recognise that top, it was what she was wearing when … well … when she shot me. We are definitely in the right place,” Kozny said, as she knelt at the bedside, curious to look beneath.

Gomez carefully checked through Delacroix’s possessions, looking for anything that might help them find her.

“Wait, got something,” Kozny said. Then after shuffling back she rose from her hands and knees, an empty clear plastic bag in her black latex clad hands.

“What’s that, just a bag?” Gomez asked with curiosity.

Holding the bag taught by two corners Lisa held it up to the light of the window. The inside of the bag was patchily covered in a thin film of something but there was a smudge or red that was distinctly like ...

“Yeah, but … what is that? Is that lipstick?” Kozny wondered with a frown.


“Yeah, maybe. Is that on the inside?” Gomez asked, as he peered at the evidence.

“Awww crap. You don’t think Delacroix suffocated someone with this?” Kozny replied with a groan.

“Or someone suffocated HER! Might explain why she’s not left town,” Gomez guessed, gesturing to the wardrobe of clothes and the empty luggage.

“But there isn’t a body,” Kozny said with a shrug.

“Dammit. OK, Let's get the CSU up here. We best not touch anything else till the photographer has got everything. SHIT!” Gomez said, cursing their bad luck.

Kozny also wondered what had happened there. She already knew that Delacroix was dead but at the hands of Lucy Wuan, and with a gun. Unfortunately it was the part of Kozny that lived within Supergirl's secret world that knew the truth. Her world as Lisa Kozny the NYPD Detective would be destroyed in an instant if anyone found out what she knew and what she had done.

So, now here she was hunting for a dead suspect and perversely possibly having to investigate her murder, even though it never happened in that room, nor by suffocation. But then again, if Delacroix had murdered someone else there it gave Kozny a renewed sense of purpose to find out who the new victim was.

= = = = = = = = = = = =


A golden labrador sat on a metal examination table panted as it looked at its owner, un-phased as the vet listened to the animal’s heart with her stethoscope.

“OK… everything sounds great to me…” the vet said, popping the earpieces from her ears and coiling the stethoscope up in her hand.

The owner, a young man, smiled as he stroked the dog which seemed totally at ease with its surroundings. The annual check up had gone without a hitch as usual, the regular worming and good diet were helping keep his best friend in good condition.

“So, the blood work comes back tomorrow you said?”

“Yes, but, we will only call you if there is anything we need to talk about. If you don’t hear from us it’s all ok. Just check with reception that your contact details are still correct on the way out. Otherwise everything looks and sounds good. The only important thing to remember is Buddy here is advancing on in age, keep an eye out for changes in eating habits, playfulness, anything like that. You may even want to consider six monthly checks up from now on, but it’s up to you,” the vet explained as she gave the Labrador a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“OK, great, thank you! OK … come on Buddy … let’s go…” the owner said with a smile. With a pat on his own thigh to signal Buddy to follow him the dog hopped of the table, still panting away happily.

The owner and Buddy walked up to the reception desk and soon the young man was paying for the check-up and then gone. The vet saw the waiting room was empty, as was usual at that time of day, the mid-morning lull. It tended to happen once all the “go there first thing” people had all been seen to and before the “I will go once I’ve got these other chores done” people arrived. With a little relief the vet went back into the consultation room and wiped down the examination table that had some dog hairs and spots of doggie drool spattered on it.

“HELP .. please help …” a woman cried out.

“Oh miss, miss …” the receptionist called out with some urgency in reply.

The vet was startled as she heard the commotion from the reception area and spun around out of the consultation room and into the passageway. Walking hurriedly towards the vet was a lady with a juvenile German shepherd cradled in her arms. The dog was twitching and convulsing and no doubt to the vet it was serious for the animal and distressing for the owner.

“Come on .. come in …it’s .. err … Gadget, right?” the vet asked, beckoning the owner onwards. The vet was referring to the dog’s name of course.

“Yes .. yes …”

The receptionist who was in pursuit slowed in her walk and then stopped when the vet raised a calming hand and merely mouthed that it was okay. The receptionist relented and turned around muttering something under her breath as she went.

The dog got placed down onto the examination table, the canine apparently drifting in and out of lucidity. The poor creature’s jaw quivered and its legs twitched violently and then suddenly just stopped. Gadget, panted with exhaustion, the attack having relented for the moment.

“OK … good boy … Gadget, good boy …” the owner said, stroking the animal along the side of its head and down its neck to its shoulder.

The vet put her stethoscope to the dog’s chest and listened carefully then began to pry open its eyes, studying its pupils.

“Janet … it is Janet, right? When did this all start?” the vet asked hurriedly as she spun around and got her thermometer.

“Yes, Janet Trello. I guess when it started was Friday … we noticed he had a slight limp and he seemed a little off his food in the evening. He had been playing in the garden and I thought he had just landed a little funny or something. I decided if he wasn’t bouncing back today I would bring him in but … god, overnight, he’s vomited … I mean a lot … some I think was blood … and then this started as I put him in the car …” the owner said, one hand on her forehead in distress.

“Has he been off your property, maybe escaped? I am just wondering if he has ingested something toxic ...” the vet asked, the thermometer starting to take the temperature of the sick pet.

“No, No .. well .. at least I don’t think so. My husband hasn’t said anything … he is at work at the moment, I …” the owner began to explain just as Gadget launched into another spasmodic attack.

At that moment the thermometer bleeped and the vet pulled it free and read it quickly.

“It’s high, much too high” the vet declared as she quickly put the thermometer aside to clean later. The temperature was one hundred and six Fahrenheit, the highest temperature she could ever recall seeing in a dog and pretty much near the fatal zone if she did not take drastic measures soon.

“What’s happening?! Is he going to make it?” the owner sobbed as she carefully tried to restrain Gadget who had begun to thrash quite violently.

“I am sorry, I need time to figure out what is causing this, these are just symptoms. I need to get Gadget’s temperature down first before I can do anything else. I have to be honest, this is serious,” the vet explained.

“I understand, I understand, see if you can at least try and get him stable first. If there is a chance we should try …” Gadget’s owner replied, wiping her eyes as the poor creature began to stretch out, the latest convulsions gradually fading again.

“OK, fill this in and sign and then I can get to work …” the vet said as she slid a release form towards the owner.

= = = = = =



Deputy Assistant Director Ingram was working in his office going through email, checking progress reports and writing instructions for his field office section heads. The paperwork and form filling at times seemed never ending, and that was just for his official job. His secret other role, managing INFINITY assets was something else entirely but now things were going to get more complex than he could possibly imagine.

TAPTAPTAP

Ingram looked up to see his deputy, Sean Mason who was stood at the door, the knuckles of his hand resting on the wood . African-American, with a short sharp haircut and a well cut suit he oozed confidence.

"Morning boss, may we talk?" asked Sean, pointing at the empty seat opposite Ingram’s desk.

"Sure. Come in. Close the door" Ingram said, leaning back in his chair and pinching the bridge of his nose, trying to relax his tired eyes.

Mason closed the door behind himself and dropped onto to the free seat in front of his boss.

"We've got a problem. It’s about Special Agent Weiss. The base where that BlueGlobe 251 flight touched down... err Stewart, for whatever reason the MP’s at the army base chose to run her prints. Of course INFINITY had already done the switch so..." Mason began to explain.

"Oh Jesus. What have they said?" Ingram asked, his hands rising and clamping around his head.

"Well that's the thing, they've not said anything. I've got feelers out trying to find out if she's going to walk or not but so far it looks like they are holding her. Do you want me to..." Sean said before Ingram stopped him.

"No...no. Jones is on her way out there to New York anyway apparently. She got herself into this mess so let's see if she sinks or swims. Has there been anything on Wang yet?"

"No sir, perhaps they accepted her ID at face value. She may even be dead. Not knowing the identity she was before she was tossed into the lock box is not helping," Mason said frankly.

"Sure, but we aren’t meant to know. This is Jones’ fault. If she hadn’t …" Ingram sighed with annoyance. If only Nerys Jones or whatever he real name was hadn’t switched the other ID’s mid journey.

“We could burn Weiss and Wang, put it down to a computer glitch,” Mason suggested.

“Not yet. This is a new INFINITY group, we need to let this play out a little more first. With Wang I want you to check the Blueglobe survivors list. See if there any Asian names on there that could be her original identity. If not, she may well have died,” Ingram’s tone seemed more determined as he formulated his plan.

“And Weiss?” Mason asked.

“I will deal with figuring that out myself. You just focus on Wang for now.” Ingram said.

Mason nodded and rose from his seat before heading to the door.

“Oh, and Mason. Be careful, we are the firebreak between those that don’t want to know about our work and those that have to. This group is different, we need to play a tight game,” Ingram reminded his friend and colleague.

“Understood,” Mason nodded then left, closing the door behind him.

Ingram thought for a moment then decided to act, picking up his phone and dialling out.

JONES

The ringing tone sounded for about ten seconds before the call was answered.

“Special Agent Jones,” Neyra answered. She sounded anxious to Ingram’s experienced ears and might she well be, their previous conversations a little tense.

“It’s me, Ingram,” Ingram said, leaning forward at his desk, elbows supporting his weight.

“Hello, sir. What can I do for you?” Neyra asked.

Ingram broke the bad news, his tone calm but urgent, “Listen. You have a problem that needs containing. It’s Weiss. She is at Stewart where Blueglobe 251 one landed…”

“Well, that’s good, right? My flight into New York leaves late tonight. When I get there I can…” began Neyra. Knowing at least where Selena was good news to her ears. Sure she would have preferred knowing where Lucy was but Selena would do.

“Listen, it’s complicated. She is being detained for some reason,” Ingram cut in.

“Detained? But if she’s FBI then…” Neyra began.

Ingram’s eyes rolled, his patience with Neyra evaporating a moment, “Listen, genius. You switched her ID mid-flight. She probably couldn’t even tell you her new name if she tried, could she? And even if by some miracle she does know her new name she had been travelling on the passport that INFINITY has just burned. It will come back as a fake, get it? That’s why she is probably being detained. So, you better get your shit together and figure a plausible story why your agent was flying on false documents,”

At the other end there was silence as Neyra’s self-confidence imploded. Ingram listened incredulously to the silence. Was she even going to say anything?

“Jones?” Ingram pressed Neyra to speak, a finger rising to his to other ear to block out any unwanted noise. Had she been cut off?

Neyra broke the silence, “Sorry, I was thinking. I can’t really do anything about this problem until I get out there to New York. Unless something changes I won’t contact you until then,” Neyra replied.

“Fine, Jones, but you’re busting my balls here. Get your head in the game before we have to burn the lot of you,” Ingram said. There was a short pause and then with a click Neyra disconnected.

Ingram firmly put the phone handset back down on its cradle and grumbled unhappily. This was not going well.

=====================


Captain Walker and the Corporal stood inside the observation room looking at Selena who was sat in the wooden chair inside the interrogation room. Selena, head down, was seeking sleep, no doubt exhausted by her night of bondage in the chair and the loud repeating music that she had been forced to listen to all night. The music had now stopped, Walker pocketing the tape of Ave Maria.

“What do you see, Dakota?” Walker asked, glancing at the imposing corporal next to him. He even had to look upwards a little to lock eyes with her, such was her height.

There was a silent pause as the corporal looked Selena up and down a moment. “You said she was an escapee from Leavenworth, she is ex-military. And to me you seem sure, sir. So, that is what I see,” the corporal responded, her eyes locked dead ahead.

“Green to Gold. If you are to move from Green to Gold, if you are going to be an officer; if I am to make an officer then you have to see something bigger. Your answer is a Corporal’s answer, Dakota. Give me an officer’s answer. What is it you see?” Walker asked again.

The corporal glanced back at Walker, then ahead, staring intently at Selena.

“She is… a disgrace to her uniform. She is a threat to our nation’s security,” the Corporal said, uncertain of her words.

“More…” Walker said dryly.

“Well, she has been on the outside for several years now. People may have been helping her. She … seems to have means, resources. They did not come from nowhere…” the corporal said, her eyes staring ahead at their prisoner through the one way glass.

Walker looked between Selena and his subordinate, “Better,” Walker said dryly, “And now that we have an opportunity to learn something before she gets handed back to Leavenworth, what should we do?”

The corporal looked intently at Selena and recalled her teachings from her ‘mentor’, Captain Walker. “We should interrogate her…” she said, begrudgingly.

“That’s right. Without intelligence we are blind. Getting good intelligence is key. Tsung Tsu begins with insisting you know your enemy. And so, we have this chance to find out what she knows before those jailors at Leavenworth go softly, softly, and put her in a cell. Find out where she has been. Find out who has been helping her. Bring me some anwers,” Walker said, his words paced evenly, coldly, and laced with malice.

“I will do what it takes, sir,” the corporal responded.

“Very good. There is your prisoner. Break her down. Bring me some facts.” Walker said. He was practically licking his lips in readiness for the feast to come.

“Huah!” the young corporal said, stamping to attention and a salute and walking to the doorway to the corridor. She opened the door and was part way out before Walker gave her one other piece of advice.

“Oh and corporal, begin with the carrot. I want her to be able to know how good it is, gives the stick more meaning when it comes,” Walker said, looking not at her, but ahead out of the glass at Selena.

The corporal’s head dropped having seen Walker’s sick grin in the faint reflection of the glass as he gazed at his prisoner beyond.

Green to gold can’t happen fast enough


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl had cruised east until she saw a river and decided to follow it knowing they led to the sea and was quickly rewarded by the sight of a road and railway lines which ran along the banks of the Susquehanna. Making a bend Supergirl saw a small settlement ahead and decided to land.

The place was quiet and there were a few quaint timber houses which looked homely. How she wished she had somewhere to go to right now. There was no traffic around but a freight train’s wheels played their metallic percussion as they rolled over the tracks in the distance.

“Public Library” said a sign, pointing up a quiet street.

Supergirl smiled, a library meant information, it meant knowledge. Perhaps she could learn something about herself that would jog her memory. With a skip in her step Supergirl took to the air and quickly saw her destination only a block away. Set among the trees and with a modest car park at the front there was the Marysville-Rye Library. In red brick with a white roof Supergirl saw the place was quiet and dropped down, the carpark empty save for a humble Volkswagen Beetle parked in the “Employees Only” section.

Supergirl combed her hair with her fingers and tried to gain some semblance of tidiness about herself. Satisfied she took a deep breath and walked forward through the doors and up to the small counter behind which a librarian who was head down, scanning in the barcodes of some returned books ready to be put back on the shelves.

“One moment dear…” the librarian said, not lifting her head.

BIP! .. BIP! .. BIP! Sounded the scanner as the librarian logged in the books.

The lady, white haired and with wrinkles that betrayed her seventy or so years gently hummed to herself as she worked. Then, job done she rose, putting her spectacles back on which had hung about her neck on some cord.

“There, done. Now how can …” the lady began as she looked up only to see.

“Hello…” Supergirl said politely.

“Oh.. oh my! It’s … it’s you!” the librarian said in surprise loudly, covering her mouth.

Supergirl winked and put her finger to her mouth, kindly mocking the image of a stern librarian hushing their noisy patrons. The lady giggled for a moment, then wide eyed and in excitement began to whisper.

“What can I do for you, Supergirl? Oh my goodness, it is YOU, isn’t it?” the librarian asked. Looking around herself she was part expecting a camera or someone to confess to the practical joke but …

“In the flesh” Supergirl answered, slowly levitating from the floor to demonstrate it most certainly was her.

“Oh my goodness! Please, tell me what I can do for you? Please, anything at all” the librarian said, still agog, looking at the hovering heroine in front of her.

“Well, I was hoping to, well, research something,” Supergirl explained, her hands lacing in front of her which only seemed to make her look more angelic.

“Oh, ok well, as you can see our library is very small but … but we have internet access. You are meant to have a card but… I think I can swing something, just for you,” chuckled the lady playfully.

“Oh, oh thank you so much but I don’t want to be a bother,” Supergirl answered, dropping slowly to the ground.

“Oh it’s no bother at all, please, come with me,” the librarian said as she led the heroine away with an excited spring in her step.

Supergirl was led to a corner of the library and was shown a computer which waited. The librarian stooped forward, let her spectacles drop from her nose and logged in onto the computer using her own credentials.

“There, young lady. You go ahead, I will be around if you need me. Please don’t hesitate to ask me for anything,” the librarian said as Supergirl took her seat.

“Thank you so much,” Supergirl said as she prepared to get to work.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



Drafted in from the East coast a team of NSA agents had been brought out to the Army base that housed the detained personnel from the previous day’s Mech demonstration. All had a means to have attempted an assassination of President Garrison and now it was time to weed out who might also have motive and opportunity to do so. Someone among the suspects was responsible and the lead investigator was going to find out who.

The investigator thought about the process he was going to use to figure out what the next suspect was about, just as he had to do with the ones from before, but, each time it was the same.

The investigator would look down at the file in front of him, just as he had done several times before. He would look at the photo and wonder if he was looking into the eyes of a mass murderer. Then the suspect's biography came next. The suspect's parents, their jobs, their son's or daughter's childhood history. The suspect's schooling was next, their formative years, in high school, college and university. Those years would be the time they might make a mistake or two during young adulthood, a speeding ticket here or there or caught in possession of pot or some other triviality. Then there was their work history where their ethics and proficiency would shine through. Were they fast achievers or also ran's?

One by one the suspects had come and each time it was the same.

Once the investigator had a handle on the sort of person he was going to be dealing with he nodded to the ones behind the one way mirror and they sent in the next suspect. The suspect would be led into the interrogation room, secured to the interview desk, tape recorder started and the interrogation commenced. Each time it was the same.

The interrogator barely looked up from his list of questions as the suspects usually tested their restraints in a bid to get comfortable.

"For the record, state your name and role at Mech demonstration" the investigator asked.

The first time it had been;

"Jeezus, again? I am Mitchell, TWO L's. Chief Engineer from Sanderson Corporation R&D division,"

And another time;

"Captain Martin McAllister, United States Army Cavalry Corps, I was lead test pilot for the Mech demonstration,"

And a time after that it had been;

"Barret, telemetry engineer for the Mech demonstration, I work for the R&D division belonging to Sanderson Corporation,"

The investigator made his notes as the suspect replied. The questions were innocuous at first before the investigator tried to close in on the culprit of all the deaths at the Mech demonstration. One by one they had come and each time it was the same.

"When did you suspect something was wrong?" The investigator asked.

Mitchell leaned back in his seat, incredulous to the question. "You're kidding right? I was stood at the edge of the grandstand and the Mech is ploughing through the place tossing everyone around, it was a bloodbath out there..."

Captain McAllister gulped at the question, "I.. I was part way into the display routine when suddenly the Mech just became unresponsive to my commands. But it wasn't like it just stopped or it was stuck going in a straight line or anything. It was moving like it was under intelligent control, like there was another pilot was driving the thing,”

Barret frowned a moment as he took in the investigator's question, "Well, at first I would have said when the telemetry feed from the Mech that McAllister was piloting just froze but, while I was waiting in the cell I kept playing everything in my mind and... well, I guess things started going wrong when we had a report from the field that the Mech from the mortar demo was moving when our data said it was parked,"

The investigator's questions continued, the suspect in front of him talking, gesturing with their restrained wrists as they retold the story from their own point of view.

One by one they had come and each time it was the same.

"What did you do next?" asked the investigator as he continued to build a timeline of events.

Mitchell had retold how he had seen the murderous machine tear through the grandstand and the all the people and how he had gone back to the control center in the trailer, "... and so I thought I could maybe use the remote piloting position to override the Mech. I didn't know if it was a malfunction, if McAllister was.. well.. sick or something, or whatever so, I thought I could take back control,"

McAllister shook his head as he retold his story, "I remember this secret service agent. He didn't trust me, thought I was making the mech kill all those people. For a moment the Mech paused and the agent was going to use the emergency canopy release to get me out. I even had my hands on my head to show I wasn't doing anything, ask him,"

Barret blinked as he recalled what happened next, "Mitchell kept his head. Had us brainstorm a plan. He thought Dr Matthews had locked herself in the remote piloting seat and was controlling the Mech from there. We had a few ideas but the best one was..."

The investigator scoffed silently inside his head as he realised how Barret, Mitchell and McAllister began to independently corroborate their stories.

Mitchell seemed to shake, his voice nervous as he continued, "... so my guys are looking at me! They felt the best chance to stop that thing was with another Mech. Barret I think it was, he said I was the best man for the job. What could I do? I wasn't going to make one of people do it, everything was up to me!"

McAllister had recomposed himself after having to describe what he had seen while a prisoner inside the cockpit of his unresponsive rogue mech, "..so...Supergirl was there and fighting the Mech I was in and freed me. I kept watching from under a truck and saw that another Mech started to help her. The Spider Mech's limbs seemed to have her pinned. I couldn't see everything but I am sure it was the Sanderson Corp engineer, Mitchell who was the other pilot. There was a fight and suddenly the Spider's power core seemed to build up to an overload and..."


Mitchell took a deep breath," When the pulse ended I pulled myself out of the cockpit of the Mech I was in and headed for the support trailer which was now on its side. I found Dr Matthews and Supergirl in the wreckage of the cockpit room,"

McAllister's hands made fists in their restraints, "that's where I saw her, Dr Matthews, in the wreckage of the virtual cockpit room. Mitchell was there, Supergirl too. We detained Matthews there and then,"

Barret sighed, "…we had evacuated the trailer knowing Mitchell was going to try and trash it and stop whoever it was inside the remote cockpit room. While we suspected it was Dr Matthews who was in there I secretly had doubts. It was only later I saw the test pilot, McAllister leading her away,"

One by one they had come and each time it had been the same.

Until now!


Dr Molly Matthews squirmed in her restraints, the opening question vexing her already, "My name? The others keep calling me Matthews, I think I am a doctor or something... but I don't know who my employers are. What sort of doctor am I? I hope I am a medical doctor. Am I?" Molly asked innocently, her eyes pleading just as much as the tone of her voice.


"So, you don't know who you are?" the investigator replied in surprise.


"No, I… I don't know anything. I guess I am a US citizen? But that’s all that I've been figured out since... well since all this!" Molly explained, yanking at her cuffs to highlight what she meant.


"What is the first thing you remember?" asked the investigator as he made notes. So far, during the individual interrogations the questions had followed a script but Molly was taking him off piste and he had to adjust his plan.


"First? I woke up. I had a sore head, I think I had taken a blow maybe, and... and I was naked, and ... and Supergirl and, oh god, a man, there was a man. Mitchell I think is his name. He... he assaulted me and was accusing me of all these things and ... please, you have to believe me, I don't remember anything!" Molly exclaimed again, getting more and more upset.

"So, you're telling me that your earliest ever memory is that? Nothing before? Your work, education, family? Place of birth?" the investigator asked, his tone hinting at his doubt.


"No, I swear. I ... please, help me remember!" Molly pleaded.


"I am sorry Dr Matthews but we will be holding you indefinitely while…," the investigator cut in.

"Indefinitely? Oh my god, what's happening? I haven’t done anything, you can't ..." Molly said, starting to panic.


"You are being investigated for acts of terrorism. Under NDAA you can be held indefinitely and without charge and based on the evidence we have seen and the eye witness accounts that have been given that will be my recommendation,” the investigator explained bluntly.

“No, please, I … I don’t understand what is going on! Why won’t anyone believe me!” protested Molly, a defensive raising of her hands jarring her wrists that were still bound in front of her.

Behind the one-way glass two watching officers talked quietly as they observed Molly break down into tears in the scene beyond.

“Let’s get some blood samples now and run them for the usual drugs. If the question comes up about her amnesia I want to be able to say we checked she wasn’t drugged. We are going to need a medical assessment too, we want to make sure she did not take a blow to the head,”

“You think she is telling the truth?”

“From all the interviews we have watched I am pretty sure we are looking at who is responsible for what happened, but I want to do this right. And, god help her, if she is innocent, I want her to get a fair chance. Imagine being framed up for doing what we found out there …”

“Understood,”



= = = = = = = =


Mike Loughlan, caretaker CEO of Sanderson Corporation paced his apartment, phone clasped to his ear as he listened intently to the man on the other end of the line.

Loughlan waited a moment and then spoke, "Can't you at least get word to... yes I know he's in witness protection but you're custodian of his holdings. Surely... well... doesn't he get a say?"

Loughlan listened to the other voice's excuses while pacing some more before the voice stopped.

"Fine, I'll fight without you," Loughlan cursed before hitting the disconnect button on the phone.

The man that been on the other end of the line was the custodian of Bobby Sanderson's holdings within the corporation. Now that Bobby was in witness protection he had to stay hands off. The custodian was there to look after his best interests and if his best financial interests were to get out while the going was good, then so be it. Either way, Bobby and his sister were financially secure, his personal fortune already separated from the fortunes of the corporation that bore his name.

Loughlan picked up his scotch with ice and glared at the city skyline. In the distance the skyscrapers of Manhattan stood tall, embracing the midday clouds. Mike paused in thought before a curious feeling ran through him and he spun around to look at his corner sofa and...

To Loughlan's disappointment no one was there, the sofa vacant. In his heart he had hoped the dangerous yet attractive Asian would be there. She knew Supergirl, or so she claimed and boy did Loughlan need a superhero now. Monday was coming and with it the special meeting of bankers who were overseeing Sanderson Corporation's restructuring after Bobby had taken the global economy to the brink of destruction.

The corporation was generally in good health. It had assets, it had positions, all of them with value. It also had fingers in many potentially profitable pies, but all these things would take time to produce cash. It was while the corporation was low on cash flow that it was vulnerable and that is where the bankers came in, keeping things ticking over while they waited for the corporation to dig itself out of trouble.

While that was going on Loughlan just needed to keep his ship steady and away from danger. Unfortunately news that the latest toys from his R&D division had tried to kill the president was as ship friendly as a lump of ice in the North Atlantic on a cold April night. Worse still, the attendees for the upcoming bankers meeting were new to him and he had been trawling his address book calling in every favour he could get to figure how these men might treat him. Would they be sympathetic like their predecessors or would they be keen to tear out some value for themselves before things went bad, and things certainly were going to go bad.

Share value was under pressure on news of the assassination attempt. The futures market was indicating there would be a big hit on share values at the open on Monday. Sure the president survived which mitigated some pain but key technical staff were now under arrest and as for the Mech project itself...

Mike took a swig of his drink as he contemplated negative thoughts.

"I am screwed if these assholes want out," Mike said to himself referring to the bankers.

Without their continuing willingness to help the corporation there could be problems, maybe even a takeover attempt. He would be hard pressed to fight back without cash, however.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Deputy Assistant Director Ingram of the FBI’s Office of Partner Engagement was at his office desk when his phone rang. He picked up the handset glancing at the incoming call number on his phone. The extension number showing was Sean Mason's, his deputy and fellow secret overseer of the INFINITY network.


"Sean, what is it?" Ingram asked quietly.

“Hi sir, I think I have found Agent Wang. Jones will have to visually confirm it is her, but there is a BlueGlobe survivor with a name of Asian origin who is in a coma at the Hackensack University Hospital in New Jersey. They have her registered under the passport she was flying on. No one has double checked her ID so they don’t know she has become Luna Wang,” Mason explained.

“Finally, a bit of good news, hopefully it’s her. I will pass the word on to Jones. She might be able to salvage something from this shit-storm after all,” Ingram sighed.

“What about Weiss? Have you figured out what is happening with her yet?” Mason asked.

"Yes, my contacts have gotten me some Intel. I don't know who Weiss really is but apparently some army captain has a real hard-on for her, he might know her by sight. He suspects she has a criminal record and he's sent away for hard copy fingerprints from Leavenworth to double check her ID. He's not taking chances either, the paperwork will be hand delivered too once they find it," Ingram explained.

“Leavenworth? I guess that’s why we have Infinity though, right? But, jeezus. A former military prisoner with an FBI persona? That’s messed up. I guess there is nothing we can do about paper copy prints either. What’s the plan?” Mason asked anxiously.



"If Jones can't get Weiss out in time or intercept that file then we will have to burn Weiss and rewind her to whatever ID was put into INFINITY. We will go with the contingency plan and blame a one off glitch to explain why she appeared as Weiss. It'll be the first time it happened if it did,” Ingram said.

“OK, is there anything I can do?” Mason enquired.

“Make the arrangements for Weiss’ and Wang’s kit to be spooled up ready for delivery into the New York area. If Jones does manage to pull something off then her team will need their gear,” Ingram suggested.

“OK, I’m on it … oh.. I’ve got to go,” Mason replie, his voice quickly becoming hushed. No doubt Mason was due some imminent company and INFINITY was something that was not for them to know about.



Neyra was back in her motel room, some shopping bags on her bed and a new piece of carry on luggage open ready to receive her new clothes. She was heading to New York as Nerys Jones and Neyra Thornton’s life had been abandoned, albeit temporarily. All Neyra had taken with her was some limited change of underwear, a pair of jeans and some tops which were crammed into her go-bag. Now at least she had something she could eek out for a week before needing to get some washing done. She was certainly hoping she would not be gone as long as that. As she contemplated getting her old life back Neyra’s FBI issued phone rang.

“Jones,” Neyra answered almost naturally. She was surprised how the alternate identity was slowly bedding in.

“It’s Ingram. I have more news about Agent Wang, we might know where she is but there is something you should know. If it is her, she is in a coma,” Ingram explained.

“IF it is her?” Neyra asked, slumping onto her bed.

“Unlike Weiss they’ve not tried any alternative means to identify her. You’ll have to check if it is her or not,” Ingram explained.

“I see … so do we know how bad it is?” Neyra asked anxiously.

“I am sorry I don’t know. We can’t probe too much but you can. If it is her you’re going to have to try and convince the local LEO’s to back off. Get them to buy she’s one of ours, understand? Weiss will be more difficult though. If they confirm her fingerprints before you can get her out it is over for her. I will leave you to figure out who you want to try and save first,” Ingram explained.

“OK, sir, and … well thank you for trying to find Agent Wang, she… well … she is important to us…” Neyra said with reluctant gratitude.

“Understood. Look, I know I can be a hard ass, but you’ve made your operation hard for all of us. If I have to burn anyone it is not personal, understand?” Ingram said, trying to be conciliatory. He knew well that so far he had only sounded negative to Neyra’s ears.

“I understand, sir, but I was kind of thrown into the deep end but I am sure I can turn it around,” Neyra responded.

“Good, until next time then,” Ingram

Finally Neyra had a good idea where both Lucy and Selena were. Her next job was to let McGee know, hoping that at some point he might be able to meet with her and take on some of responsibility resting on her shoulders. Grabbing her burner phone Neyra began to compose her message to send to the gentle giant.


= = = = = = = = = = =
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


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= = = = = = = = = = =

The vet looked on with concern at Gadget the sickly German shepherd which was still clinging on to life. Sedated, Gadget had a saline IV line feeding rehydrating fluid into his front leg while cooling packs padded out the soft bed beneath him. Gedget’s situation looked bleak despite the vet managing to take a little of the edge off of his fever. The vet had been fighting to stabilise Gadget and had begun to tentatively try and figure out what was wrong with him. A blood sample had been taken and sent away for analysis and then the vet had hit the books desperate to decode Gadget’s symptoms and put a name to his condition.

“Presentations … presentations …” she murmured to herself as she flicked through the pages of her canine text books.

None of the combination of symptoms she was seeing were quite adding up with the regular conditions she would see in a sick dog. Even checking specifically for conditions a German shepherd might have she saw nothing that quite matched. The vet’s gut feeling returned to thoughts of accidental poisoning, but what?

“Dammit, I need that blood analysis …” she cursed slamming the pages closed noting that the dog began had to whimper in its sleep.

Gadget then began twitching again, albeit a lot less intensely due to the sedation but even then, whatever wicked condition had taken hold of the animal was still able to make itself known. The vet felt a pang of guilt. She had been in charge of Gadget’s care since he was a pup, heck, even Gadget’s forbearers were in her practice’s care, and once Gadget had been bought by the current owners they had continued to come to the same practice. Now only a year old how had things come to this for the poor animal?

The vet ran a calming hand down Gadgets flank to his hind quarters in a bid to calm his twitching, an act that did seem to help, if only a little when …

The gliding hand which had been so gentle recoiled in shock as a swathe of Gadget’s coat came away leaving him bald on his hind quarters. The exposed skin was red, broken and swollen in a way that the vet had never seen first-hand before.

“What the….!” she said in shock. She leaned in closer to the injury to inspect it. She was sure she would have noticed this before if it had been there. Had this condition been developing even now while Gadget had been in her care?

Her mind raced, was it a substance Gadget had come into contact with on his skin, or a poison he had eaten. Or …

“Oh god, could it be …” the vet wondered. She paused in thought a moment and then reached for her phone and dialled. There was only a short wait before the person at the other end answered.

“Hey, it’s the Fairbrough Veterinarian clinic, yeah, it’s me, Tricia … look, I need a second opinion fast. No, not over the phone, I need someone here, yes, ok, I will hold,”


= = = = =


The corporal marched purposefully into the interrogation room with a bucket in one hand and a large kit bag in the other which she dropped as she entered. The slamming door caused Selena to jump, awakened by the noise and then she groaned remembering where she was. The Corporal and Selena then locked eyes via the mirror causing Walker to smile wickedly unseen beyond in the observation room.

"Please, let me go," Selena asked her jailor.

The corporal marched around to Selena's side and with a glance to the mirror where Walker was no doubt watching she tossed the ice cold bucket of water over her prisoner.

"Aaahhhhhhhhhhh pffffffffff" Selena responded, tossing her head and sending a fine spray of water from her mouth.

The bucket was tossed away sending it tumbling across the room and then the corporal circled the now soaking wet and mentally exhausted Selena. Selena shook from the shock of the water, her limbs juddering in their restraints.

"You have been on the run for some time, Selena. Before you go back to where you belong we want to know what you have been up to," the corporal began.


"Who ... who is this ... Selena woman ..." Selena managed to say as she shivered. Her red hair was matted to her face now, her makeup running down her cheeks.


"When the hard copies arrive from Leavenworth we shall see. We will manually match your prints. Even if you have interfered with the electronic database ..." the corporal began.


"If!" scoffed Selena albeit weakly, gulping in air as her convulsing body allowed, "you mean… you mean you're not sure?"

Water was dripping to the floor off of The Broker’s body, the gentle pitter-patter sound as it landed filling the momentary silence while the Corporal calculated her response.


"Don't play word games, Selena. The courier is coming with your file and soon we can put the question of you identity to rest. So, you can either cooperate, meaning we can offer you a carrot, or, are you going to need the stick?" the corporal said, striding confidently in front of her prisoner."


Selena steeled herself as fired back her reply, holding back the shivers running through her body, "And what if I do turn out to be Special Agent Celine Weiss? How is THAT going to look for you, corporal? Is the good captain hiding behind the glass so you end up taking the fall? Is that it, Captain Walker?"

Selena leaned in her chair and glared accusingly at her own reflection knowing that Walker lurked beyond unseen.


The corporal's deep blue eyes widened. A Special Agent? Her nostrils flared, an anxious deep breath betraying her concern at the possibility. Twisting her shoulders , neck and head the corporal made a puzzled expression at the glass at the man hidden beyond.


"Oh, he didn't tell you," Selena laughed weakly, looking into the mirror. She only saw herself and Dakota in the reflection but Dakota’s challenging expression meant Walker was no doubt there, watching.


If there had been any doubt to the Captain’s presence it was quickly dispelled as the intercom crackled into life.


#RELAX, Dakota. She is no more a special agent than you are a lieutenant. It's a lie. A ruse to throw us off. But, let it not be said we are without mercy, corporal. Let her have some carrot. We want her to be able to enjoy it before we introduce her to the stick#


“This is going to go horribly wrong for you, you’re making a mistake.” Selena warned her jailor. It was a lie, of course. Everyone seemed to know she was Selena Walsh but under the circumstances all she could do was to try to talk her way out of danger, she was in no position to be able to escape.

The corporal glanced between the reflection of Selena in the mirror and the black bag. Nothing the prisoner said was going to make her change her mind. Despite the despicable nature of her mentor, Captain Walker, the corporal was sure this Selena character was who he said she was despite this apparent assertion she was actually Special Agent Celine Weiss.

The corporal knelt down and pulled firmly at the chunky zip that held the black bag closed. Her eyes widened as she saw what resided within, a concerned glance flashing towards the mirror before looking back to the bag.

#COLLAR HER#

The corporal looked into the bag and pulled out the nylon collar with the black plastic block and metal prods protruding from it and held it up.

“You bitch,” Selena said in resignation. Nothing she could do would prevent her tormentor from putting the collar onto her. She knew full what it was, it was for training dogs. It was meant to be for forming obedience but for Selena it had once been used by Walker to enforce her subjugation.

#THAT’S THE ONE#

The brunette corporal marched up to Selena and grabbed a handful of Selena’s hair. She pulled it roughly to one side then drew the collar tight around Selena’s neck, leaving the electrodes digging into her neck.

#NOW THE STRAP-ON AND DON’T FORGET THE REMOTE FOR THE COLLAR. FUCKING WILL BE MORE … EDUCATIONAL… WHEN YOU ASK THE QUESTIONS#

The corporal hesitated a moment. She had to fuck the prisoner now? With an unheard sigh the Corporal spun around and returned to the black bag and fished inside. The weapon of choice was there, the long black silicon shafted strap-on. Pulling it free from the bag the corporal held the straps up to her eyes which widened.

#DON’T BE SHY, CORPORAL,#

The corporal cast a hateful gaze at the glass before she got to work. The waist band went on first, drawn tight to her combat bottoms, then, spinning it to one side slightly she aimed her weapon ahead. Then came the thigh straps which were set high. They helped anchor the dildo in place and the crotch strap was particularly stimulating once tightened up.

The corporal felt the bite of the strap even through her thick combat bottoms and underwear and giving the dildo a test waggle she felt a little pleasure from the sensations down below.

#DON’T FORGET THE REMOTE!#

The corporal nodded, reached into the bag and rummaged for a moment and then found the clicker which she suspected was for …

CLICK – the corporal accidentally caught the button as she sought to flip the controller over, button-side-up and ..

“Aaaahhh” yelped Selena at the sudden pain in her neck. She looked over at the Corporal with a scowl, her clenched teeth stifling her cursing afterwards.

Inside the observation room Walker chuckled with delight and was keen to see his subordinate play with their victim.

#BEGIN!#

The corporal marched over to Selena and grabbed a handful of red hair with one hand and began to unbind the prisoner’s wrists with the other. Selena resisted but the Corporal who loomed over her punished Selena with some cruel head control, twisting, pushing and pulling Selena into unwilling compliance.

“Yaahhhh stop it, stop …” complained Selena only to find the seat was being tipped back, albeit with care until she was sat in the chair as it lay on its back. Her ankles, still restrained to the legs were now raised and still apart.

The corporal tugged at the bindings holding Selena’s legs apart until she was free. Selena then rolled away, still a wet mess, her pants around her thighs, her top still ripped open. Staggering to her feet Selena looked prepared to try resist her tormentor and …

CLICK!

“Aaaahh” protested Selena, clutching her neck as she dropped to one knee.

“Up you get. Time for questions!” The corporal said as she approached. Hands ready to snag her prey.

Advancing up to Selena the Corporal clicked the trigger of the collar one more time causing Selena’s hands to rise to her neck, a distraction that was sufficient for the tall imposing corporal to grab her by the upper arms and spin her around.

“Get …. Off …… no ….. stop!” Selena protested as she found herself lifted by the waist like she weighed nothing and was slammed chest first into the mirrored glass causing it to rattle in its frame.

From Walker’s perspective Selena’s breasts pressed into the glass revealing every detail of her skin. Selena’s face was flat against the mirror, her eyes looking sideways, angrily trying to see who might be beyond.

#VERY GOOD, NOW, GENTLY DAKOTA … SHOW HER WHAT SHE GETS IF SHE COOPERATES #

The corporal, with a glance downwards, steered her shafted weapon between Selena’s legs and found her target. The tip parted Selena’s labia but she was nowhere near ready to take in such a large sized toy without some easing up first.

Selena’s eyes widened and she went to fight off her attacker, the toy’s presence signalling alarms in her head. Behind her though the Corporal swept her fingers on one hand over her own tongue and …

“Ohhhh fuck…” Selena moaned, the resistance in her body caving a moment as her shoulder slammed into the mirrored glass. Between her legs the corporal had placed her wet fingers against Selena’s pussy and began to swirl her digits into the soft flesh.

Twisting her head back Selena scowled at the corporal whose face looked down in concentration at her hand while it worked. Glancing back up though the corporal took fast action and used her other hand to shove Selena’s torso harder into the glass.

Beyond the mirror Walker grinned wickedly, his member hardening in his combat bottoms as he watched the very attractive corporal take charge of his former play thing. Truly there was something to gain from watching!

Soon the corporal’s fingers were falling inside Selena’s intimate space without even trying, such was her involuntary response to the forced attention. Now the corporal knew that Selena was ready for some forced pleasures.

The tip of the dildo burst past Selena’s labia first and then the shaft followed. With a little pressure the corporal pressed onwards, inching deeper with each stroke until she was able to emulate even the most well-endowed male lover.

“Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh …” Selena panted as she was taken by the corporal from behind, her resistance melting for Walker to see.

Walker leaned against the glass, palms supporting his weight as he watched. Dakota was methodical and whilst initially patient she slowly built up a relentless rhythm. Walker’s former plaything had at first resisted but as time went on had begun to be soft, malleable, and soon completely compliant to Dakota’s will.

“Oooooh … god …” moaned Selena, finally accepting some of the pleasure to be had from the tall attractive corporal behind her.

Walker was entranced by her response as he watched on, was she faking it or was Dakota really just that good? At any rate Selena had never responded like that when he had been the one dishing out the torment …

Dakota’s initially rough grasp on Selena became softer as she knew she had Selena where she wanted her and it certainly seemed the prisoner had no intention of trying to break free of what the Corporal was doing. Walker’s enchantment slowly swung towards disapproval of the situation, it was time to continue the lesson of the day. Walker spun to the intercom system and pressed the talk key.

#NOW IMAGINE, SELENA, YOU COULD ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS TO THIS SORT OF TORMENT, OR …#

The corporal nodded to the unseen captain beyond the glass and pulled herself sharply from Selena’s body before hitting the clicker. The shock collar sparked to life, literally, and the red-head found herself ripped from ecstasy and dumped into a world of pain.

VWEEEEEEEEEEEEE squeaked the glass as Selena’s face dragged over the smooth surface as she fell to the floor. The window now betrayed a trail of Selena’s sweat, tears and remaining makeup as she dropped, a sight that Walker happily took in.

The corporal stepped back and wiped sweat from her own brow, a guilty look across her face as she looked at her prisoner then back to the mirrored glass where Walker watched from beyond.

#AGAIN#

The corporal looked at Selena hesitantly a moment then stepped forward, ready but reluctant to assault Selena once more. Hoisting Selena up by her hair from behind the corp…

Selena suddenly reached up and grabbed the corporal’s wrist, putting it into a lock and sending the clicker for the collar dropping to the floor. Then the corporal’s eyes widened as she found the horizon flipping in her view, Selena yanking Dakota overhead only to land at the redhead prisoner’s feet, knocking the wind out of the young Corporal’s lungs. Selena then deftly rotated around and dropped to her knees, straddling the prone corporal whose arm was in a lock. The choke-out was about to come, Selena’s forearm ready to cut off the Corporal’s blood supply just long enough to….

Pulled up from inside the corporal’s tunic top during her fall, her dog tags lay on the concrete floor for Selena to see. Line by line they told their brief story. Surname, first name, middle initial. Social Security Number was next. Blood type. Religious Preference.

Selena stared open mouthed between the tag and the corporal, her desire to incapacitate her tormentor dwindling fast. Dakota was not part of the Corporal’s name. It was probably where she was from. The corporal saw Selena falter and without thinking began to thrash underneath her attacker in a bid to throw her off. Selena, tried to keep the corporal still while also trying to let her go from her attack but…

WHUMP!

Selena’s world went suddenly black as, from behind, Walker struck her over the head which sent her downwards into an unconscious embrace with the corporal beneath. The corporal cursed then carefully rolled Selena off of her and to one side onto the concrete floor.

“Are you okay, Dakota?” Walker asked, offering his hand out.

“Yes, sir,” the corporal responded as she pulled herself to her feet without her superior’s assistance.

“She is a wily one. Let’s put her back in the chair and when she wakes we can remind her of the stick!” Walker said, pointing at the wooden chair where Selena had been restrained before.

The corporal gathered her dog tags in one hand and, after giving them a quick glance she tucked them back into her top, troubling thoughts passing through her mind. What had this Selena character seen that had frozen her? Walker reached down and pulled Selena up by one limp arm and draped her over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir…” the corporal responded, now more concerned than ever that this woman was far from what she appeared to be.

= = = == = = = ==


A male youth skated across the carpark and with a deft flick with his foot kicked up his board and caught it with one hand then unhooked his backpack from his back and carried it with the other.

He walked through the doors of the library and saw old Mrs Kendell behind her counter and utterly distracted by something across the room.

“Mrs Kendell?” the youth asked as he frowned while slowly unzipping his bag.

There was no response as he placed the borrowed DVDs onto the counter top and so the youth made a subtle cough before speaking.

“Ahem- Mrs … Mrs Kendell?”

“Oh … what … oh sorry Dale, I … oh … these are to return?” Mrs Kendell asked as she turned to look at the young man in front of her. She seemed slightly distracted but Dale dismissed it as an “old person” thing.

“Yes, thank you. Can I take out season 2?” Dale asked.

“If it’s on the shelf, of course you can young man. Let me check these back in while you take a look to see if it is there,” Mrs Kendell responded with a smile gesturing to the DVD collection.

“Awesome,” Dale said in a low voice, his eyes flashing happily.

Dale placed his board and his bag in the corner where he had entered and walked down a passageway to the back corner where the DVD collection was. As he got to the end he caught sight of the blond woman at the library internet computer and then noticed …

“SUP..” Dale’s hand clamped to his mouth and the heroine, sat in her chair swivelled her neck, her eyes locking onto the young man.

“Oh..I … err … what’s going on?” Dale stammered with a stage whisper.

“Everything is okay. Please, just do what you were doing,” Supergirl replied with a smile.

Dale cocked his head and wondered how close he dare approach. It was HER. He had obviously seen her in the news, in the papers but he never ever imagined that … oh god she was so close that with a few paces he could reach out and touch her.

“What … what are you doing … err … if I may ask?” Dale asked politely.

“Oh, just some research, well, trying to. It’s not that this is slow, I guess, just, I can go faster than it can!” Supergirl quipped.

“Is it true, you can read really fast?” Dale asked, inching slightly closer to the heroine.

“Apparently,” Supergirl responded, as she clicked, and clicked and clicked, opening new pages which sometimes took a few moments to fully load in. She was getting through a page of reading faster than they could load, which, was only seconds, “but too fast for this to keep up,”

“Err, well … please don’t think I am just … well … look… the internet here is ok, but I have a better connection at home. And .. well … I am bit of a nerd … I have four screens too. Would that help you go faster?” Dale suggested. He didn’t even know himself if he was genuinely being helpful or if he secretly longed for … well … for HER!

Supergirl’s gaze on the monitor broke and settled on Dale with a hint of surprise on her face, “Did you say four screens?”

= = = == = = = ==


At an army base not far from the site of the attempt on President Garrison’s life was where Dr Matthews and all those involved in the Mech demonstration were being held. Amongst the many buildings at the base was the communications centre and there, sat in a rack was one of the secure hard-line teletype machines. It waited passively, an intermittent green light showing it was connected and listening for a signal. Then a blue light flashed sporadically as data streamed to it from down the communications line.

CHATCHATCHATCHAT … CHATCHAT!

The teletype machine chuntered to itself as it came to life.

CHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHAT!

Step by step the machine typed out the message. This was no mere printer with a dot matrix head nor a laser printer either. This machine hammered out the message, each type face letter electrically fired, striking the page with ink one letter at a time. The paper for this machine was special too, the left half of a sheet was jet black, the right, pale yellow. Simple, robust and yet hardened with encoding the machine spelled out the message sent by whoever was at the other end of the line upon the pale yellow half of the sheet.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

FROM: MEDCOM/RHCCENT/FSHTX/ANLAB/ LT G.D.HASKILL
TO: USNORTHCOM/USARNORTH/RSAB/MPSECT/CO
PRIORITY: URGENT
CLASSIFICATION: CONFIDENTIAL
SUBJECT: BLOOD ANALYSIS – VIAL TAG #3421 (THREE-FOUR-TWO-ONE)
RESULT SUMMARY
LFT – NORMAL
KFT – NORMAL
WBC – NORMAL
RBC – NORMAL
COMMENTS – MARKERS FOR COMMON Z-TYPES / BENZO – DERIVATIVES / GHB - DERIVATIVES NOT FOUND
DETAILED BLOODWORK COUNTS TO FOLLOW…
LT G.D. HASKILL
DUTY LABORATORY ANALYST/
MSG ENDS
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

CHATCHATCHATCHATCHATCHAT – ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

The teletype machine chuntered to a halt before scoring a tear line in the paper.

BEEP .. BEEP .. BEEP .. BEEP

The machine then began to chime, alerting the men in the office that there was a signal waiting and it did not take long before an officer walked over and tore off the sheet. Placing the sheet face up he then folded the jet black half over to cover the message, a pre-cut window exposing the “To” line, identifying the recipient. Then, he placed the edge of the sheet where the two halves met into a machine which fused the folded sheet shut, repeating the action for the top and bottom as well. Sealed, the message was ready to deliver.


Carried by hand to the MP’s section the message arrived on the desk of the commanding officer.

“Thank you, I think I know what this is,” said the major sat behind the desk. With a wave of the hand he dismissed the messenger and took a deep breath.

He ripped open the message and looked down at the results summary. Everything normal and no hint of a date-rape drug to be seen. The bloodwork of Dr Matthews was fine. The Major sighed as he leaned back into his seat; it was time to ship her off to get her head thoroughly checked. If she was going to stick to her “I don’t remember” story they were going to do everything to prove one way or another if she was telling the truth. The base did not have the facilities to do the tests and the NSA men who had interrogated everyone would want to keep the number one suspect of a presidential assassination attempt under wraps. In order to do that then they had planned to send her to a military hospital for further tests if the blood results were clean.

Picking up the phone the Major dialled out then paused before speaking, “Yes, I have had the results, yes, all clean… Yes, I am signing the release now, she’s all yours…. I will let the duty officer know… thank you,”

Shortly afterwards Doctor Molly Matthews was stood in her cell, the front wall merely bars with a locked gate set into it. She held the bars anxiously as she heard activity outside the cellblock and then the men in suits came, the NSA. Escorted by soldiers in MP uniforms the NSA men looked serious, one carrying a black holdall in one hand.

“Am I … am I being released?” Molly asked, her doe eyes hoping for a good answer.

“Transferred” one of the agents said tersely.

One of the MP’s gestured to Molly, “Turn around and place your palms to the back wall. Keep your legs spread,”

Molly backed away, anxious about what was going to happen and her arms wrapped around her body nervously.

“Please, can I have a lawyer now?” Molly asked humbly.

“Your legal representation will be decided upon after your medical assessment,” said one of the NSA agents as he placed his hands on his waist, a move which parted his suit jacket. On his belt was his badge but it was the pistol in his holster that his well crafted manoeuvre was designed to subtly reveal.


Molly’s hands rose defensively, her body language confirming she was not going to resist.

“Move back,” the MP instructed Molly again while the other soldier jangled his keys ready to open the cell door.

“Can I ask where you are taking me?” Molly probed again, trying to learn her fate.

“Sure, you can ask,” scoffed the first NSA man, pointing again to the back wall. It provoked a pause in Molly’s movement as she decoded his message. They weren’t going to tell her.

Molly’s head dropped as she complied and turned around. Her eyes began misting as her forehead and palms rested on the back wall of her cell, her back turned to the men who were about to enter.

CLANG CLANK

The gateway was unlocked and swung open with a metallic groan and the two NSA men entered.

“You may go,” one of the NSA men said, gesturing to the MP’s

“Sir?” an MP asked, a turn of his head marking his dissent.

“We will make our own security arrangements for her transport,” the NSA man continued, tapping the black holdall he placed down by himself with his foot.

“Very good, sir,” the lead MP said, eyes gesturing to his colleague to leave with him.

Molly felt the firm hand of an NSA agent press against her shoulder while she heard the MPs leave. With a metallic clunk the remaining trio knew they were alone, the MP’s having left the cells. There was a tense pause as no one spoke, Molly’s view of grey concrete was all she had.

There was a zip sound as the holdall was opened and the contents were spilled on the floor. A restraint belt, ankle cuffs, wrist cuffs, chains and an orange tinted clear PVC suit.

Then it began; the assault. Dragged and spun around Molly was shoved backwards into the wall again the drab olive green top she was wearing ripped apart and down her upper arms. Then the rough hands were clawing at the combat pants she was wearing, pulling them apart and being dragged down, exposing her military issue olive green panties.

“Hey! No! Stop …” Molly began to protest only to get shoved back some more.

“Or WHAT?” replied the first NSA man as his partner clutched at the panties at the front by the waistband.

The green material went taught as the agent pulled, the bunched up material dropping into the soft fleshy trench between Molly’s legs.

“Fuuuuck” Molly growled, trying to twist away from her tormentors who kept her pinned to the wall.

SHRIP!

The panties tore apart, the painful friction of the fabric dragging away from between her legs making itself evident for all to see. Molly was now bottomless and her eyes widened as the snapping sound of latex gloves on hands filled the air. It was all happening so fast.

“Let’s make sure you have nothing hidden away, down there,”

“What?! Are you … no … you can’t do … no … stop … STOP!” Molly protested once more as suddenly there was a probing finger in between her legs, zeroing in on…

“There we go…”

“Nghhhhh you bastards. When I get a lawyer I … Ohhhhh …” Molly groaned. The search was forced but the touch was sexual nonetheless.

The NSA man’s finger explored little by little, sinking deeper each time. Then the finger became two fingers. The slow careful exploration, unwanted as it was, inevitably caused her body to respond. The agent felt Molly’s resistance weaken, and soon three fingers executed the search.

The other agent pinned Molly back, a foot kicking her legs further apart, a cruel grip of her face making sure she kept eye contact with him as an array of feelings and emotions were broadcast by her slowly changing expressions.

“Open your mouth,” the other NSA agent said.

Molly tried to turn her face away only to get slapped on the cheek.

“I said, open your mouth!”

Molly, wide eyed, fought to contain the feelings but…. “ohhhh … god …” she moaned as fingers below found her g-spot. Her eyes rolled back a moment and her jaw slackened.

Molly was melting from the soft cruelty below and now fingers tested her mouth, the inside of her cheeks intimately explored first. Then the gum line was searched next and then beneath her tongue.

“Suck it,” the NSA man said ominously as he made his fingers into the shape like a gun, the muzzle between her lips.

“Pleaohmmmm” Molly tried to plead only to end up with his gloved fingers in her mouth, pumping back and forth.

The agent crouched by Molly’s legs worked her g-spot, her ability to stand flagging by the moment. Luckily the other agent had her pinned and encouraged her to stay up, his fingers in her mouth as an added incentive to stay put.

“Find Anything?”

“No, you?”

“No, nothing”

“Cross check?”

“Sure!”

“Plugh…” Molly spluttered as the latex glove was removed from her mouth. “Cross check?” she asked in disgust.

The agent who had probed her deeply rose into view, his cum coated gloved hand appearing before her eyes. Slowly transforming into the shape of a make believe pistol his intention was patently clear.

“No … please… god at least change your gloooogh ogh” Molly managed before her mouth was penetrated with a gloved hand coated in her own juices.

Down between her legs the saliva coated glove now swept inside her with little resistance, double checking that there was nothing concealed within. Molly could only moan and suffer as her body was violated by the authority figures she had been left with. There was no one to defend her, no one to complain to, no one to protect her rights, the nightmare was never-ending and still she could not remember what it was she had apparently done to incur this treatment.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


The concierge at his post at the ground floor of the prestigious apartment complex looked through the day’s itinerary. Here would be listed any planned visitors that the residents might have. The uninvited would be turned away, the policy of admittance quite strict.

The concierge looked over the security feed coming to his desk which confirmed all was well and then aligned his pens , his keyboard, his mouse and his desk phone, ensuring perfect symmetry and right angles, ready for his shift.

There, perfect

TAP TAP

There was a tap at the glass doors, signifying the person there did not have a key. Not a resident then, concluded the concierge.

TAP TAP

The concierge approached the doors and then saw the dark navy jacketed man holding up a badge. He was FBI. Walking more quickly the concierge arrived at the door and recoiled seeing the spectacle outside. Several FBI vehicles had arrived, red and blue lights flashing and with them many men in black tactical gear, weapons being prepared.

The concierge swiped his badge which hung on a lanyard around his neck and opened the doors.

“Hey is everything ok?” the concierge asked anxiously.

“Special Agent Torres, we have a warrant…” explained the agent, producing sheets of paper, “… to search the apartments of a Dr Matthews. She lives here, correct?”

“Yes, yes, she has the penthouse level of Tower One,” recalled the concierge looking at the paperwork. Remembering residents’ names, faces, and where they lived was part of his job. This was a deluxe service the residents were for paying for after all and being known by name and given personalized attention came with it.

“OK, Sir, I am going to have to ask you to stand aside while we execute our warrant. Two things; do you have master keys for Dr Matthews’ apartment and do you have lock-out access on the elevators, we need to move our men upstairs,”

“Yes, of course Agent Torres. We hold keys in case our residents need us to take care of anything while they are away. I can also set up an elevator for your use,” the concierge responded. It was company policy to cooperate with law enforcement, and the warrant seemed quite valid.

“Good, thank you,” the FBI agent replied.

As the pair spoke the armed men filed into the lobby area and assembled into groups. Soon they were ferried up to the top floor with the penthouse level and were stacked up in a corridor. The concierge had provided a digital key for Matthews’ door and the lead FBI man cautiously unlocked the entrance and with a nod the tactical team barged into the apartment.

It was modern, stylish, but minimalist. Split over a few levels the brushed aluminium railed mezzanine floored apartment oozed quality. The view was spectacular, as was the balcony which had its own pool. From here you could see for miles, one way was the city, the other the hills.

Sweeping the rooms and spaces the team checked everywhere and confirmed that they were the only ones inside. There was a panic room built into the core of the place but the door was left seductively open and revealed no one was home.

“Clear!” came the call from across the apartment.

“OK, get the LEO’s to set up a soft perimeter, resident access to the building only. Coordinate with that flunky downstairs if you have to,” Torres said as he looked around the large living room at the apartment’s center.

“Sir, you should see this,” one of the tactical team said, raising his safety goggles up and letting them settle on the front of his helmet.

Letting his short barrelled sub machine gun hang on its harness mount the tactical officer gestured to a room beyond a glass door and Torres went with him. The room seemed to be some kind of personal office space and there was a computer which was on and running a screen saver. To the side of the keyboard sat a copy of the Quran which the tactical officer gestured to.

Torres touched the mouse lightly and the screensaver vanished revealing the computer’s desktop image, a lone icon in the middle of the screen marked “Manifesto” waited. The agent cocked his head and double clicked the icon which unknown to him served as a launcher for some programme.

A video program loaded and began to play, Molly Matthews appearing. The video had apparently been shot in front of that very PC. Behind Matthews was the same scenery the FBI agent could see behind himself at the desk.

“Well… what do you know!” the agent said as he verified what he was looking at.

“My dear, fellow Americans. Salaam Alaikum.” Molly began with a subtle dipping of her head, eyes closed.

“Oh christ,” Torres uttered.

“If events have played out as I have imagined then The President of The United States is dead. I may be on the run, or captured, or dead myself, I cannot foresee that for sure, and so I leave this message to state my manifesto, my desires and wishes for our great country…”

The FBI agent slowly found himself surrounded by fellow watchers as they heard the message play on. Matthews’ eerie cadence and phraseology rang alarm bells in some of the men’s heads.

“…For so long now our once great country has been beset by the abuses of power by our government. Our leadership, our politicians, our law enforcement agencies, and system of justice has, over time, become corrupted by lobbyists and the military complex. Abuse of the constitution is rife…”

The FBI agent shook his head, “Jeez, surely she’s not some militia nut?!”

“…and now look at us. We have data collection of citizens happening on an industrial scale. Wire taps, invasions of privacy, data mining, and all manner of civil rights abuses are taking place. The government has given itself powers to detain us without cause and without evidence. Unrestrained theft of personal property happens every day at the hands of our nation’s police forces. They wantonly rob citizens under the guise of asset forfeiture without cause, warrant nor evidence,”

“So is that what this was all about?” Special Agent Torres said, hands on hips as he watched on.

“So, to make my voice heard I have prepared my plan to kill President Garrison while at the same time my brother seeks to kill her weak willed Vice President. As she celebrates the arrival of yet another program that will no doubt weaponise further our law enforcement agencies for use against us, the unsuspecting public, I shall use it to kill her instead. My brother will strike at Garrison’s successor from the skies! No lesser statement will do to get our message heard. We want our constitution back! We want our civil rights back!” continued Matthews.

“I think that’s enough of the Nut-Job channel” the FBI agent said as he leaned forward to touch the mouse again.

“As this message plays for the first time a copy of this video plus a written manifesto will be emailed to every major news channel and to the FBI. And now my first act in this post Garrison world will be to kill the fascist law enforcement agents who have entered into my apartment. Allahu Ackbar!” Matthews said, eyes widening with a wicked smile before laughter began to ring out.

“Holy SHIT! Booooomb!! Everyone OUT! Go! Go, go go go go !” Torres bellowed.

The tactical officers who had been with him spun around with surprise and began to run towards the door. In the rest of the apartment other tactical officers heard the commotion and with weapons raised began to fall back to the centre room.

“Out, out, out! Bomb threat!” Torres yelled as he appeared in the living room. He stood his ground, urging his mean to leave, the first few trotting out the doorway.

POP … POP … POP!

Throughout the apartment tiny popping noises could be heard like individual fire crackers going off. One at a time they detonated, with little more than a popping sound and some smoke. A few men ducked for a few seconds and then as reality set in they slowly stood up with confusion written across their faces.

“What the fuck? What the hell is this shit?” scoffed one of the men as they realised what had happened.

“Come on, let’s come out, just in case there was something not so nice in that smoke and…” the lead FBI agent said, beckoning to the men.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP Sounded a smoke detector, only it was loud, incredibly loud and at a frequency that seemed to not just hurt, but damage the people inside the apartment.

“Jeezus, turn that off?” yelled one man, only to realise he could not be heard. In fact, he could barely hear himself, his voice a dulled muffled version of what he was used to hearing.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

Men began screaming, the incredible noise searing through their brains. One man fell to his knees, blood pouring down his neck from under his helmet, his eardrums having exploded inside his head.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

Around the apartment tactical officers began to drop while a lucky few who could just about bear the pain stumbled out of the apartment into the corridor beyond. Those that made it tried talking to each other but realised they were deaf, not knowing if it was permanent or just a temporary condition.

BEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEPBEEP

Soon the apartment was littered with unconscious, unresponsive men, little pools of blood surrounding where they fell. Molly Matthews had struck again.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Dale was ahead as he led Supergirl down into his basement. It was a cliché, living at home with his parents out of his basement but he did not mind. It was a very clean space, habitable too with a sofa, TV and a small fridge and stove. It was his own and he kept it nice and there was some natural light from some slit windows where the walls met the ceiling. To the side of his sofa and TV was Dale’s pride and joy, his gaming PC in the corner which was lit up with purple light. A grid of four monitors proudly hung together in an array forming one big image.

Supergirl walked down behind Dale cautiously but was pleasantly surprised by what she found. She had been prepared to put up with a lot worse but this was actually nice it seemed.

“OK, let me set this beast up for you,” Dale said, a hint of nerves in his voice.

No one will ever believe this! the young man thought.

“Thank you. This is really good of you, thank you. Dale, isn’t it?” Supergirl asked as she spun at the center of the room, taking it in.

Dale clacked at the keys of PC and it became unlocked. Thinking on what was best he set up a series of browser windows and placed them within each screen, allowing Supergirl to have more than one thing to see at any one time.

“Yes, that’s right … err .. okay. This is good to go … I … I need to take the DVDs up to my mom. She’s in bed with the flu and she gets bored so, I thought those would be nice. I will be right back though,” Dale explained excitedly.

“Thank you,” Supergirl said, “you’ve been really sweet,”

“Oh, it … it’s nothing,” Dale replied hesitantly.

Supergirl took her seat at the computer and began to get to work. At first her mouse work was slow but quickly her coordination improved and she was moving between windows, typing searches, reading results, setting up another window, reading, searching, clicking, reading, typing …. It was a blur. She was still limited by the speed of the machine but true to Dale’s word pages were coming in quicker and she had the means to read them. But even now she still didn’t feel tested though to be fair her productivity had increased significantly.

Dale returned a short time later having hurriedly checked on his mom and setting her up with Season 2 of some show she had been binge watching to offset her boredom while bedridden with flu.

“Hey how’s it goi… oh wow …” Dale began only to see Supergirl intently gazing at the screens which seemed to be continually on the move.

“Good, thank you!” Supergirl said with a smile.

“Cool. Cool-cool-cool” Dale said, now feeling redundant as Supergirl seemed to absorb everything she could about…

Despite the short dwell time of each page on screen Dale could still see the theme of Supergirl’s search was about herself.

“Err, is there anything in particular you wanted to find?” Dale ventured as he closed the gap to the heroine who was inattentive to his presence.

“Hmmm, I am not sure yet. If you were trying to find out about what I have been up to where would you look?” the heroine responded, her head cocking now and then as she saw, read, and absorbed something she thought might be interesting.

Dale walked cautiously forward until he was right behind the heroine. He so wanted to touch her. Feel her hair. Or just her cape which had this odd looking texture. Or, maybe just a hand. Or, an arm. To feel what she was like. Was she hard like stone? How warm was she?

“Errrr, well… I wouldn’t look at the news like you are doing. I’d go to a fan site …” Dale said, sensing a moment was imminent. Perhaps it could be a moment of connection, he hoped.

“Oh? Could you show me?” Supergirl said, pausing in her work. Her hands moved off the keyboard and mouse, letting Dale take control.

Dale, heart racing, gulped, “Oh, sure … errr” he said. Taking advantage of the situation Dale’s left hand settled on the back of the chair, his thumb resting on Supergirl’s caped shoulder while his right hand reached for the mouse, his thumb brushing against Supergirl’s little finger of her right hand.

Supergirl concealed her blushes at his obvious approach but tolerated it with amusement as he clicked the mouse in the address bar of a window and typed with his right hand. The page loaded and there on the screen was a Supergirl Fandom website. There was a map with flashing dots of sightings of the heroine all around the globe, a forum page, and links to news and articles about her exploits.

“Oh, interesting! Thanks!” Supergirl said in surprise. She had no idea this site existed.

“Hey, no problem,” Dale said, instinctively planting a kiss on Supergirl’s temple and then immediately wondering if he got away with it.

Supergirl’s head turned with a scowl informing the young man that he hadn’t but he could never have imagined how bad she was going to take it.

Dale backed off …“Hey, I’m … it just … I …. Crap … I’m sorry ….” Dale said, hands rising to his head.

Why am I such an idiot!

“You should NOT have done THAT!” Supergirl said angrily, spinning in her seat and rising to her feet as her eyes flared red.

“Please … what are going to do!” pleaded Dale as he realised he was trapped in a room with the powerful and angry heroine.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



VWOOOSH ….. was the low sound that played as the red banner at the bottom of the screen swooped in to view reading “BREAKING NEWS”.

The camera cut away from the anchor man to a view from a circling helicopter, looking down on an apartment complex. Up upon the balcony deck there appeared to be two prone men in combat equipment who were being attended to by medics. The camera veered away and looked down to the street level and captured the sight of ambulances in various phases of arrival, loading or departure while the police were cordoning off the area.

“We have just had word that this is the aftermath of some sort of police search which has turned into a tragedy. Distressing scenes there of what appears to be, and we can only speculate for the moment, appears to be fallen police officers. I am being told that our affiliates err, LAZTV-News have a reporter on the line to us from there so …

“Hello” crackled a voice.

“Hi, you’re live. Could you just explain for those who are joining us who you are and what it is that you can tell us?” the voice of the Anchorman could be heard as the helicopter cameraman switched his focus between activity on the roof and what was going on down in the street.

“Hi, well, I am Henry Fillon, with LAZTV-News. He were made aware by our news chopper crew who were monitoring traffic of something happening at this complex. So we came here to what is a more affluent area of downtown to see what was going on. It seems that the police were conducting some sort of search warrant. This building, I don’t know if you can see it, is a luxury set of apartments, the floor of interest being what has been described as a Penthouse…” Fillon explained unseen as footage rolled on.

“Yes, we don’t know what you can see from your position in the street but it would appear to be the very top floor where the incident has taken place. Are you aware of any fatalities, and who they might be? Or how they happened?” asked the anchor-man.

“I had a chance to speak with a building employee who asked me not to mention his name before I was ordered to leave the building by police. He told me that he had seen several men on the ground but was not sure if they were casualties but to him they appeared to be in need of medical attention. Certainly what I have seen from beyond the police cordon backs that up,” Fillon went on.

“Do we know anything more about the search warrant? What was it about?” the anchor man asked.

“Yes, the building employee I was talking to stated that they were going to be searching the property of one Dr Molly Matthews and …”

“Oh hold on for a moment if you would Henry I am just getting word of some kind of prepared statement that had been made by someone purported to be this Dr Matthews, apparently there is a video but we have a transcript here for now…”

“Sure I’ll be here,” Fillon responded.

CLICK

Garrison hit mute on the remote control as her inner circle of the cabinet began to file into the room along with her National Security Advisor, Clive Westmoreland. Alice, Garrison’s chief of staff saw Garrison nod and then closed the door, sealing the small gathering inside the room.

Attorney General Sandra Payne, Defence Secretary Daniel Slater and Frank Green, head of Homeland security took their seats opposite the president, placing their files on the conference table.

“How many?” Garrison asked sharply, skipping the pleasantries.

“At least six fatalities” Frank Green answered.

“What the hell happened?” Garrison snapped as she glanced at the muted TV images playing out of ambulances leaving the scene, no doubt laden with more casualties.

“It looks like a booby-trap. We have reports of some kind of sonic weapon which had been wired into the smoke alarm system,” Frank went on.

The Attorney General, Sandra Payne nodded, “This was a search warrant being executed at the residence of Molly Matthews. As a civilian contractor she had one of the highest clearances they can have. This was a precautionary search because of her answers she gave during interviews today, apparently. By the way, when are you handing her over, Daniel?”

So far Matthews had been kept in military hands but the Attorney General was keen to have her inside the civilian court system.

“You are kidding right. After this stunt? And what about this threat to the VP from her brother?” Daniel said, slapping down a printout of the transcript of Molly’s video and her manifesto.

“Oh she says Allahu Ackbar at the end of her video so you’re going to use special powers to keep her? She should be brought back into civilian hands and …” Sandra protested.

“Stop. The pair of you.” Garrison said wearily, “Clive. It was NSA men conducting the interviews from the Mech demonstration, correct? You’ve also seen this video of Matthews’ and read the manifesto, what do you think?”

“There is something you are all missing. The two events, the plane, the assassination attempt. They ARE related. Dr Matthews’ mentions her brother, he was a pilot of BlueGlobe 251. We were already checking that but she essentially confirms it.” Westmoreland said with a grave tone to his voice.

“Oh dear god,” Daniel Slater said in disbelief.

“It is possible her brother had contemplated using his plane to kill the VP. He was on tour, promoting our Returning Veterans Program. He had been in several community centres and similar small venues. There are no air defences at those places like there are at the White House, a perfect time to use a plane. And a note was found with the pilot listing steps to stealth the plane and suffocate the passengers. Killing the Vice President while you were being assassinated at the same time would have been a devastating blow,” Westmoreland went on.

“Except the pilot didn’t fly to where the VP was. He… he …” Sandra began to poke a hole in the idea only to realise that it still held some water. It didn’t stop Daniel Slater leaping to that conclusion first though as he joined into the conversation.

Daniel gestured with his hand at Sandra “So he had a change of heart, flew on as planned? But then realised his sister was going to out him anyway in her little video? So, he adapted his plan and decided to take the coward’s way out anyway, far out over the Atlantic”

“But why fly back? Why try and put things right? It makes no sense,” Frank Green said with a frown.

“Hmmmm, maybe the pilot who flew back was not the one who planned the attack? God this is really messy…” Daniel groaned.

“What I do know is I will make sure our people take precautions before conducting any more searches related to this Dr Matthews,” Sandra Payne said, making a note in her files.

“Well, if it is any consolation we already have had someone check on the brother’s residence long before we knew about this link. He was living in his fiancée’s place. Thank god the whole thing passed without incident,” Frank Green explained.

“Well that’s lucky I guess. Something has crossed my mind though; what if this were another of Vel’s plots? He has used a brother and sister before and Supergirl must have activated the Infinity program for a reason. Vel is the exact reason we offered it to her,” Garrison began, tentatively thinking through the logic of it all.

There was a sombre silent pause while those present in the room considered everything.

Sandra Payne was the first to speak, “When the Sanderson’s were infected Supergirl was able to demonstrate that the presence of Vel was in their bodies, right? It’s why they are in the witness protection program and not locked away,”

Garrison nodded, “That is true. Where is Molly Matthews being held now, perhaps we could arrange a test with Supergirl?” Garrison asked.

“Dr Matthews is on the move as we speak. She is being taken to a VA hospital in New York for a medical assessment. She is adamant she does not remember anything about the attack on your life so we are attempting to find out why,” Daniel Slater explained.

Sandra Payne let out a weak smile having thought on something, “The courthouse staff where Supergirl conducted the first test evidently have the experience of hosting such an event. Perhaps we should have them do so again, it was in New York after all,”

Bobby Sanderson had been in New York when arrested and it had been in that jurisdiction that Supergirl had demonstrated he was possessed by Vel’s mind.

“That is a good point. Daniel, I imagine by the time the medical assessment is done we may have had a chance to contact Supergirl. Keep her in the New York area until we do so,” Garrison said confidently. Just talking things out seemed to be lifting a weight from her shoulders. Little by little it seemed they were figuring out what had been going on.

Sandra Payne nodded, “Well, I guess any sort of secrecy regarding Dr Matthews has been wrecked now. Her confession is with all the press now, they are going to know she is our chief suspect. I will arrange to have an order put out to pass on a message to Supergirl if she is encountered,”

“It would sure be useful if Supergirl’s INFINITY contact would get in touch,” Daniel said ruefully.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Lou Trello pecked a kiss on his wife’s, Janet’s, head then scooped up the plates from the dinner table, the evening meal now over. Dinner time conversation had been dominated by the situation with Gadget, their juvenile German shepherd and they were waiting for a promised phone call with an update on his condition from the clinic. Their ten year old daughter, Kerry, was subdued, seemingly worried for Gadget and had barely said a word. Uncharacteristically she had not even asked what might be for dessert, a frequently asked question at meal times.

BING BONG … sounded the doorbell.

Lou and Janet looked at each other, the question in their eyes the same. Who was it?

“I’ll get it,” Lou said, closing the dishwasher door and hitting the start button. Janet nodded and began to make small talk with Kerry, hoping to improve her obviously depressed mood.

Lou sighed as she walked to the front of the house, a tiny bit of concern striking him as he saw the outline of a man through the upper panel of the front door which was made of frosted glass. Putting his eye to spy hole Lou frowned then put the door on its security chain and opened the door.

The door swung to its stopping point on the chain and Lou looked through the gap at the suited moustached man, his salt and pepper hair betraying his age, while his badge on his belt conveyed that he was someone of authority.

“Yes, can I help you?” Lou asked.

“Oh, sorry, I am Dan Goodell, I am an investigator. I understand you have a sick dog? The local veterinary clinic has asked me to look into what may have happened to him errr, Gadget, right? May I come in?” asked Mr Goodell.

“Oh .. oh sure ... one moment …” Lou responded. Edging the door closed again and releasing the chain the door swung open once more.

Lou beckoned Mr Goodell to enter just as the phone rang, causing Lou to look back down the hall towards the kitchen. “Can you get that hon?” Lou called out.

The phone rang a few times then went silent, quickly followed by the sound of Janet speaking.

“Sorry, it’s all go …” Lou said, closing the door behind his visitor, “please, come into the sitting room,”

“Thank you, it’s Mr Trello, right, Lou and Janet?” Dan asked.

“Yes, that’s right,” Lou responded as he escorted his guest into the sitting room.

Dan Goodell noticed the way through and stepped into the living room. Partly filled in colouring books were on a play mat that was in the middle of the floor and a rainbow assortment of colouring pens sat neatly in a plastic tray nearby.

“Excuse the mess ... kids …” Lou scoffed, gesturing to a chair where Dan could sit.

Dan took his seat, a notepad and pen having appeared in his hands as Lou took his place opposite.

“So, errr, Dan, you said you were an investigator,” led Lou, opening the start of the more serious conversation.

“Yes, you see, your vet at the Fairbrough clinic, she, err, she … well, she suspects that your dog, errr Gadget has come into contact with something, something not good,”

“OK, but what is it? … We will help in any way we can to figure out what it might be…” Lou said, his tone and expression revealing his frankness.

“OK, well, let’s go through some questions and let’s see if we can figure this out because whatever it was, we want to prevent any more contact with it …” Dan began, “so …Lou .. what do you do?”

“I am a mortgage advisor at the local bank,” Lou replied, his hands opening as he spoke.

“And your wife?” Dan followed on quickly, his pen scrawling in his notepad.

“Oh, Janet, she’s in real estate, she does viewings but she’s taken a little time off while school’s out,” Lou answered.

Dan paused as he thoughtfully considered his next question,“Errr, if she had been on a viewing, would she take Gadget with her?” Dan asked,

“No, no. I mean, some viewers might be allergic or something, you don’t want to kill a sale,” Lou answered, shaking his head.

“Hmmm, okay …. so … Banker…Realtor …ok .. errr … any other adults live here? Relatives, lodgers?” Dan continued, his pen hovering as he waited for a reply.

“Err no … just Kerry, errr, our daughter, she’s ten …” Lou said with a frown, gesturing to the colouring books and pens on the floor.

“Uh huh … have you been on any vacations recently?” Dan asked. His tone indicated his puzzlement.

“What? No, not really… things have been a little tight recently so we’ve not been away,” Lou responded. “Look, can I ask where this is going? I mean, I really want to help you figure this out but …”

“OK, I am going to be honest with you. The reason I am asking you about your profession, the profession of your wife is … well … in cases like this it is what the people related to the victim, in this case your dog, do, in their line of work that is the link to the source. If it’s not here my team and I will be doing more investigations tomorrow…” Dan said, candidly.

“OK, I get that but … jeez, it’s serious … isn’t it?” Lou said, the way the conversation was progressing was setting off alarm bells in his head.

“Mr Trello, have you been feeling unwell? Your wife? Your daughter? Have they complained of anything that you can remember?” Dan pressed.

“No, I’m fine, they’re fine, I thi …. think. Wait you think this has something to do with us? What the hell do you investigate exactly?” Lou demanded.

Dan looked down for a moment and took a breath before looking up again. “Sir, the truth is, I am an investigator for the NRC and ….”

“The NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION?” Lou blurted.

= = = = = = = = = = = =


Jasmine, tall, slim, and with doe eyes that could melt the iciest of hearts, reluctantly made her way to the edge of the bullpen of the NYPD’s 19th precinct, escorted by two uniformed officers who steered her into an interview room. She wasn’t under arrest but her escort agency’s attorneys suggested she should cooperate, knowing what kind of heat might be coming for her employers if she didn’t.

Kozny looked through the one way glass at her partner, Gomez who was set up with a mic and earpiece, sat at an interview desk. The pair had decided that perhaps Gomez was more likely get a better rapport going with their intriguing subject than Kozny was, though, seeing Jasmine in the flesh Kozny could imagine how Gomez might have duped her into letting him conduct the interview. Jasmine was attractive enough to rival the officer who ran the evidence locker who Gomez had hopes to get a date with.

Jasmine, in her close fitting short powder blue dress took her seat opposite Gomez who had to do a double take as he compared an older mugshot photo with the woman in front of him. It was her, but now was certainly a better period of her life.

“Please, take a seat Miss James. Thank you officers, you can go,” Gomez said, gesturing to the chair opposite himself while looking at the two departing officers.

“Sure thing, detective,” one of the uniformed officers responded.

Jasmine batted her eyelids at the uniformed officers who glanced at each other nervously and then retreated. Gomez smirked, imagining the games Jasmine had probably played with their minds. Officers were human, they had wives and husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends and fiancées. Call girls were wild, free and often knew how to make men blush, women too if they were so inclined, and so, off the uniforms retreated glad that temptation was being left behind.

Jasmine’s eyes tracked one of the officer’s out. The officer was a little rugged looking and Gomez imagined the officer stirred ideas in Jasmine’s head of turning him into a bad boy in one of her kinky games she no doubt played each and every night. The door closed, and the embers of the fire of desire that burned in Jasmine’s eyes faded and she turned to face the detective opposite her.

“Miss James …” Gomez began.

“Please … Jasmine,” Jasmine replied.

“Ok… Jasmine. We understand your agency is cooperating with our investigation. I want to thank you for help in this matter,” Gomez said as he began to open a file.

“Thank the management. Without them I can’t do my work. So, there’s no need to dress it up, Detective. You need to know something and I need food to eat. It’s not normal for us to discuss our client’s … wants. ” Jasmine said, her soft façade hardening for a moment.

“I guess your management explained our interest in you. Your DNA, it was found inside a plastic bag. To be very honest, we were quite worried about your safety Miss Ja… err… Jasmine,” Gomez explained before correcting himself, producing an evidence bag containing the plastic bag that was found in Delacroix’s room inside.

“Oh. That.” Jasmine said bluntly her eyes locking on the bag, then Gomez.

“Yes. That. We want to know about her, the client, Delacroix.” Gomez asked, producing Delacroix’s passport photo from a file.

Jasmine realised that the police knew exactly who it was they were talking about. Jasmine’s employers, coaxed by their own attorneys had been keen for Jasmine to speak freely about the dangerous client. Normally the agency sought to maintain privacy but for whatever reason this client, Delacroix, and the heat that came with her had spooked them all.

“Well okay. I can see you’ve nailed me … hard… and good … detective. You’re right, I’ve been a bad girl,” Jasmine winked subtly.

“Keep it on the level, Miss James, please,” Gomez said, with an impatient shake of the head which caused Jasmine to scowl.

“She was… nice. And she was very, very, good,” Jasmine explained curtly.

“Good, how?” Gomez asked without thinking. The noises in his ear from Kozny’s disbelief quickly caused him to realise his mistake.

“Oh a girl doesn’t kiss ‘n tell, save to say that she… she had skills, but I will remember your interest” Jasmine said with a flick of her tongue, a wistful smile breaking across her face as she remembered Delacroix’s dangerous erotic game. Just how Jasmine liked it.

“I see. Anything else,” Gomez asked, causing Kozny to scoff in his earpiece unheard by Jasmine.

“Well, for completeness I guess I should tell you she got her freak on with this cop fantasy. She wanted me to be some cop. It was when I tried to get the cuffs on her that … well …” Jasmine teased, glancing at the bag.

Gomez shifted in his seat, the idea that the beautiful call girl was smitten by the rough treatment at the hands of this… killer, Delacroix, it was intoxicating in some way that he did not understand and yet…

“Gomez! She said SOME cop! Ask her. Ask her who!” Lisa barked into Gomez’s earpiece.

“Ah, err, some cop. She asked you to pretend to be someone?” Gomez asked, cocking his head with a wince of pain from Kozny’s voice.

“Yeah, something trashy; European. Kawal-something, no, Koznic, errr…” Jasmine faltered as she tried to recall. So many fantasies she had helped build, so many names, scenarios. It was hard for her to remember them all …

“Kozny?” Gomez asked, testing the water.

“HEY!” Kozny protested into Gomez’s ear. He had raced to her name a little too quickly for her liking. Trashy indeed!

“Ah, yes that’s it. Kozny. Detective Kozny. The client, she wanted me to pretend to be this Detective Kozny, dress as a detective and try and arrest her, the client that is. I was close to getting the cuffs on her but …” Jasmine recalled.

“And the bag?” Gomez asked in puzzlement.

“Oh, that… that was her coup de grace. Oh god how we made love as she slowly …,” Jasmine spoke, almost going giddy with happiness “… oh detective, you’re blushing,” Jasmine smiled as she remembered how it had been. Molecule by molecule the oxygen inside the bag had been drawn into her lungs, expended and thrust out, bonded with carbon and rendered useless for the future. Slowly the oxygen levels had dropped, only to be replaced by pleasurable ecstasy while Delacroix had thrust in and out of her restrained body, slowly, gently and consensually murdering her.

“Save the vivid details, they’re not necessary. So, she wanted you to pretend to be this Detective Kozny and then you both took part in… well sexual activity,” Gomez summarised.

“Oh detective, you do know how to kill the mood. The spectators in the gallery won’t be able to get off to THAT,” Jasmine laughed glancing to the mirror. In her mind though she could never imagine what the watcher behind the mirror was thinking.

Beyond the glass Lisa Kozny fought to keep her tears inside her head where tough cops should. Memories came back to her. Lucy’s bed pillow case was taught over her head. Delacroix’s cheap blows were raining into her face and her body as she was pinned to the bed. The gun was to her head, death was imminent. The cruel words. The cruel deeds. Even from beyond the grave Delacroix haunted Kozny, the memory of how close death had been was causing her to feel sick. Even knowing Delacroix was dead was not enough to bury what she had done.

How was it that Jasmine drew such joy from her encounter with Delacroix while Kozny seemed to be poisoned by her own time with the mercenary. Kozny gazed angrily at Jasmine who seemed to be enchanted with Delacroix’s memory.

“Did you talk about anything afterwards? Where she was from? Where she was going?” Gomez continued.

“Well, there was only one more thing I remember from our small talk afterwards. She told me she was going to go shopping next morning, must have been fancy because she said it would be on Fifth Avenue,” Jasmine explained.


Kozny studied Jasmine and now her new worst enemy Gomez through the mirror. He had another part of the puzzle, another step closer towards her, and Lucy. After playing with Jasmine on Wednesday night Gomez now knew where Delacroix might be headed next, shopping on Fifth Avenue. How far could the dogged detective run with that bone, she wondered?

“OK, Jasmine, I think we are done. I just need you to read over this statement and then you can go,” Gomez said, glancing at the mirror with a content smile not knowing he might be closer to putting another nail in Kozny’s coffin.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Selena was sat on a wooden chair, naked, and impaled upon a metal dildo and butt plug, cables running off them to a black box that was sat on a table. Gripping Selena’s nipples were two sets of copper clamps which were also cabled up to the same black box. Sat at the table the corporal looked on, her two index fingers resting on the box’s controls which were in front of her.

This was the second hour of “the stick” as Captain Walker called it, and with his encouragement he ensured the Corporal did his bidding.

“I will ask you again! Tell me your real name,” the corporal insisted.

“Fuck you,” Selena grunted.

Bzzzzzzzzzz

“Aaaahhhhhhhh! You BITCH!” screeched Selena having been shocked once again.

Captain Walker watched on from behind the mirrored observation glass. Oh what delight it gave him to see not only his former torture toy from Guantanamo bay suffer, but also to see his latest plaything, the young Corporal carry out his darkest desires so he could watch.

The corporal looked towards the mirrored glass for guidance but received none. Walker had given her the question list, it was up to her to try and extract the answers.

“Who has been helping you on the outside?” the corporal continued.

“The fairy godmother,” Selena replied sarcastically.

BZZZZZZZZZZ!!

The voltage was higher now and Selena’s nipples did not feel like they were hers anymore, the pain somehow being both numbing in nature and cripplingly painful all at the same time. Selena shrieked as she doubled up as far as her restraints would allow. Her face scrunched up and seemed to literally squeeze the tears out from her eyes. Her muscles ached from all the effort, her stomach was covered in a fine sheen of sweat which shone under the light bulb above her.

“Please, stop,” Selena managed to say despite her exhaustion.

“How have you remained hidden for so long?” the corporal continued, following the question list without remorse.

“FUCK ……. YOU!” growled Selena in response, one lungful of air required for each word.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

The corporal applied power to all the buttons on her black control box, the painful shock being delivered across Selena’s body. Selena’s teeth clenched as she found her forehead and knees being pulled towards each other albeit unsuccessfully due to her restraints. Her muscles cramped and one leg twitched as the aftershocks of the torture wracked through her.

“Why are you doing this to me?!” whelped Selena into the mirror.

#Don’t play the innocent with me! When I get my hands on your file from Leavenworth tomorrow you’ll wonder why you went through all this! Corporal, I’m hitting the can, cook the bitch till I come back!# echoed Walker’s voice through the interrogation room.

“Huah!” uttered Dakota.

The corporal eyed Selena, then the mirrored glass then back again at Selena. There was a pause for a few seconds and then the corporal whispered, her back to the mirror where Walker’s vantage point was.

“How do you know me?” whispered the corporal.

Selena’s eyes widened. The corporal’s question suggested that she knew that Selena somehow knew her. Of course, for Selena it was only a suspicion who the corporal was based on the dog tags she had seen hanging around the corporal’s neck. But for Selena to admit what she thought she knew would be the same as confessing she was Selena J Walsh, exactly what Captain Walker wanted to hear. Once Walker knew who she really was; once he was one hundred percent confident, he could do to her things that not even her own darkest nightmares could come up with.

“Tell me, before he comes back. Who am I to you?” the corporal whispered with a hiss.

Selena shook her head, red eyed, her face glistening from tears and sweat. She daren’t tell. She was afraid, and yet, somehow still rational. If anything, being returned to Leavenworth was infinitely better than enduring whatever time she had left with the evil Captain Walker.

“You could have killed me. You DIDN’T ! Why? Do you know me somehow?” the corporal demanded in a low voice.

Selena slammed her eyes closed, trying to shut out the young soldier who was the tool of her true tormentor, Captain Walker. She shook her head in denial, she couldn’t tell the corporal anything, no matter how much she might want to

“Why are you doing this for him?” whispered Selena.

“Don’t you get it? Look at these. You know what they mean,” The corporal said with a low hiss, fingers tapping her corporal’s stripes. “You know the word ‘rumint’ so you must know our world. I will tell you, this is the rumint. I am nothing. No one. But I wanted to be someone. I want to give my father something to be proud of, but I didn’t realise I made a deal with the devil to do it!”

“What does he have on you? Or can’t you even tell that what you are doing is wrong?” Selena said, her voice low but pleading.

“If you are what he says you are you there is no WRONG, idiot,” the corporal retorted. While morally wrong what she was trying to say was right. If Selena was this fugitive military prisoner Walker believed then he could do whatever he wanted with her.

“What does he have?!” Selena insisted. There must be some reason why this corporal with an apparent conscience would still do what she was doing.

The corporal glanced anxiously back at the mirror then back at Selena. Her eyes danced side to side, like she was listening to her demon and her angel, each giving their advice. She then closed her eyes a moment in contemplation and then spoke.

“Green to gold. It’s green to gold” the corporal whispered. If her prisoner was military she would know what it meant. She would know what the Captain was to her and how he had a hold over her.

“Hit me!” Selena whispered harshly.

“What?”

Selena’s eyes widened. The corporal full well knew what Selena had said but Selena was sure to reinforce her request.

“PAH!” Selena cocked her head back then launched spit at the corporal’s chest.

The corporal flinched and her eyes widened, both in surprise and in realisation then struck Selena across the face with the back of her hand. Was this her prisoner’s way of giving her a means to look uncompromised? Perhaps the prisoner really was this fugitive or perhaps she was not but … there was something else, something important. Whatever it was it seemed to touch the corporal just as much as it touched her prisoner.

“No matter what you do to resist, when your prints come in tomorrow we can send you back where you belong,” the corporal said loudly wiping Selena’s spittle from her top.

#... ahhhh what did I miss? Ooooh, ho ho, careful Corporal, Selena certainly does like to spit. Get the bucket, wash her down. It’s good for the electricity at least, # Walker’s voice said over the speaker system.

Selena could only guess if Walker had really walked away or not but she had not given anything away. But, the danger was that the attractive corporal was attempting to trick her into confessing she was Selena. If she were to confess then between now and when her fingerprints arrived Walker could do just about anything he wanted. But for now, while there was even a hint of doubt in his head he had his Corporal do his dirty work for him instead. At least the corporal was infinitely better to look at than Walker although her bedside manner could do with a little ..

SPLOOOOOOOOOOOOSH! The corporal cast a bucket of water over Selena knocking the wind from her sails again. She took a sharp intake of breath and then exhaled sending a mist of water flying.

“Uhhhh … hu..hu ….please … this …. is … a mistake …” Selena managed to say, her breathing ragged as the ice cold water began to take its toll.

#Better. Now then, resume the questioning, and Corporal, more power to her ass please, Thing doesn’t like that much at all!# Walker said with glee.

The corporal looked down and increased one of the channel voltages on the control box. Selena saw what she had done and rocked back and forth in her chair, fearful of what was to come.

“Fu fu fu fu fuck … you!” Selena said, shuddering with each syllable. The intense cold was punishingly painful for the redhead.

“Where did you get the resources to afford your flight?” the corporal asked, glancing at her question list.

“I won…. Lottery…won … lottery…” Selena said, clenching up for the next attack on her body.

The corporal nodded softly and struck the buttons on the control box that distributed pain across Selena’s body.

BBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!

#Hahahahahahahahahahaha!!# echoed Captain Walker’s cruel laughter inside the chamber as he watched Selena suffer.

Was rescue ever coming for Selena or was she going to suffer right up until her fate was sealed and she was hauled off to Leavenworth?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


For Neyra the day had been long and seemed to be getting worse all the time. She had started the day as her new identity, Nerys Jones, special agent with the FBI having woken up in the motel that Denton had arranged for her. Now, in her new identity it meant carrying a gun and her badge at all times, and all she wanted to do was get some shopping in before she flew to New York. Having left home with all that she had in her “go-bag” she needed to get some working attire together if she was going to make the FBI disguise work.

She had hit the mall and bought herself some clothes and some decent sized carry-on luggage to move it in. The “go-bag” was now flat packed inside her carry-on luggage which was stowed in the overhead locker which for now was impossible to reach. She was sat in the window seat of the Boeing 737 which was bound for New York and it was completely full. Following the ground stop the previous day there had been travel chaos but somehow McGee had managed to find a seat for her.

Before she had boarded though she had to endure the attention that came with being an armed passenger. There had been paperwork to fill in, then a briefing beforehand, and then a meeting with the captain after she been brought on and seated first. McGee had clued her up for what to expect but even that did not prepare her for the captain’s attitude which boiled down to “do not mess up on my plane”. Humble nods and unreserved assurances of good behaviour were required to placate the serious man.

Now Neyra nestled into her seat as best she could. Beside her the two-hundred-fifty pound man seemed to spill out of his seat, partially overlapping his shoulder against hers. Apologetic eye contact was made, a roll of the eyes from Neyra indicating her displeasure at the narrow seating. What made things worse was that on the other side of her torso Neyra had her FBI issued Glock digging into her.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” screamed a baby.

Behind Neyra a mother dealt with the restless baby that screamed to the point of inducing a headache for everyone nearby. Neyra thought about her pistol, first just in jest as she considered how to make the screaming baby go away, but then paranoia set in. She didn’t have a round in the chamber, right? Right? She was sure that she didn’t, she had checked plenty of times. Except, when she checked the chamber, had that act then put a round in the chamber? No, no it hadn’t, she was sure. Luckily the safety was there, assuming it was on, to stop anything going wrong. Right? And it was definitely on, right?

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa” wailed the baby again snapping Neyra out of her paranoia.

Neyra looked at her watch. How many hours would this flight be again, she wondered before she leaned herself against the fuseleage of the plane and looked out the window. She could only mostly see a reflection of what was around her inside but she could see the airport lights as the plane began to taxi to the runway. New York could not arrive soon enough for her.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The corporal had showered and scrubbed her teeth till they shone. She smelled fresh and was pristine clean and yet her mind was sullied by ill thoughts that taunted her. With a sigh she retired to her bunk and extinguished the light of her quarters, leaving herself in the dark.

What have I done?

The corporal had tortured the red headed woman to the point of crippling exhaustion. Selena had been forced to cum, cry, scream and beg, all at the corporal’s hands and for what? For not answering her questions, no, Walker’s questions. The corporal for a moment felt humiliated by what she had been made to do then was wracked by guilt for feeling that way when it was the poor woman she had mistreated who alone had the right to feel that way.

What am I going to do? What if Walker is wrong and she is FBI?

The corporal’s heart raced. She could be discharged. Jailed. But Walker, so far, despite holding her career in his predatory hands, had been holding up his end of the bargain and had not led her astray. She was on track to getting officer training. If she was loyal, hard-working and … ugh … compliant to his occasional whim, she could climb the ladder and make it as an officer.

But what does that woman know about me?

The corporal rolled to one side restlessly and reached behind her head and pulled off her dog tags and held them so they caught the scarce light that came in through a crack in the curtains of her window.

The only real thing here is my name and no one here gives a shit about me…

The corporal sighed and rolled on to her back, putting the dog tags over her head as she did so. She hoped to god those damned files would arrive soon and finally put the mystery of the enigmatic prisoner’s true identity to rest.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Restrained and naked in her wooden chair and surrounded by darkness Selena wailed and sobbed, a continuing victim of her torments. Sporadically shocked by the control box set on a timer she was forced to stay awake again for the second night. The pattern was frustratingly unpredictable, the random shocks jolting her breasts or ass while a vibrating toy embedded between her legs drove her insane with repeated orgasms. And all this was going on while she had Ave Maria playing continuously on loop once again. Night time was not hers to escape to and who knew what Sunday would bring?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Dr Molly Matthews was shoved into her dark secure private room at the VA hospital in New York before the door closed behind her. The room was sparse; a simple bed, a simple basin, toilet and mirror. There were bars on the one small window and the door had no handle on the inside. A small square window cut into the door ensured no privacy either and the back of a guard’s head told her that prying eyes would always be there, ready to check on her at any moment.

On her wrists were metal cuffs, still linked to the transport belt that had been cruelly tugged up a notch tighter around her middle and her ankles felt the other cuffs restraining her steps. The transparent ‘prison-orange’ PVC uniform clung to Matthew’s body sexily though she didn’t feel sexy. She felt lost, abandoned and without hope. It had sunk in that she was in the frame for something terrible that had happened and she was in deep, deep trouble. Worse, she could not remember anything she was being accused of.

Forlornly Matthews tip toed to the window, chains jangling and peered out to see she had a view of a wall. Her head dropped, realising that for now her day was over and she should sleep. As she spun around she caught site of herself in the mirror, her body held tight in the clear orange PVC’s embrace.

Matthews did a double take of herself like she had seen someone else. It was like déjà vu, except…

Matthews gasped at the memory which was more like a sensation than an image. Was it good? Was it bad? She was not sure but as she looked into the mirror again the sensation faded.

“Have I … have I done this before?” Matthews wondered.

Whatever it meant there was nothing more Molly could do and exhausted she placed herself on the simple bed and tried to get to sleep, sleep that would not be easy to find as she fearfully contemplated what might be left of her future.

It was now midnight. Sunday had arrived.

= = = = = = = = = =
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


This is all the stuff I've done here but don't tell anyone about this!
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DrDominator9
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Sorry it's taken so long to comment on this exquisitely woven tapestry of a story. What a terrific read.

So much going on here that it almost defies summation. Supergirl in dire circumstances in a Freaky Friday scenario but without the comedy.

Her friends trying to help, yet at every turn the odds are stacked against them and the clock is ticking. All that and a very sick puppy to worry about...talk about ratcheting up the stakes!

Excellent work AGAIN, Abductorenmadrd!
Follow this link to descriptions of my stories and easy links to them:

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Abductorenmadrid
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SUNDAY

“These are the headlines for today’s news on Schweiz Nachrichten Live. Investigators are scheduled to visit the scene of yesterday’s road tunnel fire disaster at Dort, situated above the Hattenberg valley. The fire which is believed to have started after a collision between three vehicles later went on to take the lives of nine firemen, and a paramedic. Two missing people are also believed to be victims of the fire. A second medic who had been at the scene is said to be in hospital but her condition has been described as non-life-threatening. There were two other survivors but so far they have not spoken to the press. Karl Broher brings us this special report from the scene….”


= = = = = =


It was midday up in the Alps and an investigation team from the Hattenberg fire service, accompanied by senior police officers and lawyers from the city prosecutor’s office surveyed the scene. Ahead of them was the far mouth of the Dort tunnel, the end where the tanker had been on fire. A scorched black patch of tarmac revealed where the tanker had been when the incident took place. By now the scene of the previous day’s accident had been documented and the wreckage had been cleared. Far back beyond a police cordon a news team working from their van, emblazoned with the Schweiz Nachrichten logo, filmed the investigator’s as they worked.

“Here was the initial seat of the fire. We have identified it as a heating oil tanker belonging to a local petroleum products distributor. We believe it had been in collision with a motorcycle which then gathered up a car occupied by the two civilian survivors who took shelter inside the maintenance storage area,” explained one of the investigators pointing towards the charred maintenance area built into the side of the tunnel

One of the prosecutors frowned as he surveyed the scene, “But you say the wreckage of the tanker was found at the opposite end of the tunnel where the fire engine was? How can that be?”

“That is what we are trying to figure out. All we found of the tanker were elements of the chassis which gave up its identity number, parts of the drivetrain and parts of the pumping equipment. Everything else is gone. The remains of the tanker driver, the motorcyclist, the cab of the vehicle, the shell of the storage vessel, all, from what we can tell, were vaporized,” one of the fire investigation team members said, flicking through a clipboard which held information of the accident.

“We did find some pieces of what we think were the motorcycle. The third vehicle, the car, was the most intact piece of wreckage from the road accident of the overall incident. It was a burnt out shell, and mostly flattened, but, it was at least recognisable,” a police officer confirmed.

“Of the nine man crew of the fire engine we only found remains of one, their pump operator, who had been thrown to his death into the valley below. He had been stood with the fire engine which had been parked at the other end of the tunnel. The other eight fireman, including the commander and sub-commander were killed somewhere in the tunnel. There was an absence of equipment on the wreckage of their fire engine, Two-Four, that indicates the crew were going to operate two hose teams to tackle the blaze,” a fire officer said.

“And we shouldn’t forget we lost a paramedic too, along with a medical response vehicle,” another officer added.

“My god. What the hell was in that tanker?” One of the prosecutors asked. To him it seemed clear what was the problem, there had been an extremely volatile type of fuel as its payload.

“The manifest from the distributors indicate it was just regular heating oil. The tanker would have been about eighty percent full when the accident happened. The driver had made one delivery already and was on his way to do two more. We checked the contents of the fuel container at the address of the first delivery and it tested as normal,” another fire investigator said.

“So, did the tanker just explode? Is this some kind of … of fluke?” a prosecutor asked. He was incredulous to the inconsistent body evidence being presented to him.

“Well, the irony is that heating oil is not that easy to ignite. And if the gauge on the tanker’s pumping equipment is to be believed, little or nothing had bled from the tanker before the whole thing went up. The tanker’s gauge was stuck in the position it should have read at the moment of the explosion and doing the math nothing was missing,” a fire investigator responded.

“Then, what was on fire?”

“Well, the driver of the car explained it appeared the tanker had developed a fire near the front. Perhaps it was an engine fire caused by the collision, or more likely it was petrol from the motorcycle. But they don’t contain anywhere near enough fuel to do … well .. to do all this …” the fire investigator continued.

The group looked solemnly up the slight incline of the tunnel towards the far end where the fire engine had been. The interior walls were black. Every light fitting, every sign, every inch of cabling and metal shielding, every foot of barrier, every last light reflector on the tunnel’s walls were blackened, charred or melted down.

There was a sombre pause as the men looked at the result of the mysterious explosion before a police officer asked the fire investigator, “What about terrorism? A bomb? I know your lab came back with a negative on bomb residues but …”

“If it had been a bomb then surely the tanker would be blown apart this end. It would be in the walls, at the road side, down in the valley. But it’s not. It went tearing up the tunnel like a hurri…..cane,” the fire investigator began to say as his voice trailed off in thought.

“What is it?” asked a prosecutor, sensing the investigator was on to something.

“Well, maybe it’s just part of it but look, let’s just theorize a moment. All fires need three things. Fuel, oxygen and a source of ignition. The tanker was full of fuel, the heating oil …” the investigator explained.

“But, you said that the heating oil was too hard to ignite” began one of the police officers, noting the contradiction in what the investigator was thinking.

“Let him finish,” a prosecutor cut in with a raised hand.

“Yes, the oil is hard to ignite. But, like most fuels, if you nebulize it into droplets, it becomes much, much easier to burn. We already had an ignition source, the small fire which was probably hot oil or gasoline from the motorcycle. What if … what if the movement of the tanker from here to up there wasn’t caused BY the explosion. What if the movement was the CAUSE of the explosion?” the investigator asked, gesturing towards the tunnel.

One of the senior fire officers looked at the scene again in deep thought before speaking. “OK, I can buy that with the quantity of fuel the tanker had, along with the confined space of the tunnel, you could make for a pretty impressive explosion. This entire tunnel would be like a cylinder of a car’s engine. But the amount of force required to open the tanker. To push it up the tunnel. And the air pressure required to nebulize the fuel and feed the explosion . How could it happen? You’d need a tornado, a hurricane, it’s a big gap in the theory…”

“What about the witnesses. Did they see anything? Hear anything?” asked the prosecutor.

“The car driver and his passenger were shielded from the blast, the shockwave blew in the door of the maintenance shed but the front of the fire had must have passed them. They saw the small initiating fire at the front of the tanker before they took refuge but nothing more,” the investigator explained.

“There was one more witness. Dr Keller. Dr Mia Keller. She was the other paramedic. When they found her she was trying to revive her partner, Luca Huber. Whatever she saw must have been incredibly traumatic. Huber’s body was ripped in two and she was still trying to save him and they had to practically tear her from his body. I’ve asked a colleague to see her this afternoon at the psychiatric unit where they are keeping her. Let’s see if she will open up to him,” one of the fire officers said, his tone sombre.

“Why him?”

“Well, you see it’s because …”


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


“Do we go in?” asked the NYPD cop, his free hand resting on the door handle, gun raised.

Neyra blinked, her heart racing, her eyes wide like the rabbit in the headlights. She glanced at the first cop then his partner, who had her pistol drawn pointing to the floor and leaning tight to the wall ready to make the turn into the house the moment the door was opened. Beyond the door a baby screamed, a woman screamed too, an angry man yelling over all of them. The dogs in the neighbourhood all barked and growled at the consternation adding to the noise that drowned out Nerys’ thoughts.

“Ma’am?” asked the first cop anxiously again. His feet did a little shuffle as he coiled himself, ready to spring into action the moment Nerys gave the word.

The baby’s screams shrieked through everyone’s ears, the angry man’s voice booming over it yet somehow being drowned out by the baby. Special Agent Nerys Jones looked at her hand and saw her Glock was ready, a round in the chamber. It seemed to make sense, the mother and child beyond the door needed help and the decision was hers, all she had to do was take it.

Nerys nodded, “Do it …” she uttered, her gun rising ready for her encounter.

In slow motion the first cop turned the handle and shoved the door open before rolling his torso off the corner and piled into the house. His partner followed in behind him, her pistol down while her partner was ahead of her.

BOOM ! The 12 gauge shotgun fired, causing the first cop to fall back into his partner, his back a mottled mess of blood, the close range shotgun blast tearing through him.

“Nooooo!” screamed Nerys.

CLICK CLICK … BOOM! Fired the pump action shotgun a second time, the second cop’s head twisting to one side, her face riddled with lead shot as she began to fall, trapped under her dying partner’s body.

Nerys raised her pistol and squinted down the sight of her Glock and …

RINGRING – RINGRING – RINGRING sounded Neyra’s bedside telephone. Waking with a start and breaking out of the nightmare Neyra patted at the phone and deactivated the alarm and found the switch for the lights.

“Oh god …” shivered Neyra as the effects of the nightmare ran through her.

It was 6am and for a moment Neyra did not know where she was until it all came back to her. She was in a hotel by JFK Airport, and she wasn’t Neyra Thornton any more, she was Nerys Jones of the FBI. Sitting up her short spiral hair flopped down as she lifted her head, her bed-head-hair still somehow making her look cute despite only having had about four hours of good sleep.

Neyra drew her knees to her chest and rested her forehead on them, desperate to dismiss the nightmare.

“Come on, that’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. Help is coming. Help IS coming. Just one more day, you can do it, you can do it …” Neyra whispered to herself.

She began to think on her plan for the day. Should she go straight to see Selena? Or how about securing Lucy? Dealing with the Asian mercenary was going to be easier, Neyra suspected, but she was in a coma and no use to anyone. Selena on the other hand had been badly compromised and it was going to be tough getting her out of trouble.

Each had merits but just thinking about doing anything as Special Agent Jones made Neyra feel very, very sick. Regret, doubt and fear were trying to steer Neyra but she tried to think things through logically. Right now though she felt very much alone and left to deal with things that were way beyond her ability to cope.

“Perhaps McGee…” Neyra whispered to herself. She grabbed her burner cell phone and began to compose a message.

“McGee – need advice – am going to try and secure L and S today. I am at NY JFK – Contact me when you can pls”

SEND

Neyra tossed her phone onto the bed and peeled away the duvet, revealing her body. She was wearing light weight white cotton shorts and matching top which contrasted against her dark skin. With a stretch and a yawn the tall lean black beauty walked across the cool floor tiles and into the bathroom and began to brush her teeth.

Then her phone began to ring, and quickly Neyra trotted back to her bed, towel in hand wiping away the white froth from her mouth.

McGEE

“Oh!” Neyra said with surprise as she grabbed her phone and answered. “McGee, thank god”

“Hey! You made it to New York?” McGee asked hopefully.

“Yes, I am at JFK, got in, ugh, about five hours ago. I didn’t mean to wake you I …” Neyra began to apologise, her free hand covering her eyes.

“Wake me? You’re kidding right? Have you been following the news? It’s been all hands on deck here,” McGee began. The big man sounded surprised at first that Neyra had missed the news but he didn’t push the fact.

“Oh no, what’s happened?” Neyra asked, wide eyed as she tried to find a remote for the flat screen TV in her modest room.

“It’s Molly. She… she basically left a trap in her apartment yesterday. We lost some good people last night. It’s also been confirmed that it was her brother on Selena and Lu’s flight. I don’t know if they, well ‘we’ have figured out it is Vel yet but they are working on it. Me and the other trouble-shooters are about to get some teleconference briefing about it,”

Neyra watched the TV come to life having turned it on and flicked to a news channel. On it was looping footage of the scene of the police raid at Molly’s apartment, her name on the ticker tape as it scrolled beneath the images.

“Oh god … that’s terrible … but … they have Molly right?” Neyra asked, her free hand rubbing her eyes.

“Yes, she has been in custody since the attack on the president. You don’t need to worry about her,” McGee responded.

“At least that’s something. So, I just need to get to Lucy and Selena and we are done? Any tips?” Neyra asked, trying to get back on topic. In the meantime the news seemed to have coverage on the assassination attempt on loop though Sanderson Corp share price also seemed to be important for some reason.

“Yes, that should be it. If you want my advice this what I would do. First, get yourself a good breakfast and settle yourself. Then make a call to Ingram and tell him you want the local OPE guys at Federal Plaza in Manhattan to give you a vehicle and that you want a TLEOSA raised. Then get yourself down there and pick it all up. I will send you the details…” McGee explained.

“Tee Leosa? Who is she?” Neyra frowned.

“It’s not a who, it’s a thing,” McGee scoffed, “I’m going to try and get you a friend, you’ve been on a limb on your own for long enough”

Neyra’s eyes widened, suddenly she felt the weight lifting from her. Maybe today things really were going to start getting better, because up until now they only seemed to be getting worse.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Sploooooooooooosh!

“Uh huh huh huuuuuuuuuuh … oh god … oh god …” Selena stammered as the ritual ice cold water-alarm-clock woke her.

At some point overnight the shocks had stopped, the punishing dildo too and then finally, what seemed only five minutes ago, the tape of Ave Maria had ceased playing. Exhausted, Selena had found some sleep only to be greeted by this new day of torture. The black bucket that had carried the icy was tossed to one side, the angry looking Corporal pacing in front of her.

“Good morning … THING” the corporal said with venom marching left and right, fists clenched and coiled real tight.


“Please … stop … no more ….” the broken Selena groaned. She was exhausted and the Corporal was rested, psychologically the imbalance seemed impossible for Selena to overcome.

#Pah, and to think you used to resist the ice enemas THING. You’ve gone soft!# Walker mocked on the intercom.

The corporal glanced at the mirrored wall before speaking, “All you have to do is tell me. What is your NAME? Tell me and I will stop,” the corporal demanded.

“Okay … okay … okay…” Selena said weakly, her wrists flexing in her restraints.

“Go on,” the corporal growled, a hidden wink at the mirror suggesting maybe she was about to score what Walker wanted.

“My name … is … Sel …Sel …”

“GO ON! SAY IT!” barked the corporal, leaning forward towards Selena, her voice carrying spots of spittle in her prisoner’s direction.

“Sel …Celine … Weiss… ha … hahaha…” Selena managed weakly, mocking her oppressor. She knew the corporal was not her true enemy but she had to fight back and the Corporal was right there serving as Walker’s proxy. Mentally then, there were still fumes left in Selena’s fuel tank.

“You fucking stubborn bitch,” the corporal snapped and delivered a strike across Selena’s face.

Selena’s head dropped in exhaustion, her face a mess of matted red hair, tears, and smudged makeup not to mention the red puffiness that came from a good slapping.

#Ooooh that’s gotta hurt, but steady Dakota, steady! If you want to punish her for the back-chat then fill her mouth instead# Walker said unseen from behind the one way glass.

Dakota, looked to the unseen captain then back at Selena, her shoulders dropping as the tension left her body. She walked back to her black bag and rifled through it and produced another toy, a black penis gag. On one side of a mouth shield was a short penile shaft, for Selena’s mouth, on the other a longer shaft for her own pleasure. Hopefully this would at least placate Walker if Selena did not talk.

#Nice choice. I very much approve,# Walker announced over the speaker.

Dakota returned to Selena, toy in hand and presented the short black shaft to the redhead’s mouth. A cruel twist of Selena’s red hair drew out the desired response and the exhausted Selena found herself being made to service the black toy for the Corporal.

“Ugh … ugh … ugh … glah”

#She would have you think she had a boyfriend she sucked off once, Dakota but he turned out to be imaginary. Isn’t that right, THING?# Walker teased.

Little did Walker know that Selena’s best friend, Agent McGee, had discovered that the boyfriend had been real all along. Dakota pushed firmly one last time, filling Selena’s mouth and making her eyes bulge before the buckle was done up, holding the contraption inside her. Selena’s eyes struggled to hold focus on the long dildo protruding out from the other side of the mouth shield ahead of her but realising what it was, groaned. The corporal intended to ride Selena’s face to a pleasurable end it seemed and there was nothing the red head could do to stop it happening.

= = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl tried to put her recent actions behind her though she was full of guilt. That kid, Dale, he was only nineteen, according to his ID in his wallet and …

It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. He shouldn’t have done what he did, he deserved it.

Though, no matter how much she tried to dismiss thoughts of Dale they plagued Supergirl. Now though she was desperately using the information she had learned from her internet search trying to figure out which theories about her were right and which were just false.

Supergirl was high up in the icy wastes of the arctic circle, deep within Alaska testing one of the weirder and wackier ideas that the internet geeks had about her. It had been suggested she had some sort of secret hidden base in the snow, perhaps hidden beneath the ice, or perhaps invisible upon it but she had no clue if it were true. Back and forth she patrolled scanning the ground with her vision, hoping to find some ice palace but to no avail.

Supergirl dropped into a field of white, despondent and dropped to her knees in despair. The icy wind swept around her, ruffling her hair and causing her singed cape to dance with its invisible partner, sending it fluttering around her shoulders.

“WHO AM I!?” Supergirl screamed. There was a pause but no echo came, only the sound of the wind howling like it was mocking her despair.

Supergirl looked around herself feeling as lonely and as unwanted as she could imagine. Surely there must be friends? Some place, some “one” or something else ……

“Something else …” Supergirl said to herself, wondering if there might be some truth to that thought.

Perhaps .. perhaps there might be ‘something else’, but … it can’t be like this. Do I have a double life? Do I pretend to be someone else? Is THAT what it is that I am not seeing?

Supergirl was filled with a sudden thought, like something was on the tip of her tongue, or like a memory. Or, was it an instinct that was being held back somehow? She rose to her feet, uncertainty written across her face, and concentrated and …

WUMPF …!

Supergirl stumbled back into the snow in surprise and looked down at herself. Gone were her red boots, her skirt and the deep blue one-piece. In their place she wore deep blue tight jeans tucked into brown boots and a deep dark red leather jacket over a light blue fitted shirt.

“Ha! That’s, that’s ….amazing!” Supergirl said, dumbfounded as she rose onto her feet.

The heroine looked down over herself and studied her clothes. They looked cool, custom made, and fitted well. Supergirl twisted herself this way and that, taking herself in and realised how good she looked. Then she had this dawning sense that perhaps …

Wait .. does that mean…?

WUMPF …!

Supergirl blinked as her costume returned. Her boots were like new, her cape no longer damaged and her one piece was pristine as she imagined it always looked too. Supergirl looked over herself in awe like it was the first time ever. With a glance down her sleeves, then her boots and a quick twist of the hips to check her cloak she now seemed to fully understand what she could do.

I can manifest clothes?! So that’s how she does it!

WUMPF …!

Supergirl was back in her jeans and jacket again and now she noticed that something was in her pocket. Reaching in she found a wallet and pulled it out. Opening it she found no money, no credit cards, but there was one blank piece of white credit card sized plastic and in the bottom corner was a name.

Dr Molly Matthews.

“Her, the one who attacked the President” Supergirl thought as she studied the card.

Spinning around Supergirl realised this search for a hidden palace was pointless. There was no ice palace. It was a theory and that was all. If there was a palace it would be for another hero, but for her high up in the wastes there was nothing. What she had done though was discover that there was more about herself than she had known before.

I need to go back. I am sure I belong in the United States, but certainly not in Alaska, so where?

Supergirl pocketed her wallet and with a little concentration …

WUMPF …!

Supergirl was back in her distinctive red and blue again but suddenly began to feel a little faint. Supergirl felt the world spinning and slumped down to the snow, stars before her eyes. For Supergirl there was limits to how much energy she could expend, but, how much was it?

Oh wait. Clothes are matter. If I am just creating them, manifesting them, then, oh gosh… E equals M C squared. So, M equals E over C squared. So, ummm, say three kilos of clothes … and C squared is constant then …wait, that’s … that’s 270 quadrillion joules? Each time? No way!

Supergirl didn’t care if what she had seen were her only outfit choices because it didn’t matter, it was a new piece of puzzle about herself that she had figured out. Having been in despair only a few moments before she felt encouraged that she might be pulling herself back together.

OK give me time to recharge Supergirl thought as she looked skyward to the pale white disc of the sun hiding behind the cloud.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Molly Matthews, looked bedraggled and unkempt. Her hair was uncombed and she looked like she had not slept. She was wearing the tight clear orange tinted PVC suit which creaked as she moved in it. About her waist was the brown leather belt pulled tightly, her wrists cuffed and chained to it. Both her ankles and her elbows were cuffed together and walking was a painful experience.

The clear PVC suit in prison-uniform-orange was supposedly meant to prevent concealment of contraband or weapons though Molly doubted that her thorough and degrading body cavity search had been necessary. Besides, she could barely move in her restraints now, how could she possibly be any threat?

Molly was in the secure wing of the Manhattan Campus VA hospital in New York. Here the neuroscience department were going to conduct some tests to find any justification for her memory loss, assuming it was true. Many a criminal had tried to shield themselves with a “I don’t remember!” defence it seemed and the authorities were going to find out one way or another if she was lying.

Two men in what looked like prison guard uniform entered her locked private room and flanking doctor Matthews supported her as they marched her out. In the corridor were the agents who had been with her during the helicopter trip and they looked smug as the guards hurried Molly away, the cuffs on her ankles jarring and digging into her flesh on her forced march.

“You may claim you do not remember Molly but the camera doesn’t lie. We’ve got your self-made confession on tape!” one of the agents yelled after her.

“What? I did what?” Molly said, turning her head, a horrified expression on her face.

“You’re a joke, Matthews. We don’t care what these white coats say, you’re going to the chair,” said the second agent.

“No, please! I … don’t understand! What has happened?” Molly pleaded, still being shuffled forward in her restraints which jangled with every difficult step.

Turning a corner Molly was ushered through some double doors and white coated staff raised their hands, obstructing the two agents who glanced at each other with sick grins. One motioned with his head to the other, the message, “let’s leave them to it,” in his eyes.

Beyond the doors Molly could see the round tunnel that was going to conduct the scan of her head. What was it they were going to find?

“Please! Please tell me what is wrong with me! Why don’t I remember? Why can’t I remember anything at all?!” Molly pleaded.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


The large bulky frame of McGee leaned over his laptop computer. He was in a spare office of an FBI building as he often was. As a roving trouble-shooter, one of a special team within the FBI he frequently was on the move. At times it was an inconvenience, but at others his free roaming role allowed him to take part in Selena’s other activities. Today though there was no chance to be other than the straight laced FBI man he usually was. McGee sipped his morning cup of coffee in anticipation of the briefing to come.

On his screen was his boss and no doubt across the country other trouble-shooters were listening in on the same video briefing. The trouble shooters were a mobile group of agents, there to lend other agents a fresh set of eyes, or to expose a fresh angle on a case. McGee’s special gift of being able to see into the memories of others gave him the appearance of being insightful whereas the truth was he was just seeing into the minds of suspects, witnesses or victims. He didn’t mind the level of attention this job exposed him to but he was never going to reveal what his secret power was.

“OK, I think everyone who can log in has logged in by now,” the agent giving the briefing began.

“To start, this briefing is in relation to the events surrounding the attempt on President Garrison’s life, the threat to the Vice President and events surrounding BlueGlobe 251. While the investigation has many threads the Trouble Shooter team has been tasked with examining the possibility that these events have been perpetrated by the alien entity known as Vel or codename Eight-Ball…”

Finally they are getting it! McGee thought.

“…Only a week ago the information I am about to give you was marked Top Secret and has since been downgraded for law enforcement consumption. This information is to be disseminated to agents that may be tied to relevant investigations. Essentially we are relying on your discretion…” the image of the agent on screen was switched out for a briefing document which McGee scanned intently with his eyes.

“This was an eyes only document which made up part of a daily National Security Briefing. It was created in response to a hacking attack made against CYBER-CENCOM and various governmental databases. The attack was believed to have been carried out by the alien entity, Eight-Ball…

McGee’s eyes widened as he locked in on part of the document… “Oh god!”

“As you can see… the hacker executed a probabilistic analysis while inside the databases. We were unable to ascertain what the hacker discovered but it seemed they were looking for one, some, or many individuals. The cyber warfare people came up with this reverse engineered analysis. A PDF of this analysis along with the other briefing materials are being sent out to you but basically the search parameters were… LU then LI. There is a KO and CO. Then there is another grouping SA, SE and CE and to finish, KAR”

Wow, Vel was totally on to the girls, but how did he know? McGee thought, shocked.

“… We do not know if these were targets for attack, sought-for associates, or potential sources of information. However you should bear in mind that these names appear to be important to Eight-Ball. They may be our assets he is targeting, or they may be criminal, we don’t know. But they are pieces of a puzzle and we ideally want to find out what they mean…”

This is dynamite. The moment this briefing is over I’ve got to pass it on to Neyra


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =




It was early in the morning and Agent Dan Goodell of the NRC walked up to the office at the entrance of the Brucker Reclamation Company and made his way inside and to the counter. He intended to try and eliminate the yard as the source of a radiation poisoning accident which had left a dog fighting for its life.

The Brucker Reclamation Company was essentially a scrapyard and was near to the neighbourhood where the Trello family lived. It was certainly as good a place as any to look for the rogue radioactive source.

“Hi, morning, what can we do for you,” asked the bald man behind the counter. Alongside him sat a computer and screen, a keyboard and mouse in front of him.

“Hi, I am with the NRC,” Goodell began, opening his ID wallet for the other man to see, “…are you in charge here?”

“Sure, I am the owner, Brucker, wow, am I in trouble or something?” Brucker scoffed nervously, almost recoiling from the NRC badge shown in front of him.

“We have had reports of an accidental radiation exposure in the area. Just as a routine precaution we check places that are potential sources of…” Goodell began to say.

“What do you think we are here, a nuclear power plant?” Brucker said sarcastically. He gestured to the wall behind him which was adorned with examples of what was available to buy from his yard. There was chrome trim from a car, hub caps, dials and car badges, all to buy and make your own car good as new.

“Sir, you will be surprised what can end up in a scrapyard that might be a radiation hazard, whether you knew of it or not. Now, I don’t have a warrant, but if you have something in your inventory I implore you to let me find it …” Goodell explained.

“Jeez, you think I would … no … I wouldn’t accept waste like that! I run a clean outfit here,” Brucker said, almost distraught at the accusation.

“Look, let me and my guys do a walk around your yard with a counter and we can at least clear you place from the list,” Goodell said. Brucker seemed innocent enough and the background checks Goodell had done on the business didn’t show up any violations. But Goodell knew that all it took was one lax check, one unscrupulous person trying to offload something bad from a piece of medical equipment and it could easily find a home in a place like this. It had happened before, after all.

“Be my guest, but I promise you, whatever you think might be there, it isn’t!” Brucker protested.

= = = =



Neyra had paid the taxi driver and then walked into the lobby of the FBI building at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan. She had eaten a hearty breakfast and true to McGee’s word it had helped settle her butterflies. After that she got a call into Ingram who had been startled by her sudden determined plan. A demand for a vehicle? A LEO request? And a confident demand for field kit? Ingram sensed the sea change in Neyra and went with his gut and had put her demands into action.

Inside the lobby of the FBI building Neyra saw the metal detectors with the conveyor belts and security men then sighed. Wheeling her small carry-on luggage she obviously caught some attention and was promptly approached.

Neyra was subtle and produced her ID and concerned looks transformed into respectful gestures, guiding her to the X-Ray machine and the conveyor belt. On went her piece of luggage and then out came the plastic trays for her other effects.

Neyra mentally tallied her gear, plucking them from her body.

Glock
Spare clip
Cuffs
Keys
Personal Cell phone
Issued Cell Phone

The security men observed the process then glanced Neyra over, satisfied that most of the obvious troublesome objects that had been removed. Neyra’s heart raced as she passed through the detector archway wondering if she was going to get away clean…

… and she did!

Neyra watched as her carry on case trundled through the x-ray machine and then it arrived in front of her safe and sound.

“Here you go, Agent Jones,” said a security guard, passing her the tray of personal items she had just removed.

“Oh, thank you,” Neyra smiled in reply only to have it fade knowing she had to put everything back the way it was.

Glock into the holster, spare clip into its holder. Cuffs into their pouch, keys into her pocket. Now her cell phones…

“Special Agent Jones?” called a voice across the lobby.

Neyra turned her head and saw a middle aged man approaching her, hand out in greeting. With a slight paunch and thinning hair it was fair to say this man was more likely to be manning a desk than being active in the field.

“Yes, sorry, do I know you?” Neyra replied, patting down her jacket top and confirming everything was in its place.

“S A C Richardson, OPE division. Ingram, the Deputy Assistant Director told me you were coming. Please, follow me,” Richardson explained. Finally his offered hand was accepted by Neyra’s and they shook briefly.

“Did the Deputy Assistant Director explain to you why I am here?” Neyra fished as the pair approached an elevator. The less talking she had to do the less chance there was she would be exposed.

Richardson pressed a button on the panel and a set of doors opened. Richardson politely let Neyra enter first and she wheeled in her luggage before turning around to face back out again. Richardson stepped in and stood alongside the tall black beauty and continued to talk as he pressed the desired floor.

“Hmm, not in so many words but I understand you have some pressing matters to attend to. You have a lot on your plate it seems. I have received a high priority package for you plus I understand you have a LEO request to get processed,” Richardson explained.

“Package? Oh, oh right. I think I know what that is and yes, the … err .. the LEO request. I think I have what we need in order to fill in the blanks,” Neyra bluffed.

“Good, that should not take too long. Oh I should warn you that the pool car situation is a little messed up at the moment. The ground stop had us take vehicles to do some essential travel instead of flying but I’ve managed to secure you a vehicle,”

“Thank you sir,” Neyra responded with a nod as the elevator doors opened.

“So, may I ask what you are working on? Oh, this way please,” Richardson said as he led Neyra out the elevator and down a corridor.

Neyra’s heart did a leap or two at the unexpected question. “Well, I know it’s unusual but it’s sort of Supergirl related,”

Richardson scoffed, “Well aren’t we all on that now? Or haven’t you heard? There is a special directive out to all the federal agencies right now. Anyone who interacts with her are to ask her to repeat the Sanderson test, but on Dr Molly Matthews. It will be at the same court house as before too, she will remember. I am surprised you missed out on that, it was an AFAM, check your phone,”

“Oh crap, it was?” Neyra exclaimed patting her pockets and pulling out her FBI issued cell phone. She didn’t know what AFAM was but there was a notification telling her she had one, “Oh, it WAS!”

In the messaging app there it was, the AFAM, an All Federal Agencies Message.

“AFAM – IF IN CONTACT WITH SUPERGIRL YOU ARE TO RQST RPT OF SANDERSON TEST 1300HRS SAME VENUE – TEST SUBJECT ON SITE”

Richardson scoffed, “Don’t worry, I know you are green, Jones, but, pay attention in future. Those global alerts are there to help you, remember,”

“Yes sir,” Neyra said humbly. If things had been going well until now it had only been by chance, this while a minor lesson reminded her how little she knew of the job she was pretending to do.

Mental note – check the phone more often!

The pair passed down a corridor and through doors into an open plan office. Some agents looked up while others just carried on working. There were many muted TV’s around the office, all tuned into the different news channels and from time to time the agents would glance up, eager to see if there were any events brewing that they should be aware of.

“Well, this is it, welcome to OPE New York,” Richardson began as he led Neyra to his office.

Neyra walked, wheeling her carry-on bag behind her and noting Richardson gesturing to the door closed it behind them sealing out the noise. Richardson walked around his desk, taking his seat and patted his slightly cluttered desk, as he recalled what he had for Neyra.

“Ok, yes, so this is for you…” Richardson said sliding a fat padded envelope towards Neyra along with a set of car keys sat loose on top, “and you need to give me the details of this TLEOSA,”

Neyra reached out with a sheet of paper which she passed to Richardson then drew back the envelope and noted the weight. It was easily twice the weight of the one she had been given. This was the FBI field kit for Selena and Lucy. Next she eyed the vehicle keys with the Chevrolet logo on them which she guessed would be an SUV. Not a fan of big vehicles Neyra was disappointed but she guessed if she was going to be carrying people she would need the space.

Richardson filled in the paperwork for Neyra as she assessed the package and the keys and then with a swift swish of the pen signed off, first on Neyra’s copy and then one of his own.

“Here you go. Ingram must think highly of you to have you reporting directly to him,” Richardson said as he presented Neyra with her request paperwork.

“Oh well I am not so sure of that but, thank you, sir, I’m just doing my best,” Neyra said gratefully.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


A Swiss fire officer, dressed in his best blue uniform stood at a nurses station, cap under his arm while he showed his identification to the nurse in charge. Soon a visitor’s log book was spun to face the man and he signed in before being pointed in the direction of Dr Mia Keller who sat at a window looking down at a park across the street. She was in the common room where the low risk patients were allowed to congregate it seemed.

“Hello Dr Keller, I am Karl Mueller from the National Fire Service investigation team. May I sit down?” asked the officer.

Mia turned her head slowly to see who had spoken then away again. Her face expressed no emotion, like she was able to suppress whatever it was she was feeling. The man hid his concern at the condition he found Dr Keller in. She had been described as positive, brave, outgoing, smart, assertive, professional, all the things you would want in a paramedic who would often do the impossible out in the field. The woman in front of him truly had seen something traumatic.

Taking a breath Karl drew back the seat opposite Mia just a little, “Well, it’s not a no, I guess,” as he sat down.

Mia blinked a little, her expression hinting that behind the façade was emotional pain, provoked by Karl’s presence no doubt. She composed herself and looked away back towards the view.

“May I? As you can imagine we are desperate for answers and, well, you were the only survivor who might have seen something,” Karl sliding a tape recorder on the table between them and pressing the record button.

There was silence between the two sat at the window, Karl deciding whether to touch on a no-doubt difficult subject. He decided to try small talk first though, trying to ease his way into conversation.

“It’s a nice view. You must get to see a lot of what happens in the park. I was raised in the city, but I was lucky to have a park like that nearby as a child,” Karl said softly, hoping Mia would engage with him.

Mia did not reply, her pursing lips holding back a mountain of emotion that started to come. She knew questions were coming and that mere knowledge started to unravel her strength to keep herself together.

“Mia, I know it is hard, but, please, if you know of anything that can help us understand what happened at the accident, please, find it in yourself. We all know that you and Luca were a tight team. What you might not know is, Luca, well, he was, he was my nephew and… well, I would dearly like to know what happened to him. Mia … do you think you could …” Karl explained, still in his low voice.

Mia Keller’s bottom lip trembled, the dam holding back what was in her head slowly failing. Gently she began to whisper so low Karl could not hear her words, but over and over she whispered the same phrase. Like an approaching train the whisper increased …

“…rather … eggs …rather … eggs …red and blue ….” Mia began.

Karl frowned as he slid the tape recorder closer and closer to Mia, waiting for something coherent to come from her mouth. Was she hungry, would a meal bribe her into talking?

“Mia … what do you mean? Do you want something to eat?” Karl asked, his hand reaching out towards Mia’s forearm, seeking to calm her down.


“…rather … eggs … red and blue … rather … eggs …red and blue…” she continued, her voice rising to a firm conversational level.

At the nurses station two members of staff noticed Mia starting to spiral and one of them raised a handset of her phone and dialled, summonsing assistance. In the meantime Mia’s face began to snarl up in anger, her voice rising and rising to an angry, bitter chant as she turned to face Karl who recoiled from the woman in front of him.

“Rather … Eggs …Red and Blue … RATHER … EGGS …RED AND BLUE ….. RAAAAATHER! …. EGGGS! RED ! AND! BLUE! … RRRAAAATHER EGGGGSSSS … RED AND BLUE” Mia raged on.

Suddenly from an adjoining corridor two large male orderlies walked purposefully into the area and approached Karl and Mia. Karl looked up, relieved, and the orderlies moved by Mia’s side ready to take her back to her room.

“I think that’s enough for one day, Mia,” one orderly with a gentle voice, his eyes indicating to Karl that everything was okay.

Carefully aiding Mia to her feet the rage in the woman’s voice slowly diminished and then she was carefully marshalled out the room and into the adjoining corridor and then was gone. Karl sighed, drew the voice recorder back and hit STOP.

“Damn,” he uttered before rising to his feet. The nonsense spewing from her was no help at all. Whatever Mia knew of the accident was, for now, trapped within her traumatised mind.

= = = = = = = =




Neyra looked at the GPS of her FBI vehicle which was leading her to the 19th precinct station house of the NYPD. Thanks to McGee she was also now armed with intelligence that she hoped might help her save Lucy and Selena from their fate.

Tapping a button on her steering wheel Neyra called up her contacts on her phone and selected a name then dialled. The cockpit of the SUV filled with the sound of the dialling tone and soon the phone at the other of the line was ringing.

“Ingram. What is it, Jones?” Ingram asked with concern. He had done her bidding and was counting on her to keep the integrity of the INFINITY system safe and solid else his neck would be on the chopping block.

“Sir, hi, errr, you know the other day you said if I could explain why Weiss and Wang were on false documents you could help them out?” Neyra said almost a little mischievously.

“Hmmm, go on…” Ingram replied, sensing Neyra’s trap. She knew something, something that meant he would have to continue keeping up his end of the bargain.

“Well, I think I’ve got what you need,” Neyra responded, a hint of boastfulness in her voice.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Across town Gomez and Lisa Kozny were sat at their desks ploughing through paperwork. They had several open cases and while the trail for Delacroix was for the moment cold the other cases needed attention. Gomez reviewed witness statements while Kozny was reading through some phone call logs, trying to establish some motive for a victim’s death.

It was then that Gomez saw them, three men in suits, one of them a detective from Internal Affairs, causing Gomez to scowl as he hissed for Kozny’s attention. The fair haired Kozny followed the glare of her colleague’s eyes and locked onto the newcomers to the bullpen who made a beeline for the captain’s office. Her heart dropped to her stomach recognising one of the men straight away.

Oh shit, Internal Affairs

“What the fuck do they want?” Gomez grumbled in a low voice as he tracked the men as they headed to the glass walled captain’s office.

“Fuck knows though someone is probably about to have a bad day,” Lisa said with suspicion. Deep inside the detective a sickening sensation welled up causing her to go slightly pale.

Lisa Kozny spoke from experience, she knew what it was to be investigated by Internal Affairs. Some time ago she had been falsely accused of stealing funds from her fellow officers, and while there was only thin evidence against her she had to quit. It was only some time later that her new relationship with Selena, the information broker, brought with it the evidence that had proven her innocence.

Right now though Lisa was feeling far from innocent. She had been hounded to near death by the mercenary she had to come to know as Neomi Delacroix. It was during their final confrontation that Lucy Wuan, another member of Selena’s close knit circle had finally ended not only Delacroix but her fair haired Scandinavian accomplice too. What followed after that though was what gave Lisa an appearance of guilt. Rather than report the slaying, Lucy and Lisa were forced to keep their killing secret, something that ran against the grain for the idealistic detective. All that Lisa Kozny could do now was stew while Internal Affairs and the strangers entered into the Captain’s office, the blinds of the office glass promptly closing behind them as they began to speak.



Captain Oakland rose from his seat as the three men in suits entered. Oakland was dressed casually, he had been drawn back to his office on this fine Sunday by request and at short notice but he did not know the full reason for it. Detective Klein of Internal Affairs was the one who had made the call and was familiar to Oakland but the two men with him were not. It was with a little apprehension then that Oakland went to greet his guests for this hurriedly scheduled meeting.

“So, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” Oakland asked, his eyes narrowing on the man who was familiar to him, Klein.

“Please, pardon the timing Captain but this is important,” Klein began.

Outside the office Kozny began to have a cold sweat form on her brow, her skin paling as she imagined the conversation that was happening inside the captain’s office. She tried to focus on the task at hand but her eye flickered anxiously back and forth from her files to the captain’s door and what she thought was going on inside.

“Hey, you okay partner, you don’t look so good. I told you, stay off the street meat. That last burrito did not look great,” Gomez noted with concern.

“I need to get some fresh air or some water,” Kozny said shakily as she went to rise to her feet.

“Sure, let me get it, you look a little off” Gomez offered, his hand reaching for his jeans pocket which jingled with loose change for the bullpen vending machine.

Kozny drew the palms of her hands backwards over her cheeks, drawing her comb like fingers through her hair, pulling it back behind her like the gesture would wipe away the sensation of dread.

“Hey, Kozny, a moment?” Captain Oakland called out from his office door which had swung open unseen by the detective. Oakland, arm outstretched, beckoned to Kozny with his fingers to approach.

The air in Kozny’s lungs seemed to evaporate while her heart landed with a thud in her stomach once more. The line of sight to the captain’s door narrowed in like a tunnel, the chatter of the other detectives, the ringing of phones, the chunter of the photocopier, all fading away from Kozny’s ears.

Kozny’s hands dropped to her waist, her hands feeling the edge of her badge holder on one side while her other hand felt the edge of her holster and her recently issued Glock which sat in place of the one Delacroix had managed to take from her. Kozny exhaled then took in another deep breath while her mind whirled in dread. Should she run?

“Hey relax,” Gomez said, his palm coming to rest on Kozny’s back. Gomez didn’t feel it but his touch made Kozny shiver, the sweat of fear chilling her spine.

“Su … sure …” Kozny replied, biting her lip. Drawing another breath Kozny took the first difficult step then reluctantly walked forward towards the captain’s office.

Entering the office the Captain drew the door closed behind her and returned to his desk, gesturing to Kozny to sit down. The outside world seemed to vanish with the closing of the door and now she felt she was in the lion’s den. Usually a place with a fair balance of scrutiny and mentoring from her captain, Kozny perceived hostile and dangerous eyes settling upon her.

“What’s up, sir?” Kozny manged to say as she shuffled in her seat, taking in the sight of the men sat around the Captain’s desk with her.


“You know Klein, right, from Internal Affairs,” Captain Oakland began, his eyes indicating the first suited man.

“Sure, how could I forget,” Kozny said with a hint of bitterness and the rolling of her eyes.

“Hey, that business is water under the bridge for us. This is something else,” Klein said, his tone quite candid as he gestured to the two other men in the room.

“Oh? You have history?” one of the other suited men asked with interest. His arms were folded, instantly putting Kozny on her guard.

Oakland simmered slightly at the inference being made, “There’s nothing to say. Someone framed up Detective Kozny and IA bought it hook line and sinker until the real crooks got uncovered. Now Kozny is back with a clean slate. There is no history as far as I am concerned,”

Klein raised his hands in surrender, “We have already apologised a thousand times for that one. And look, Kozny is back, so, no harm no foul, right?”

“Well that’s great and all, but if you’re all finished….” one of the other men chimed in, impatiently.

“Apologies, gentlemen. Kozny, these two men are from Homeland Security, agents Passmore and Callum,” Oakland said, his hand gesturing to the two other men.

“Ho .. homeland? But what can …” Kozny stuttered.

“Agent Callum and I are part of a task force investigating the activities of Doctor Molly Matthews and her brother, Andrew. No doubt you aware of the attempt on the president’s life and the events surrounding BlueGlobe 251,” Passmore explained.

“Sure,” Kozny nodded, still uncertain where this was all going.

“Detective Kozny,” began Callum, causing Kozny to turn her head from one looming agent to the other, “you were investigating the death of a pilot, Van Der Walt. We know you met Andrew’s fiancée at her place, what took you there?”

“Well, I guess, it was when I was checking a lead. The address where Andrew stayed during his layovers in the US, it had been broken into. It was a weak lead but I thought it worth checking. Nothing had been taken but I noticed a photo of Dr Matthews, Molly, and recognised her from somewhere. Of course, the assassination attempt hadn’t even made the news then and as for the flight, well, that came later so… well there was no way I could have known what was about to happen,” Kozny replied carefully.

“We are investigating the theory both Andrew and Molly Matthews may have been under the influence of the alien infection that also had control of the two Sandersons. You remember that, don’t you?” Callum asked.

“The .. the Sandersons? Wow, well, everyone knows about them unless you live under a rock,” Kozny replied, tossing her head vaguely in Klein’s direction.

“Oh that’s Cute,” scoffed Klein, his hand appealing to Oakland like he was a soccer player who had been fouled and the captain was a referee.

Oakland shook his head tersely at the pair, his desire for them both to grow up evident in his eyes.

“Look, Detective Kozny, the problem I have is this. You say you knew nothing about the Matthews pair in advance, but, we know someone who is connected to you was on board that flight,” Passmore said as he produced a pair of photos which he slid onto the captain’s desk in front of Kozny to see.

Kozny recoiled just a fraction from the two photos, Lucy Wuan on life support in one, an unconscious Selena in another. She had not admitted knowing the pair but her body language had betrayed a hint of some kind of knowledge of at least one of the images in front of her.

“Are … are these people … are they dead?” Kozny asked.

“No. But one as you can see is in hospital, she is in a coma. The other, well, the military have her, she is conscious and being interrogated by them,” Callum replied bluntly.

“Who are they to you? We know she…” Passmore began, tapping the photo of Lucy, “…has been in the same places as you. The NSA has been data mining what they have on everyone on the flight along with anyone involved in the Van Der Walt case”

Kozny could merely shake her head in denial but something deep inside her blocked her from uttering a lie in front of her boss, Captain Oakland who she respected.

Passmore lent in closer, his tapping finger punctuating each question, “You and this woman have been in each other’s pockets for days. How did you not know she was there? Did you plant her onto the flight for some reason? Was she and Andy Matthews working together? We know you know something …”

Kozny’s mind whirled as the walls of the office seemed to be closing in on her. The sharks in the room sensed her blood and they weren’t going away. All she could do was deny everything but an army of NSA analysts could no doubt put her and Lucy in the same place at the same time for too many times for her denials to be plausible. How had Selena and Lucy come to be in the state they were in she wondered, glancing at the upsetting photos. Did McGee know about this? Supergirl? Suddenly Kozny realised her short list of friends who could help was looking a lot smaller than usual. Rescue was not coming.

“You better have something to back that up,” Oakland said to Passmore and Callum, his tone serious as he pointed at the two men with the tip of his pen.

“She’s been in the area of detective Kozny’s apartment. Kozny’s phone, and this woman’s phone, they have been in the same places and at the same time. They know each other I can assure you, Captain,” Callum said forcefully.

“Kozny has been doing her job, okay. Now I am sure there is a reasonable explanation for all this so let her breathe,” Oakland snapped, watching Kozny slowly getting overwhelmed by the questioning.

“Do … do I need the rep for this one, Cap?” Kozny asked, wondering if she really was in as deep as trouble as she suspected.

Passmore snapped, “Screw that. This is national security stuff. How do you know this woman? Was she helping Matthews? Were YOU helping Matthews? What about Delacroix?”

“Hey knock it off. Detective Kozny has done nothing but be exemplary in this case. She took a bullet for Christ’s sakes and she’s been all over that Delacroix woman trying to find her. For all you know this Asian woman could have been working for Delacroix!” Oakland growled, his temper finally boiling over.

Klein from Internal Affairs could feel the eyes of the Homeland Security men settle on him for support. “Well, sir, I insist, you should at least put Detective Kozny on suspension while we work this out. We are talking about an assassination attempt on the president for god’s sake!”

“SUSPENSION? For what?!” Kozny protested.

RAT TAT TAT – The door to office rattled by someone knocking from outside. The group of five collectively turned their heads to face the door. The outside world had become forgotten during this intense encounter but the knock of the door reminded them of the reality beyond the walls.

“NOT NOW” growled Oakland.

RAT TAT TAT – The door sounded again.

“FINE – WHAT !” Oakland shouted again, though in resignation.

The door swung open and a young junior uniformed officer passed part way through the gap. Fresh faced and enthusiastic in a pristine well fitted uniform she could well have just stepped out the academy parade ground. The captain visibly seemed to suppress his anger before speaking.

“OK what is it that can’t wait? Can’t you see I have a meeting going on here?” Oakland asked.

“Sir, sorry sir, only there is an FBI agent here to see you. She said it is urgent, it’s about …. Oh …. Detective Kozny…” the young officer said, her head nodding towards Kozny.

The men from Homeland Security scoffed while Klein glanced accusingly at Kozny. The hits kept coming for the detective and the man from Internal Affairs could only think of the old warning that there was no smoke without fire. To him the flames jetting out of Kozny’s train-wreck of a career were now totally apparent.

“Great. Fine. Get her in here,” Oakland said, tossing his pen onto the desk in disbelief. The experienced captain certainly was not looking forward to hearing what was coming next.

“Yes sir,” the young officer said as she backed out the doorway and pulling the door closed behind her.

“You’re toast, Kozny,” Passmore said, a hint of pleasure in his voice as he saw Kozny’s situation worsen with every moment.

“Sir, I’m not saying anything until I see my rep,” Kozny said, folding her arms defensively.

“Oh I am sure you won’t have to say anything. But I bet what the Bureau has got could be pretty interesting,” Passmore said glancing at his partner, Callum, who smirked back at him.

There was a tap at the door before it swung open, Kozny’s stomach doing somersaults as first the young officer appeared only to be quickly followed by …

Kozny’s eyes were on stalks as she saw the woman in the room, it was …

Neyra Thornton, dressed smartly in a dark navy blue suit, badge on her belt and NYPD visitors tag clipped to her lapel, stepped into the room. Neyra did a double take seeing the bruised face of Kozny while Kozny herself tried to reign in her in confusion.

“Captain Oakland, I am Special Agent Jones, FBI. Oh and I see you have Detective Kozny here already? And you gentlemen are ….” Neyra’s question tailed off as caught sight of Callum and Passmore.

“Forgive me, these are Agents Passmore and Callum, Homeland security” began Oakland as he shook Neyra’s hand before she then greeted the other two men in turn.

“Special agent Jones?” asked Kozny with incredulity.

“You know her too?” Oakland asked Kozny, gesturing to Neyra. He sensed there was something to the underlying tone of Kozny’s question.

Kozny’s eyes turned swiftly to face her captain then back at Neyra for help. What should she say? What the hell was going on?

“Well, I … uh …” Kozny said, slowly freezing up as she tried to process what was going on. She already regretted giving away her recognition of Lucy and now Neyra too? It was already all too much.

“It’s okay, detective Kozny …I will try and explain why I am here,” Neyra said.

“Please, do!” captain Oakland exclaimed.

“You? Explain to US? I will be surprised if you’ve got any more than we do, but go on, let’s hear it,” Passmore said with a smug grin.

“Well, to start I should explain that I work for the office for partner engagement …” began Neyra.

“You’re OPE? Oh jeezus, what have you got for us, a leaflet drop? A powerpoint presentation?” Callum began with disdain. The OPE was the face of the FBI when it came to giving lectures and talks to other law enforcement agencies. It was how the Bureau made sure that it stayed in the minds of those that made up the eyes and ears of the nation’s law enforcement officers. If law enforcement had a problem, their friends at the FBI had made sure they knew they were there to help.

“Hey, have some respect gentlemen. Please, go on, Special Agent Jones…” Oakland cautioned the two men from Homeland.

Neyra flashed her thankful eyes before looking back at Callum. “No, thank you. I don’t have any leaflets and no, I’ve not got a presentation up my sleeve either. What I am here for though is Detective Kozny,” Neyra began.


“Oh yeah? Why? Do you even know why we are here?” Passmore scoffed.

Klein shook his head, “I am sorry agent Jones but right now Detective Kozny is pretty much in the crosshairs of an investigation.”

“Look, I don’t know what it is you think she’s done but I am putting a team together that is pretty much a priority. I have the release forms all ready, I need her,” Neyra insisted.

“Listen, Agent Jones, at the rate today is going you’re going to have to post bail to get Detective Kozny…” Klein said with seriousness.

“Fuck you,” Kozny snapped, her eyes making daggers at Klein.

“You are all making a serious mistake. The team I am part of, it’s to liaise with Supergirl!” Neyra announced.

There was a moment of speechlessness before the men from Homeland Security spoke.

“Horseshit – she won’t work with us. Sure, she does her thing, but never with us, never for us. She does it for the good of the people. Besides, what the hell does that have to do with Kozny?” Callum replied angrily.

“You don’t understand, do you? Kozny was being watched by Supergirl. She was going to reach out to her,” Neyra explained her arm gesturing towards Kozny.

“Yeah I bet she was. Kozny is tied up with Molly Matthews to start. We can already link Kozny to this other woman too…”, Callum said, flipping open the folder showing the photo of Lucy, “and it is only a matter of time we figure out if she has a link to THIS woman as well,” Callum, continued, revealing Selena’s photo too.

Neyra blanked a moment, seeing the photos. Knowing her friends were in a bad way sickened her. The wind was temporarily knocked from Neyra’s sails but with a blink of her eyes she recomposed herself.

“You mean you don’t know who they are? Jeez, my boss warned me about this…” Neyra said. For that deception Neyra would normally have had to feign distress to carry it off but the photos of her friends looking back up her in the state they were in was more than enough to give a convincing display.

“Of course we know who they are…” Passmore said with derision.

“No, you don’t, you have no idea! They are both FBI agents, we are in the same task force!” Neyra exclaimed.

“FBI?” exclaimed Passmore, “That’s not possible…we would have …”

Neyra slammed down and opened folder of her own over the photos of Lucy and Selena, putting their current plight out of mind. For all to see were FBI personnel files that the INFINITY program had created for the two imperilled women. Oakland’s eyes widened and looked accusingly at Passmore. If the Agent had missed this what else might they have gotten wrong?

“Agents Wang and Weiss were on the Supergirl Liaison Task Force and had been involved with uncovering the alien threat that took over Bobby and Kimberly Sanderson. Later, we suspected that Wang and Weiss were being targeted by someone or something. So, to keep them safe we hurriedly gave them new identities and were flying them out of the country. Now my two agents are in custody because there was a screw-up concealing their ID and now I find Supergirl’s upcoming recruitment choice is getting a grilling by Homeland security,” Neyra protested, gesturing at Lisa who by now felt like prey surrounded by predators.

“I’m calling bullshit! You’re reaching. This doesn’t explain why Wang, assuming that is who she is and Kozny are seemingly so close. There’s not even any evidence Supergirl has interest in Kozny,” Callum said loudly.

“Supergirl had been interested in Kozny for some time. Supergirl asked Agent Wang to keep tabs on her, build up a profile of her before bringing her in to the group. The unique thing about this Liaison team is that it isn’t picked by the FBI. Supergirl has been choosing US! Me, Weiss, Wang, now Kozny,” Neyra said, trying to give an air of honesty about the situation.

The captain suddenly had an expression of realisation on his face, “And actually … I think I know something of the Supergirl link to Kozny after all,” the Captain said, his raised hand pausing the conversation. Lifting the handset of his phone the captain punched a button and spoke. “Oh hey Sergeant Ross, listen, Tyler and Glen …. Yeah, those jokers. Are they by chance in the house? Uh, huh. Great, send them up… I have an audience for them,”

= = = =
Ten minutes later two confused police officers were front and center in the captain’s office retelling a tale that they had told a few times with a non-believing audience. Now though they were in the midst of something serious and the people listening seemed to be hooked on their every word.

“So …. I am getting a drink from a vending machine when I hear Tyler on the radio asking me to back him up. So, I go trotting back up to him and …” Officer Glen explained before Tyler cut in.

“Yeah, and Supergirl is like, right there, in my face!” Tyler says, gesturing with the flat palm of his hand, placing close to his nose.

“So, I hear Tyler say that if she didn’t back off then there would be a problem and I’ve got my hand resting on my piece not knowing what the hell was going on,” Glen said flippantly, a shrug ending his sentence.

“And then she says that she was glad we were taking good care of ‘The Koz’ … errr Detective Kozny and then turned around and left!” Tyler said gesturing with a twirling finger how the heroine had just spun around and gone.

“I can’t believe she was at the hospital?! And this was after I was shot by Delacroix?” Kozny said in disbelief. Her head dropped for a moment in thought, overwhelmed by the revelation.

Little did Kozny know that Lucy Wuan had also made it to the hospital that night, all to see if she was ok. If the NSA continued to data mine everything they might even learn about this link between the pair too.

Glen nodded solemnly, “Yes ma’am, I only remember when because I have a buddy in the park precinct. It was his partner that … well … he was the one that found you after you had been shot.”

Kozny’s head snapped up, looking Glen in the eye as she remembered what had happened. She had fought with the assassin, Delacroix, who had managed to take her gun from her. In the critical moment it had been one of the park precinct officers who had interrupted Delacroix before she could kill the detective. Kozny had owed that officer big time, big enough that a keg of beer made its way over to the park’s precinct house in gratitude.

“Thanks, both of you,” Oakland said seeing Kozny’s reaction. Oakland gestured with his palm towards the door as he rose to his feet, indicating to the officers that they could go.

The two dark blue uniformed officers politely nodded to the Captain’s guests and then left, closing the door behind them. There was a pause, a deep breath and exhalation from most of the people in the room as they reflected on what they had heard before Oakland began to speak.

“Now look, that tale from the locker room gets a little taller each time they tell it but what doesn’t change is the when, the where and the who. Supergirl was there at the hospital, and she was checking on Kozny,” Oakland said.

Neyra sensed the momentum of the battle was in her favour and struck, “Captain, please, sign the release. Lend Kozny to me,” she said, placing the release paperwork on the captain’s desk.

Oakland looked at Kozny then the forms. To be hand-picked for an FBI task force was a big deal, maybe a great career boost for someone who had had a setback like she had fallen victim to.

“Kozny, you good with this?” Oakland asked, his palm resting on the papers.

Kozny looked up at Neyra. She had no idea how this was all happening but Lucy needed help and being seconded to the FBI, assuming everything was legitimate, was going to make that possible. Well, a lot more possible than being stuck at the precinct.

“Yes, yes sir, if you can spare me. You might need to share out a little of my caseload, or at least get Gomez some help,” Kozny nodded. She looked at the others in the room, the men from Homeland Security looking particularly concerned their mark might be slipping from their grasp.

“Don’t you worry, I’ll get it covered, besides, these inter-agency agreements usually get us some funds for overtime,” Oakland scoffed as he looked over the release forms.

The captain’s eyes then glanced back at Kozny who still looked shaken from her ordeal. In the line of fire she was solid, but, under this sort of spotlight she had wilted fast, a little too fast perhaps. And yet, he had put faith in her before and been proven right and now she needed his faith again. With a click of his pen Captain Oakland prepared to sign.


“You’re going to give her a free pass?” Klein added said with surprise.

“Klein, ten minutes ago you were going to push me to have Kozny on suspension. Now, either I do that or I give her to the FBI, and lord knows I’d rather have Kozny doing some good with the FBI than give you the satisfaction of suspending her,” Oakland said, pointing at Klein with his pen.

“You’re making a mistake, Captain. If she’s caught up on the wrong side of all this you’re going to regret it. Besides, we have the Matthews’ situation contained now. We don’t need this so called Supergirl liaison team and certainly not with someone who might be compromised like Detective Kozny” Passmore said, his tone verging on threatening.

The captain’s gaze settled on Passmore, his expression only barley veiling his growing annoyance at the two agents from Homeland Security, “I am not one to tell Homeland Security how to do their jobs but I recommend you go back to your secret hidey-holes, pull out your magic decoder rings and start chasing more worthwhile leads. From what I can see you’re chasing victims,” Oakland said, tapping the FBI files of Wang and Weiss, “NOT suspects,” he concluded.

The captain wielded his pen and proceeded to sign the release forms that would enable Kozny to work with the FBI. The pen made a satisfying sound as it swished over the paper signing his name. Neyra watched as Oakland finished off on the paperwork, an unguarded smile escaping for just a moment as she did so.

“Detective Kozny, hand over your cases to Gomez, he will be the primary and I will hook him up with a partner. Make sure he is up to date before you go. And as for you, Klein, Passmore, Callum, you’re done,” Oakland said, his steely eyes settling on the three men in turn, before gesturing to the door.

There were some dismissive shakes of the heads going on as the two men from Homeland Security left with Klein from internal affairs in tow, the door closing behind them. There was a sombre silence in the room, a respectful pause while the three dismissed men left the bullpen and then Oakland took in a breath.

“Special Agent Jones. If your story doesn’t check out I am going to end up with IA and those Homeland boys crawling up my ass. If you’ve fucked me over I swear that the god all mighty and all his angels are going to come crashing down on your head, understand?” Oakland said, his tone very ominous.

“Would you believe me if I said that even then, that would be the least of my worries?” Neyra answered.

= = = = =

Neyra walked out the doors of the 19th precinct house and on to the street. Across the street awaited the tinted glassed black FBI issued SUV. She knew that inside there would be shelter from the many people that walked the street, whether it was cops leaving or returning to the precinct house, people just passing by, or fireman who were working around their fire trucks in the neighbouring FDNY building.

Taking her first steps towards the SUV Neyra pressed the door lock button on the key fob, causing the orange lights of the vehicle to flash, signalling the doors were free to open. The weight of the world seemed to come crushing down upon her. Every person, every sound, every thing seemed to scream the truth at her. She was a fraud with a badge, a gun, an identity that was not hers and certainly not deserved.

Stepping inside the vehicle she slammed the door closed behind her and her head flopped down to the wheel a moment as she exhaled a lung full of air. Mentally she was exhausted from the maintaining the pretence of Agent Jones.

“Oh god oh god oh god …. what the hell am I doing here!” Neyra exclaimed as her nervousness caused her to shudder.

Holding out her left hand in front of her she could tell she would make a lousy surgeon right now, even a lousy artist which was her profession in the real world. She pumped her hand into and out of a fist shaped ball in the hopes of steadying herself but her trembling refused to comply.
==
Kozny folded closed the last of her active case files having gone through each of them with her partner, Gomez. The pair then shook hands and after them both expressing their desire that each of them stay safe Kozny turned away and walked out the bullpen. Walking into the corridor Kozny headed in the direction of the elevator to take her down to the ground floor but, with a sickening sensation in her stomach turned into the ladies restroom, swinging the door open with urgency.

The restroom was empty it seemed and diving into one of the stalls Kozny slammed the door behind herself and dropped quickly to her knees and …

BLUGH … BLUGH …. HUGHHHHHHHHHHHH …SPLA … PLAP PLAP ….

Kozny hurled, and hurled some more until there was nothing more to give, her stomach now empty. Her guts ached from the effort but the relief she got seemed worth having to go through that unpleasant sensation of throwing up.

“Oh jeez … come on Lisa .. get it together …” Lisa said, her outstretched arm slapping down the lever that caused the flusher to wash away what she had done.

==

Neyra consulted her cell phone for messages then scanned her notifications list for anything important. Neyra’s heart was still racing and anything that might take her mind of where she was and what she was doing was going to help her relax …

BUMFBUMFBUMF

Neyra flinched from the noise and turned her head in shock only to see it was Kozny, the palm of her hand against the passenger side window. Neyra shrank back down after going rigid with fear and reached over to the center console and hit the door lock button. Kozny tugged open the door hearing the lock pop and pulled herself inside and sat in the front passenger seat. The door closed with a firm tug and now the detective looked Neyra squarely in the eyes. There was a welling of questions building in both their minds and it only took a second for the dam that held them back to break. Kozny was first to vent,

“What the fuck! Special Agent NERYS JONES? Are you undercover? What the fuck is going on?!” Kozny growled, gesturing at the FBI badge on Neyra’s belt.

“No, I … I am Neyra … I swear I …” Neyra tried to respond, obviously flustered.

“Is Neyra Thornton a cover?” Kozny continued. Then there was another realisation written across her face, “Shit, does Laura even know?” Kozny demanded.

“Laura, no … Supergirl told me not to tell … I …” Neyra said, still trying to get her words out.

“SUPERGIRL? She knows you’re FBI? And McGee too?” Kozny exclaimed with confusion.

“She doesn’t, well, ok, she kind of does and McGee sort of does but….. shit, look its complicated …” Neyra stammered.

“Well you better un-complicate it, fast, or our friendship, or whatever it is we have is over. Lucy is in trouble, shit, even Selena is in trouble and …” Kozny said, stopping a moment as memories of the photos that the Homeland agents had shown her flashed back to the fore.

“Hey, I am trying, ok! I am fucking trying! I have had it up to here being pushed and pulled around and now YOU …oh…” Neyra managed to regain some forcefulness only to see Kozny faltering before her eyes.

Kozny was trying to hold back the tears. “OK, I am sorry, I am sorry. Look, whoever the hell you are, can we help them?” Kozny asked, now a little subdued. Thoughts of Lucy in a bad way had taken the edge off of the detective’s ire to the point her eyes started to sting, though she would deny it if asked.

“I’ve done what I can for them for now, I set them up with FBI identities. I hoped it would keep them safe but… a fat lot of good I did them…” Neyra explained.

“Set them up? With fake ID’s? Seriously, WHO are you?!” Kozny said with a shake of the head and hint of wonderment appearing in her eyes.

Lisa Kozny had been there when Neyra and Laura, the fledgling heroine Spydra, had been drawn into the inner circle. Laura had been the focus of a lot of gruelling training, with the NYPD detective and Lucy Wuan, a mercenary, passing on their experience to her. So, after all this time, how could it be that Neyra Thornton, an artist, was actually an FBI agent?

“It’s just me, Lisa. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had to trust you all once, remember? At the beginning? I risked everything. Won’t you trust me now? Please? I’ve no idea what I am doing and …you know me… I hate this thing…you know that right?” Neyra pleaded, revealing her gun at her side that to her seemed a curse.

Kozny looked at the Glock, then at Neyra. In her head the streetwise cop knew it made no sense. Neyra Thornton, the artist was real. Special Agent Nerys Jones was not. Except… there they were, in the FBI vehicle, with Nerys, and her badge and her gun.

“How… tell me how this is possible … and I will help you,” Kozny said hesitantly.

“The President asked Kara to pick someone to run this … this program. Something that was meant to help her. Like when you helped her with the Sanderson problem. And … in the end she picked me, just a few days ago. It was only meant to be temporary, you know, till she persuaded somebody better. Nothing was meant to happen but … but it did..” Neyra said, the stress of it all written across her face.

Kozny reflected upon Neyra’s words which defused her doubts about the woman in front of her. The real source of their problems was somewhere else. “Everything is fucked up … those wolves back there were going to rip me to pieces …if the Cap’ hadn’t backed me up … if you hadn’t come … this is that fucking Molly Matthews’ doing, isn’t it?” Kozny said bitterly.

“All I can be sure of is that Lucy and Selena are in trouble. But yes, it looks like the Matthews pair were working together, first to kill the president and also to get rid of Lucy and Selena. Perhaps they thought Kara would go to save them first? That it would leave Dr Matthews free to kill the President?” Neyra speculated, a hint of her usual wise presence returning at last.

“Well whatever, the President is safe, it’s Lucy and Selena who really need us now. Please… let’s go and you can tell me about how you ended up here like this!” Kozny said, a shrugging gesture indicating she meant the FBI persona and all the paraphernalia that came with it.

“OK …” Neyra responded, turning the SUVs ignition key, “…let’s get our friends back”

= = = = = = =
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


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= = = = = = =

Two agents from the NRC walked slowly down one rank of scrapped vehicles inside the Brucker scrapyard. One wielded a clipboard and a camera while the other carried a Geiger counter which was in his left hand and had a probe for the counter in the other. He meticulously checked the wreck of the car in front of him trying to make sure he could get a good reading on anything that Gadget, the sick German shepherd, could have gotten into.

He checked under the front, swept the wheel arches, then reached into the interior through a smashed window and scanned. Nothing. Next he made his way his way around to the rear. The rear wheel arch was next before he scanned the seams where the trunk lid and body of the car met. The Geiger counter barely flinched and it was currently set on the most sensitive scale. The agent checked under the rear of the car and satisfied there was nothing more nodded to his colleague who made a note on his clipboard.

Working in the row parallel to theirs was another pair of agents repeating the same laborious and meticulous checks, hunting for the rogue radioactive object. The consensus was that with the dog’s owners being as distant from nuclear work as could be and a scrapyard just a few blocks from the family home that they were searching in the right place. The source of the contamination was going to be some medical equipment, dumped cheaply, for sure.

One of the men wiped his brow, sweat forming from working under the warm midday sun then continued. The rows were long and there were many of them. It was going to take them into the evening for sure to be able to find this thing that had poisoned the dog, whatever it was.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl landed swiftly and unseen into Central Park, her cape and skirt fluttering as she vanished into the trees. There was a short pause and then, in her red jacket and jeans she emerged confidently. Perhaps if she wandered here for a while she might find something familiar. After all, the Supergirl fan page on the internet that she had seen frequently placed her in the city and Dale…

Ugh, poor Dale…. Well, no, wait, he got what was coming to him, didn’t he?

Supergirl shook her head and began walking, taking her out of the park and onto a street. Across the road was an electronics store and without thinking the heroine walked across, oblivious to the traffic causing one car to screech to a halt, horn blaring. Supergirl flinched and with a wave of apology completed her crossing and approached the store front.

The TV’s were showing a mix of things from trailers to movies in glorious 4k resolution while others showed live TV and the news.

“SOURCES SAY FEDERAL AGENCIES TO REQUEST SUPERGIRL RPT SANDERSON TEST - TEST SUBJECT NOT KNOWN” read one ticker tape as the unheard anchor woman spoke, muted footage of Bobby Sanderson during happier times playing on in the background.

The Sanderson pair. I… I remember the test, that … that was … that was near here … wasn’t it?

Supergirl looked around herself and felt drawn to one direction. Yes, that way, to the south. Seeing a column adorned with anchors and topped with a statue of a man Supergirl decided that looked the right way to go and confidently began to walk. Hopefully by the end of today at least she may finally learn more about herself.

Darned Molly, this is all her fault!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Neyra as Special Agent Jones and Lisa Kozny made their way to the reception desk of the Hackensack University Hospital. A member of staff manning the desk saw the two women approach and smiled in anticipation of their request.

“Yes, how may I help you?” asked the tight curly haired young man.

“Oh, err,” Neyra replied, Lisa looking to her to do the talking. Neyra reached for her wallet and produced her ID card. “I’m Special Agent Jones and this is Detective Kozny of the NYPD, we understand you have one of our agents under your care,”

“One of yours? Err, what is her name,” the young man asked with surprise.

“I don’t have that information but I can tell you she was brought in on Friday, she was on Blueglobe 251,”

“Blueglobe? One moment,” the administrator said as he began clacking away on the keyboard of his computer before speaking. “Oh, there must be some mistake. They have a patient in the neuroscience wing, but, she’s not an agent. She is a suspect. The notes here say she is in custody, no visitors allowed.”

“Cust…” Lisa began to exclaim.

“Ah!… ok…well… where might I find her?” Neyra asked, cutting Lisa off.

“If you follow the blue lines they will take you to the neuroscience wing the nurses station there will be able to help you. I have seen the New Jersey State Police here a few times, they will know more, I am sure.” The administrator explained, casting his hand towards the wall with their myriad of coloured lines which were to aid visitors to find their way around.

“OK, thank you,” Neyra replied with a smile. She turned her head to face Lisa who was obviously annoyed at the situation.

Lisa looked at the blue lines and began to walk, “Let’s get this bullshit over with,” she growled.

Neyra tried to put herself in Lisa’s shoes. How would she feel if Laura was in a coma and under arrest?

“Hey, it’s going to be okay. At least we will be able to get the cuffs off today. But if anyone is going to walk off a coma its Lu, right?” Neyra said, hurriedly walking after Lisa who was walking on fast.

“It’s not just that, Neyra. Half of this is my fault. I didn’t figure out what was going on until it was too late. That fucking bitch Delacroix held me up. If I had figured out the case sooner I would never would have let Lucy or Selena on that flight but I was too late…” Lisa grumbled.

“Hey, it was because of you I was able to do this…” Neyra said, tapping the bag holding Lucy’s FBI issued equipment.

“It remains to be seen how this will work out, but, I will crack skulls if I have to,” Lisa said with determination as the pair stepped into an elevator which was just closing having emptied of people on their floor.

Neyra leaned forward and pressed button which sent the elevator into motion again.

“Lisa, I was hoping it was going to be you who was going to keep me on the level. Don’t go gung-ho on me, I … I can’t deal with this stuff properly, I need you! Besides, it’s going to be okay, you’ll see,” Neyra urged her friend.

“Okay? You wearing a gun you’re too scared to fire and wearing a badge you haven’t earned is NOT okay. Christ, Selena makes for a good rogue but you’re giving her a badge too? Please forgive me but you’re dreaming if…” Lisa began to monologue before she was cut short.

“Hey, don’t you give me your holier-than-thou routine when you know your best friend has far from a squeaky clean past. I am green but I am not blind Lisa. Lucy told me herself some of the things she has had to do,” Neyra retorted.

BING! The elevator sounded and with a scowl between the two women the conversation ended. They were in the Neuroscience Wing.

There was another desk and a nurse behind it who noticed the newcomers.

“Let me do the talking…” Neyra hissed quietly.

“Whatever, just point me at Lu,” Lisa bit back.

Neyra shook her head subtly and then her annoyed expression faded fast and the façade of professionalism appeared in its place as she made it to the desk, Lisa hanging back.

“Hi, can I help you?” asked the nurse.

Neyra flipped open her ID wallet for the nurse to see.

“Hi, I believe you have a patient in custody, an Asian woman,” Neyra began.

“Oh, well, the other agent is here to see her too. Are you with him?” the nurse asked in surprise.

“Other agent? Who is that?” Neyra asked with concern, peering in the direction that the nurse had glanced to.

“Oh, ummm, Passmore, that’s it. He’s just gone to her room now,” the nurse explained.

“Over my dead…” Lucy grumbled only to have Neyra cut across her.

“Which room is it?” Neyra asked with a smile as she folded her wallet closed and gestured to Lisa to approach with her head.

“410” the nurse said, pointing down the corridor. The way was signed as being for patient rooms, this row housing rooms 401 to 420.

“Thank you,” Neyra smiled then turned to Kozny, “come on then,”

The pair walked side by side as they made a corner in the corridor and came to an abrupt halt. Ahead of them was agent Passmore talking to a New Jersey State police officer who was guarding the door.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Kozny said sharply causing Passmore to look in their direction.

Agent Passmore said something to the officer on the door who just nodded as he replied quietly and Passmore spun around and faced the new arrivals.

“Oh you know, just checking in on the felon. Flying on false docs, that’s a big no no. You of all people should know that, Special Agent Jones,” Passmore said with a sneer

“Not if it was, err…” Neyra began, only to momentarily get flustered, her hand gesticulating for help from Kozny by her side.

“Sanctioned…” Kozny added quickly with a roll of the eyes.

Neyra nodded in agreement, “Uh-huh, what she said. Those false docs were bureau provided. It was all above board, in a sense,” Neyra continued.

“Is that so…?” Passmore said with a grin. To him it seemed evident that these two were making the rules up as they went. Something to him seemed off and he was sure he was on to them. Besides, the NSA checks on the prisoner would have found out if she was using special aliases of some kind.

“Sure, call your boss. It’s more his paygrade anyway. Inside that room is Special Agent Luna Wang. We had put her into hiding after that alien, Vel, started prodding for names that started L-U … remember?” Neyra said, confidently.

“I’ve not seen that info…” Passmore responded, some of his self-assuredness evaporating.

“Well you should, because on Vel’s list there was a L-I and a K-O .. and detective Lisa Kozny here was also on Supergirl’s friends list like Luna Wang was. Coincidence? Maybe, but that’s why we tried to hide them,” Neyra pressed on with the attack.

Passmore’s eyes narrowed on Lisa and then back to Neyra. If what Special Agent Jones was saying was true then…

“And I thought the CIA spooks did some hinky stuff. We already thought she was some sort of super spy. Christ, going all that time on low oxygen, while recovering from a gunshot wound and still somehow surviving, what the hell was that about? I’m calling my supervisor to straighten this out once and for all,” Passmore said, raising one hand as if to block the ladies from passing.

“Yeah, you do that. Detective Kozny, while he makes the call, reunite Agent Wang with her ID please,” Neyra said, passing the padded envelope she carried to Lisa.

Lisa took the envelope and side stepped Passmore who was about to dial out on his cell phone. He made a gesture to the New Jersey State officer who went to block the detective from entering Lucy’s room.

“Hey it’s Passmore,” agent Passmore began, putting a finger to his other ear to block out noise hampering his call.

Neyra’s eyes flashed mischievously suspecting Passmore was in for a rough ride. The two locked eyes for a moment before the irritated agent spun away and retreated up the corridor for some privacy while he spoke to his superior. Neyra walked discreetly behind, trying to listen in and gestured with her head to Lisa for her to try and get into Lucy’s room.

Lisa walked up to the officer manning the door who sought to block her entry into the room.

“Hey, no visitors, I have orders,” the officer said, gesturing to Passmore who had started to walk away.

“Do you see this?” Kozny asked, fishing into the padded envelope and pulling out Lucy’s Doug’s Hardware Supplies card that was masquerading as an FBI ID card, “This is who you are guarding in there. She’s not a prisoner. She’s a victim,”

“You must be a little lost, Cocktails, the tunnels are that way”, scoffed the officer. He had noted her NYPD detective’s shield on her belt and his hand symbolically shooed the detective off back to Manhattan.

“Now you listen to me, officer …Gower …” Lisa began, reading Gower’s name badge on his uniform, “I may be on the wrong side of the Hudson now, but that doesn’t matter because it’s the Feds pulling my strings now. And when Special Agent Passmore there finds out we own his ass and hands this patient over to us, who do you think will be running the protection detail then? And I promise you, I will personally sing your fucking praises to high heaven and have you running the night shift because I will insist on it. Get it, Gower?”

“What the fuck do you want, Manhattan?” asked the officer bluntly, realising Lisa was not going away.

“I want to reunite Special Agent Wang with this. Think how shit you’d feel if someone took YOUR badge. Do us the courtesy and let me reunite Wang with hers, alright?” Lisa insisted, revealing Lucy’s FBI ID and badge.

The officer looked at Kozny, knowing that where they were she was effectively powerless. He glanced at Passmore still on the phone and the FBI agent who shadowed him. He considered what was the worst that could happen. It was just a badge and it was a detective and fed who were desperate to see the prisoner …no wait …fallen colleague… it made no sense to resist.

“You’re sure what she said is gonna roll?” Gower asked, gesturing with his head towards Nerya as he walked behind Passmore.

“That’s what she told me. This is bulletproof shit, now are you going to let me in?” Lisa pressed.

“Fine, Manhattan, but you owe me,” Gower said, thinking he was still in control.

“Day shift detail and we call it quits, Bermuda” Lisa snapped back, looking back at Passmore who appeared to be under pressure with whomever he was speaking with.

“Fine,” Gower relented, side stepping from the door he guarded.

“Thank you, officer Gower,” Kozny said, patting the officer on the upper arm on his triangular shaped badge.

“You’re welcome, detective,” Gower answered politely.

Passmore listened, protested, listened and protested some more before he was finally cut off and left facing Neyra who stood behind him at a discreet distance.

“Wow, you really did it, didn’t you!” Passmore began, his hands dropping to his waist after pocketing his cell phone.

“These are good people, Passmore. Kozny. Wang. They were put on the spot and asked to do, well, incredible stuff. They don’t want recognition or fame, they just do what they have to do. It’s not their fault Supergirl chose them, but she did. As for you, well, you were just in the wrong place at the … well … I know the feeling too, you know?” Neyra explained cryptically.

Passmore evidently knew that whatever his preconceptions were about the prisoner, the powers that be had stamped all over them. For now the Asian woman that lay in a coma was a fallen agent, a victim, but certainly not a prisoner, and had to be left alone.

“Okay, you win this time, Special Agent Jones. But, there is something you should know. That intel, you know, LU, LI, KO, CO, might help your friends in that room, but no matter what you do, you can’t beat paper copy fingerprints. It’s only a matter of time before they match the prints of your friend at Stewart to someone else and agent Weiss is toast. You understand?” Passmore explained. His cockiness was gone, as was his arrogance. Now there was some respect in his voice, and his warning was no boast nor threat.

“I understand,” Neyra responded with a nod.

Passmore returned down the corridor, Neyra in tow and approached officer Gower who stood vigilantly at the door.

“Gower, this is Special Agent Jones, she will be taking over from me in handling Special Agent Wang’s protection detail,” Passmore explained.

“Special Agent Wang? Sure, Sir, of course,” Gower replied, glancing at Neyra, taking in her gorgeous wise eyes and beautiful features.

“Good man,” Passmore responded with a nod before turning to face Neyra again. “Good luck, Jones, I suspect you will need it! I will get in touch with the New Jersey precinct and have them liaise with you and your partner about the protection detail,”


“Oh, thank you,” Neyra replied. Yet another responsibility thrust upon her.

Passmore offered out his hand to Neyra and the pair shook on their truce before he spun away towards the elevator. Neyra waited until Passmore was out of sight then made her way to Lucy’s door and let herself in.

Closing the door behind herself Neyra felt herself cocooned inside, the noise of the hospital beyond the door stifled out only to be replaced by the sounds of monitoring equipment that measured the health of Lucy who lay back in her bed, in her coma.

Neyra approached up to a respectful distance as Lisa placed her hand on Lucy’s, careful to avoid the myriad of tubes keeping her sustained. Lucy was in a coma, assisted with oxygen through a tube and saline keeping her hydrated.

BIP-BIP-BIP-BIP sounded the monitor tracking Lucy’s heartbeat which seemed strong and true.

It was then that someone else entered, causing Lucy and Neyra to turn their heads. It was a doctor, seemingly concerned by the presence of the two ladies.

“Hi, may I ask what you are doing? You shouldn’t be here,” asked the doctor, stethoscope hanging over his shoulder.

“Hi, we are with the FBI. This patient, she is one of ours. There was a mix up,” Neyra replied in a low voice, revealing her ID as she did so.

“She is FBI? Oh, I see. Do you know if she has family at all?” the doctor answered, seeing Kozny reveal the badge that belonged to Lucy’s new INFINITY ID, Luna Wang.

“Just us,” Kozny responded, a little forlornly , before turning to face Lucy again.

“What is her condition, Doctor, can you tell us?” Neyra asked with concern as she approached the bed, her hand resting on Kozny’s shoulder.

“Well, physically she appears mostly fine. She came in with a minor gunshot wound, a graze, but I suppose you know about that. The scans we did indicate very little to no signs in the way of brain damage. In fact her mind seems particularly active and yet the coma state persists. We are hoping it will resolve itself eventually and she will be able to wake up,” the doctor explained as he approached Lucy’s bed and glanced over the readings on the monitor.

“It’s that simple?” Neyra asked, looking between the doctor, the monitor and Lucy.

“The mind is complicated but the basics for her recovery are already there. Physically she seems in excellent health, and apart from the coma her mind looks unharmed from the hypoxia. God knows how; you understand that many didn’t make it and they were on oxygen till the moment it ran out. You colleague here, she had been at the cockpit door when she dropped, so they tell me,” the doctor continued.

The doctor checked a few readings on the monitor, checked the drip bag and checked the pupils of her eyes, putting some drops on them before slowly letting the eye lids close again.

“May I stay a while,” Lisa asked the doctor hopefully.

“Sure. They say there is a possibility she might hear you if you speak with her. Reading to her, telling her about your day, that might be helpful,” the doctor suggested.

“Lisa, she’s not going anywhere, you know? She has protection, and her gear, and I could use your help first. I still need to get Selena…” Neyra gestured at the doorway where the police officer was on guard outside.

“Please, just a while…” Lisa asked again, looking up at Neyra.

“But..” Neyra began to protest, albeit subtly. She blinked as she stepped back, her hand dropping from Lisa’s shoulder.

“Neyra…” Lisa countered a little forcefully, seemingly pleading Neyra to stop resisting her request.

Neyra sighed, “Ok ok ok, stay then. I’m sure I will be fine, I will send Selena your regards!” There was a hint of sarcasm in her voice which, while subtle was evident to everyone in the room, possibly even the comatose Lucy.

“Hey, remember where you are,” the doctor cut in.

“Yes, sorry, doctor” Neyra responded to the doctor apologetically before peering at Lucy, “sorry Lu.”

“If you will excuse me ladies, I have other patients to attend to,” the doctor said, happy that Lucy’s condition was satisfactory. Turning away he left the room and closed the door quietly behind himself.

There was a pause, waiting for the doctor to get out of earshot before Lisa spoke.


“Look, I, I just need a while. If anything happened to her, or to me and I didn’t use this chance to be with her… well… you understand right?” Lisa explained.

Neyra closed her eyes a moment and nodded softly, “ok, I get it, I’m sorry,”


“Thanks Neyra. I promise I will get back to you soon and if getting Selena becomes a problem I will help you, okay?” Lisa asked, looking between Lucy and the tall black beauty, Neyra, stood at her side.

“Yeah, I’d appreciate that. Listen, I think someone is going to speak to us about the guard duty on Lucy, can you deal with that for me?” Neyra asked hopefully. If Neyra was going to have to deal with Selena the least Lisa could do was deal with the other stuff.

“Sure, I can do that. I will have Gower on the door make them call me,” Lisa said with a nod.

“Then I best go, keep in touch, I’ve added you to my new number, you’ve got mine right?” Neyra double checked.

“Yes. And good luck Neyra and oh … give these back to the guy on the door. They were his. Only I get to cuff this little minx,” Lisa said. Offering out her arm she held the pair of cuffs that she had found anchoring Lucy to the bed.

Neyra took back the handcuffs, mouth agog and Lisa’s eyes flashed mischievously while shyly biting her bottom lip at the same time, realising she had let something slip.

Neyra blinked and shook her head, casting out the imagery in her head. Lucy, Lisa and handcuffs. Neyra immediately thought of Laura back home and their own secret games, but they would have to wait.

“Oh, one more thing before I go … they said Lucy has a gunshot wound?” Neyra asked with concern.

“It’s just a graze … and … it’s complicated and trust me, it is better that you don’t know…” Lisa responded, her heart sinking inside.

The gunshot wound, a graze, was inflicted during Neomi Delacroix’s and Mr Nordic’s final moments alive as Lucy fought to save Lisa from their cruel clutches. Lisa owed Lucy her life, a debt she feared she might never be able to pay back.


= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


The young corporal bounced rhythmically on the dildo protruding from Selena’s mouth. The red head tried to shut out thoughts of who was above her above all else, the shame of it too much if word of what was happening ever got out.

“Uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh” Dakota moaned as she fucked herself on Selena’s silicone appendage that protruded from her mouth.

Dakota dropped one last time, her stomach muscles contracting as she reached her climax. She took a moment to rest, the pleasure she just had swiftly turned to guilt as she remembered where she was, what she had done and who had observed it.

Head down in disgrace the Corporal looked hatefully at the mirrored glass which hid Walker then slowly rose, dismounting from Selena’s face and the dildo gag protruding from her it.

The corporal then flipped around, her naked bottom half straddling Selena’s waist as she dropped back to her knees to face her prisoner. Reaching down she unbuckled the penis gag from Selena’s mouth and tossed it aside. Drool poured from the corner of Selena’s mouth, her jaw flexing as she tried to regain movement in her jaw.

“I can stop if you’d just answer the question. Tell us who you really are,” the corporal demanded.

“You’d stop, but HE would start,” Selena said weakly. She was tired and had been beaten to exhaustion.

The corporal rose in annoyance pushing Selena firmly into the concrete floor as she rose. With her sleeved arm the corporal wiped the sweat from her brow and considered what to do next. Time was running out for her. Captain Walker was hoping to break the prisoner before the courier arrived with the files from Leavenworth. If the corporal could do that then Walker would be happy but if not, then the files the courier carried would finally prove the prisoner was Selena J Walsh and she would be taken away, Walker’s personal fun would be prevented.

#Dakota, it’s time for the waterboarding# Walker said over the speakers into the interrogation room.

“Now you’ve done it, stubborn bitch,” the corporal growled, nudging Selena’s side with her army boot.

“Fu …fuck you,” Selena managed.

Dakota went rummaging in her wicked bag of tricks while Selena could only pant, trying to recover from her abuse. Then it happened, the muslin cloth being put over her face ready for the water torture to begin.

“Please … please don’t …” Selena mumbled, knowing what was coming.

The corporal left the room, empty bucket in hand and after a brief respite she returned. The sound of the metal handles rattling on the plastic body of the bucket was well known to Selena by now and she shook her head in protest knowing what was soon to begin. Selena had received some experience of what waterboarding was all about but none of it made things easier. All it did was tell her what to expect, and it wasn’t going to be good.

The corporal set her bucket down alongside Selena’s prone and restrained body and dropped to her knees again, straddling her powerless prisoner. The corporal looked to the glass, waiting for confirmation of her orders before she commenced her work.

#You know what to do. Break her!#

The corporal looked down with intent, orders received and understood.

“Tell me who you are and we won’t have to do this,” the corporal asked again, looking between the semi-hooded Selena and the bucket of water that still sloshed gently in the bucket.

“Fuck you. You know what you need to know,” Selena said from beneath the fine mesh cloth covering her face.

“Fine, get what you deserve then,” the corporal said in annoyance and grasped the bucket handle with one hand while the other supported the bottom, ready to tip the contents carefully over Selena’s face.

“Do… do your worst …” Selena said in resignation. She was powerless to stop what was about to happen and anything she could say that might stop her torment would only be used against her.

The corporal snarled knowing that nothing was going to prevent her from doing what she didn’t want to do. This was something that enemies were meant to do. Something that only those beneath their side were meant to do and now here she was, exacting torments on someone that should be safe from such cruelty.

“OK, you asked for it,” the corporal grumbled as she slowly tipped the bucket, soaking the muslin cloth and forcing the air from Selena’s lungs.

Selena gasped as water hit her face and then she was paralysed, her body sensing she was under water. Taking in a breath was impossible, Selena’s reflexes working against her while her body was tricked into thinking she was going to drown. The corporal counted off the seconds as Selena convulsed, timing the best moment for her to be able to breath while maximising her suffering.

Okay, now the corporal thought, having counted off the seconds.

Selena’s spine arched up as the corporal pulled back the cloth and the paralysis left her body allowing her to draw in a deep intake of air for her lungs.

“TELL ME! YOUR NAME! WHAT IS IT?” Dakota asked forcefully, giving Selena a slap across the face.

“Pah” Selena managed, sending a fine mist of water from her mouth at her torturer. The corporal twisted her head, avoiding the worst but all it did was provoke the torments to come.

“Fine,” Dakota said flatly, laying the cloth over Selena’s face once more. Up came the bucket again and …

SPLOSH! The next wave of water came, flooding over Selena’s face.

#Good, keep it up. She will break, I promise you. She always did before.# Walker said coldly.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Agent Dan Goodell walked through the Brucker yard, the working day coming to a close. The rows and passageways between the stacked cars that had bathed in the daytime sun were now in the ever lengthening shadows as dusk approached. From the site the teams from the NRC were returning from their preliminary sweep and Goodell was keen to speak with all of them hoping to learn of any clues that might help the case.

So far there had been no evidence of a severe radiation hot spot but there had been some false alarms. A scrapped camper van had had a smoke detector installed in it which had given off some false readings and an old pre-1970’s sedan had a luminescent clock dial which was also gave off a false positive. What was left were some nooks and crannies that were hard to reach and the teams had marked them with dye ready to check the next day. Goodell sighed sensing that whatever he sought was not here, or, at least was well hidden. Perhaps even the owner had managed to offload his illicit goods to some buyer assuming he was in on it, but Goodell was sure of his logic. Between a banker, a realtor, a ten year old girl and the only menacing local threat, a scrap yard, the source of some radioactive hazard was going to be right here, in this yard. Neither the local supermarket, the local car dealership, nor the laundromat were likely to be the problem. It was here. It MUST be here.

Goodell continued to walk, one team after another passing him by, the reports all the same and then the NRC agent turned a corner and found himself at the perimeter fence. Looking up and down the border of the property the fence looked in good condition … except.

Hmmmm

Goodell approached a section of chain link fence between two posts having noted that where the fence met the ground it had been bowed up a little, a small undulation in the ground allowing something the size of a small to medium sized dog to push its way under and …

“What the …” Goodell uttered noting a small metal disk caught on the bottom edge of the fence.

Stooping down Goodell tugged at the metal disk until the fence surrendered it and it was in the flat of his palm. Tilting it this way and that until it caught the light Goodell managed to read what was engraved into the surface of the disc.

“Well I’ll be …” Goodell said gruffly.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Supergirl had followed her instincts and as she made a turn into a street she saw something familiar. Looking up the building housing the Southern District Court of New York loomed over her and waves of déjà vu struck her.

It was here that Bobby and Kimberly Sanderson got tested

Supergirl, still in civilian clothes, crossed the street and trotted up the courthouse steps and seeing the security officers and metal detectors decided to hang back. But then, she saw a sign that caught her eye.

“IMPORTANT NOTICE – MONDAY 9AM - NOON – ALL MORNING SESSIONS ON THE 8TH FLOOR ARE BEING RELOCATED, PLEASE SEE TABLE BELOW FOR WHERE YOUR SESSION WILL BE LOCATED”

The eighth floor. That was where the test was conducted before

“Oh, excuse me,” Supergirl asked as a portly courthouse guard came out onto the steps.

“Yes miss?”

“The eighth floor tomorrow, why is it closed, do you know?” Supergirl asked innocently.

“Rumour is it’s Supergirl. They are going to be doing one of those tests again, don’t know who on. Everyone is on the lookout for her, to ask her to attend…” the guard explained.

“Oh, well, thank you, oh and I hope you find her,” Supergirl responded cheekily as she turned to return down the courthouse steps.

“Me too because if she doesn’t get told soon this will have to be rescheduled again,” the guard scoffed.

“Oh, well of course,” Supergirl replied, realising she would have to appear soon but as the heroine if she was going to be officially told the news.

Supergirl trotted down the stairs and looked around her. She needed to change! But where? There were many people, much traffic and security cameras everywhere. She shouldn’t fly, not out of costume so how was she to …

Oh !

Supergirl noted on a corner leading to a side street was something like a phone booth. Open on one side, closed on the other it seemed to be some sort of advertising board of some kind.

That will do!

Supergirl waited patiently for a break in the traffic and a space between unaware pedestrians and then…

VWOOOSH – VUMPF – VWOOSH

In a blink she dashed, manifested her costume and was away again. Perhaps a super high speed camera might have seen what she did but for everyone else only a gentle breeze might clue them in as to what had happened.

Supergirl had ascended quickly and spun around to look back where she had come from to notice no one had seen her transform. There were no cars screeching to a halt, no gawking people pointing or staring, everything had gone as planned.

Back to court!

= = = = =

Across the Hudson river detective Kozny had just finished discussing the arrangements for Lucy’s protective detail. There had been some confusion at first following the change in Lucy’s status from potential criminal to victim and then of course there was the question of the need to guard her at all. But, polite insistence bought Lucy a week of someone standing watch over her. Lisa, true to her word, also ensured Officer Gower was assigned an easy day shift on watch.

Lisa returned to the Lucy’s bedside and sat with a sigh…

“Lu you have no idea what trouble you’ve caused. What do you think you were doing up there?” Lisa began, trying to talk light heartedly despite Lucy’s condition.

Lisa paused, imagining Lucy making some excuse before she spoke again.

“That’s not what I heard. Pounding on the cockpit door is what I heard, and with no oxygen. What the hell are you? You think you’re, well, Supergirl or something?” then a thought hit Lisa suddenly.

It had been a bust up with Lucy over something that should have been trivial, how had Lucy been improving her running times of late? It had been an innocent question which was met by stern resistance causing a brief falling out. Lisa had wondered if it was for some secret job that Sel…

Selena was on that flight too. Had they been planning something to do together on that plane? No, surely it was as simple as it looked. Molly set up a trap and they fell into it. Lucy would have told me if she was getting up to mischief with Selena…except …

“What did you do, Lucy? What did you do? Were you training to do something on that plane?” Lisa asked Lucy who did not flinch in her bed.

Lisa paused noting there was not even a hint of a bleep on the monitors.

“Fine, don’t tell me then, you minx, but I am going to find out what you’ve been up to,” Lisa said, rising to her feet. In her bag she had a spare key to Lucy’s apartment, a place she did not expect to go to so soon but she was going to go there and see if she could learn what Lucy had been doing in secret.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Captain Walker observed his Corporal continue to abuse their prisoner through the observation glass. She was as mean as he desired, obedient though sometimes reluctant, and very, very capable. Then there was a tap at the door and in entered a sergeant who saluted as Walker turned to face him.

“Yes, what is it, Sergeant?” Walker asked, glancing towards events playing out in the interrogation room.

“Sir there is … there is …a” The sergeant tried to remain undistracted by the corporal waterboarding their prisoner in the other room.

“Eyes front, Sergeant, what is it?” Walker said tersely.

“Yes, sir. There is someone at your office to see you about the prisoner,”

“Dammit. Fine, I will be there directly. That will be all,” Walker said with disappointment in his voice.

“Yes sir,” the sergeant said before saluting again and leaving the room

Walker walked to the intercom system and pressed a button, the crackle of the speakers in the next room causing Dakota to pause as she looked to the mirror.

“Dakota, get that bitch cleaned up. The damned Leavenworth files are here – I will be in my office while we process her” Walker said into the microphone.

Dakota looked down at Selena, bucket in hand before tossing it aside in annoyance. All that effort for no result, and now when they came to do the fingerprint match they would be able to take Selena way. Walker would not be pleased she had failed to break the prisoner.

The corporal known as Dakota peeled back the wet cloth from Selena’s face and she gasped for air before panting. She was a soaking wet mess of ruined makeup, wrecked clothing and bruises. She had sobbed and wailed but had not broken but it was small consolation to her knowing that prison beckoned.

Walker marched across the camp, from the MP cell blocks towards his office. Passing by the men guarding the admin block he was saluted to and saluted in reply, to the guards. He continued his walk rounding a corner and seeing sat in a waiting room chair a well dressed woman, black, beautiful … and … oh quite tall …

“Captain Walker? I am Special Agent Nerys Jones…” Neyra began, revealing her ID as she rose to her feet.

“I’m sorry, you’re here for what purpose?” Walker asked with a frown. He had been expecting someone from Leavenworth, not the FBI.

“Well, to be blunt, sir, I understand you are holding one of our colleagues, Special Agent Celine Weiss,” Neyra explained.

Walker was going to lead Neyra into his office but then paused as he considered what this visit meant. Celine Weiss or whatever she was called was certainly Selena Walsh. Was this Nerys Jones in on Selena’s deception?

“I am sorry but I don’t know what you mean…” Walker lied.

“Did you or did you not request a fingerprint analysis from this base and did it not ping back to you as Celine Weiss?” Neyra asked, eyebrow rising. This was a test of the man’s honesty.

“Hah, well you’re right in a sense, please, come into my office and we can resolve this together I hope,” Walker said, pulling open the door and letting Neyra enter.

Walker made his way around to his side of his desk and sat down. “So, please, explain to me the circumstances that led … Special Agent Weiss to land in our laps. For a start she was not flying with her own passport so let’s hear how you propose we sort this out…”

“There is not much to say. You have her. She is FBI. The reason she was traveling on sanctioned alternate identity papers is because we think she was being targeted by the alien, Vel. Agent Weiss had worked with Supergirl on one occasion and we think this is why she was at risk. We were flying her to safety when … well … you saw Blueglobe 251. If you have any doubts you should speak with my boss at the FBI,” Neyra explained.

“And this is… confirmable?” Walker asked doubtfully.

“Intel was released into the law enforcement community just today. Make a call if you have to. Certain letter combinations for names were being hunted down, presumably some sort of correlation search. We can see a pattern that fits with several people that were part of a team that worked with Supergirl previously. One was Celine Weiss, the other was Luna Wang and a third was a detective called Lisa Kozny,” Neyra went on, hoping she might be gaining traction.

Walker leaned forward onto his elbows, clasping his hand together, “This is all very fascinating but I promise you, I recognise that woman from first-hand experience of her and her real name is Selena Walsh. You may well have known her for several years within the FBI but before that she was a very talented hacker. I would not be at all surprised if her prior history with you was just a clever forgery,”

Neyra sensed this battle was not going to be easy. This captain seemed sure he knew Selena from before and who was Neyra to argue? Selena’s past was deep and very much unknown to Neyra; it was entirely possible that she had been recognised. Neyra recognised that neither diplomacy, nor the INFINITY ID was going to help Selena now.

“What is it going to take to get her back exactly? Eventually you will have to …” Neyra began to ask.

Walker scoffed, flopping back into his office seat with a grin, “Get her back? Oh you’re never getting her back. You see, any time soon a courier is arriving from Leavenworth with the original files. I am going to have the forensic section here do a manual comparison of her prints and when it is confirmed she is Walsh and is locked up where she belongs I am personally going to push for an investigation into the FBI and how it let a known escaped criminal into their ranks…”

Neyra’s heart leapt before plunging into her stomach, she thought she was going to be sick. How was she going to fix this?

Maybe McGee could help? Make Walker forget he knew Selena perhaps? Or, I … I go over his head. I could go in via Ingram, get people above to lean on this bastard?

“You know, I could go over your head. You ran the prints, you got the results. She is one of ours,” Neyra said with the tone of voice of someone playing devil’s advocate.

“I imagine you can, but by the time you do all that the point will be moot. When I show them the fingerprint matches those same people from above will be looking at you, not me,” Walker replied a little threateningly.

Neyra sensed the danger, she didn’t want to find out what would happen if she was in the company of this man when the damaging documents arrived. Might they detain her too?

“I can see there is nothing more for us to discuss, Captain. I will return to my superiors and let them sort this out,” Neyra said, her tone softening. She was hoping to defuse the moment and leave.

“Oh why not stay a while? I insist. Besides, if I were to let you run off now how would that look for you when we figure out Selena was working on the inside…” Walker sneered.

Neyra looked at the door, then at Walker. She realised that she was not going to be able to leave. Perhaps though now would be a good time to hear someone else’s perspective of Selena.

“Why don’t you tell me about this Selena Walsh woman. Who is she to you that makes her so important?” Neyra probed.

“Very well, I will tell you what I remember…” Captain Walker began.



= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Selena sat shaking in a cell having been returned from the interrogation wing. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her and linked to her bed with a chain. The corporal had given her clean clothes and now, bowl of water at her side was tending to the prisoner’s cuts and bruises which were minor.

Manning the desk at the center of the cell block was a private who was making notes in the duty log.

“When you had me cold, you stopped. Walker is not here now. It’s over. Please… tell me,” The corporal known as Dakota asked as she used a cotton swab to clean a small cut on Selena’s forehead.

Selena shook her head in denial of the request, “It’s a trick , it’s a trick, it’s a trick, it’s a trick,” she mumbled.

“It’s not a trick I …” Dakota said dismissively as she winced at the sight of a bruise she was bathing.

Beyond the gated entrance there were voices that caught the Private’s attention. He rose from his desk and approached the gate. Another Private from the communications office with a document pouch in his hand gestured dismissively as the MP guarding the block went to unlock the door.

“Couriered document’s from Leavenworth for Captain Walker, I thought he was in the interrogation wing but then I was told he was here,” said the man with the document pouch before he passed it through the gate.

“He had to step out, but he will be back,” the MP responded.

“The people from Leavenworth are getting some chow. They need to know if they are taking the prisoner back with them or not before they can leave,”

“Okay, I will let him know it is here,” the MP guarding the block replied.

Dakota rose from her position at Selena’s side, “Hey, I will be back,” she said calmly and then approached the desk.

“I’m on Captain Walker’s detail, I will take it to him. I have to tell him the prisoner is ready for transport anyway,” Dakota suggested innocently, gesturing with her head towards the subdued prisoner.

“Oh, thanks Dakota” the private said with a smile, sliding the document pouch towards her.

“Huah,” the corporal responded. Scooping up the document pouch from the desk she spun around and glanced at the prisoner. She wanted Selena to know she was going to find out how their pasts might be entwined.

Selena looked back too exhausted to care. Besides, nothing mattered now. Yes, Dakota might figure how Selena knew her, however the Leavenworth file would mean safety from Walker too. Her prints would match the files and … well … it had been a good run of freedom.

Dakota left the cell block and was quickly out of Selena’s sight and marched quickly towards the MP section building then looked for somewhere private, away from prying eyes. It was easy enough, a store cupboard was unlocked and she did not need much space to read.

Turning on a light Dakota moved her way around behind some storage racks and eagerly pulled open the file and began to study the file. The front page held the basics of Selena J Walsh. There was her photo, younger than today, and to Walker’s credit there was a close resemblance to the prisoner in their cell block.

Dakota flicked through some more pages, and then she saw it. The photos of Selena burned to disfigurement from her time in the desert.

Oh god, what happened to her?

Dakota read on. Selena Walsh, a civilian criminal with hacking skills, pressed into work for the military to offset her prison sentence.

She murdered a cop? No, wait, she was … an accessory? Shit, she wasn’t even there when it happened?

The pages listed her military missions, her good service, and then …

“You were THERE? Could it be…” Dakota whispered loudly. Her eyes scanned the pages hungrily, confirming what she now suspected.

The last mission, the fateful mission. It was a mission of destiny, one that led Selena on her path of vengeance against Supergirl. The mission in the Middle East had been planned meticulously and yet ended in disaster. The team Selena was with were just behind enemy lines running a comms hub and intelligence link. The hub fed data between Special Forces teams inserted further into enemy territory and the US. A multinational special forces team were responsible for the combat element of the mission, conducting a raid on some named but redacted place. But it was a trap and as the Special Forces units were enveloped in an ambush the comms hub was also attacked. The combined timing of the two ambushes was lethal.

The report said that Selena J Walsh had managed, against the odds to guide survivors of the ambushed special forces teams to safety before escaping herself. She had somehow managed to keep a drone feed active and communicated with the Special Forces while she was in close proximity to the enemy soldiers inside the hub. In the end only three people escaped. Selena Walsh from the comms hub was one, and from the combat mission, an SAS soldier whose name was redacted save for a call sign, “Dragon” and finally…

“Dad! It WAS you,” mouthed the Corporal. She knew little of that day but what she knew for sure was that he had been helped by someone he fondly nicknamed ‘Buttons’. Selena Walsh was ‘Buttons’!

Dakota’s thumb swiped across her father’s surname in the typewritten font.

Shepherd.

Dakota pulled out her dogtags and looked at them one more time understanding why the prisoner might have behaved the way she did.

I knew that’s what she saw! This is why she didn’t hurt me! Dakota realised.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =


Captain Walker had been explaining to Neyra in colourful terms how Selena had been a cop killer and then put to work in the military before deserting her post and being sent to Leavenworth. Her escape from there was equally and colourfully described but as Walker spoke Neyra began to tune him out. At first Neyra had been ever so slightly willing to believe what he was telling her but the more he lied and exaggerated the more she could read him. Sure, she might be a phoney FBI agent but her real life experiences worth something.

Like her own father Neyra worked to get through her education. Sure she got some financial help from Carl, her father, but she pulled her weight. She was even doing bar work before her father’s new architect’s office opened and she took on the role as an artist there. Art was her passion but that time working in a bar gave her plenty of ‘people experience’.

She could read those who were hiding being drunk or those who were trying to drink while underage. She could detect the ones who were going to drive when they shouldn’t, sometimes even taking the keys off some patrons. The ones who were going to start a fight, those who were going to try and not pay, she started to see them all. She could spot a fake ID from a mile too, though her own FBI card still looked the real deal.

“And that is that. As you can imagine I am not going to let her just walk away now,” Walker finished.

TAP TAP TAP

Captain Walker looked up and saw Dakota at the door give a salute with one arm, a document pouch in her other hand. Neyra noticed the stunning looking corporal, so tall, a little bit boyish but feminine with it.

“The detail from Leavenworth are getting evening chow in the mess hall. These are the documents you requested, sir?” Dakota said, arm extending out, passing tantalisingly close to Neyra’s eyes.

These must be the files everyone has been warning me about Neyra thought, heart racing. Selena was doomed.

“Thank you, Corporal, you may go. Special Agent Jones, if you would like to accompany me we can finally resolve who it is we have in our cells. Our escapee or your special agent,” Walker said confidently, his sick grin appearing on his face as he rose from his chair.

Dakota spun away and marched quickly through the building and out, making her way back to the cell block. The private let Dakota back into the block and she approached Selena’s cell, the prisoner’s head was down and looked very despondent.

“Is it done?” Selena asked.

“The Captain was with an FBI agent, they are going to manually confirm your prints with the ones in the file,” Dakota explained as she entered the cell.

“I guess you had a chance to read it then, find what you were looking for?” Selena probed, her voice flat.

“I understand why you couldn’t tell me it was really you, but I wish you had. You saved my father, how could I ever hurt you?” Dakota whispered.

“I couldn’t be sure if you were the same woman. I was not willing to take the chance that you weren’t,” Selena answered with a soft shake of the head.

“What happened? My Dad’s mission?” Dakota pressed.

Selena thought a moment, deciding how much she should tell, “All you need to know is when I was getting to the point I couldn’t communicate much longer with the men on the other end of the radio we all began to say our goodbyes. One man made us promise, if we got out and he didn’t make it then we were to look out for his daughter… you, Kelly Shepherd. All I knew was you were born in a small town in Illinois, Dakota. Luckily we all made it out, one way or another but… Leavenworth was waiting for me,”

“Do you see him at all? He lived with me and mom when he returned from away but when she died and I … well … once I was old enough to make it on my own he went,… I barely see him now. I worry…” Dakota explained.

“He sometimes works for me, as does the other survivor from that day, Dragon. Your father is well but is a very quiet and intense man. I know he loves you, but he thinks he is protecting you by staying away. He has always thought someone on the inside betrayed the mission and as a loose end he might be in danger,” Selena explained.

Dakota nodded softly in acceptance of the explanation.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Captain Walker and Neyra stood behind a corporal inside the small forensic lab of the MP section. Taking the files from Leavenworth the corporal slid out the fingerprint sheet and then placed it inside some machine alongside the print sheet they had made when they had detained Selena.

“OK, sir, this won’t take long…” the corporal said as he turned on the machine and leaned into what looked like a binocular view finder.

Captain Walker stood, arms folded, confidently waiting for news while Neyra’s heart raced.

“Hmmm” the corporal muttered before adjusting the controls of the machine, no doubt matching the incriminating features of the unique fingerprints.

The Captain watched on impatiently for the good news but the suspense was killing Neyra. She just wanted it to end. Selena was Selena after all and this was her file…

“… unless…” the corporal muttered quietly, adjusting the controls once more as he worked.

“What is it, Corporal?” Walker finally asked, patience spent.

“I am sorry sir, but these are not a match. I thought maybe the left and rights had been crossed but neither combination of thumbs are the same, nor the index fingers,” the corporal explained, peering through the view finder.

“What?!” Walker exclaimed.

“These are not from the same person,” the corporal insisted as he rose from the viewfinder, gesturing to the machine.

“Let ME see that!” Walker growled, brushing the corporal aside, putting his eyes to the machine.

“I… well… I imagine you will be releasing Special Agent Weiss now. Or, do I have to go and speak with the CO?” Neyra asked. She was as surprised at the situation as Walker was angered.

Walker rose, a vein in the side of his head bulging with boiling blood …“She… she must have had surgery or…”

“Captain?! Please, give it up. If you do not give me her now I WILL go over your head. You had her match Agent Weiss. You claimed she had hacked the system. Now you’ve manually disproved she is this Miss Walsh…” Neyra said. Her tone was more explanatory than sarcasm though she was sorely tempted to twist the knife.

Captain Walker glared at Neyra, “Get out of my sight and take that woman with you. But I swear to you she will bring you down, Agent Jones, assuming even you are FBI. Understand? And when that happens I hope that I will be there to watch,”

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Corporal Kelly “Dakota” Shepherd and a restrained Selena Walsh were sat together talking on the bed in the cell when they heard footsteps approaching the cell block. The private manning the desk in the centre of the room rose from his seat and went to the barred gateway. A sergeant escorting Neyra spoke briefly with the corporal and then the gate swung open with a dull metallic groan.

“Thank you,” Neyra said with a polite smile to the sergeant before entering. The corporal gestured to a cell and Neyra hurriedly walked over, eager to see Selena.

“Agent … agent Weiss” Neyra asked quietly only to see there was an MP with her.

“Y… you? But…” Selena blinked.

“Yes, it’s me, Agent Jones. You’re being released, Weiss. This has all just been a terrible misunderstanding,” Neyra replied, her eyes flashing her warning.

“Released, but…” Selena said weakly, a confused glance falling on the Corporal.

“It was never in doubt, was it, Agent Weiss?” hinted Dakota as she rose from the bed.

“No … I guess … I guess not,” Selena responded though you could hear the disbelief in her voice.

What did you do? Selena wondered.

“I will get your other effects, no doubt you both have a lot to discuss. If you would do the honours?” the corporal said, offering Neyra a key before leaving.

“Thank you … Corporal Shepherd,” Selena said with a brave smile.

Dakota left the pair and Neyra stood in the cell doorway, not trusting that events were playing out as they were. There was a silent pause as the pair took in the sight of each other though it was Selena who had the most to figure out. Neyra’s gun and badge, it could mean only one thing.

“She chose you, didn’t she,” Selena asked with a hint of contempt, referring to Supergirl and the INFINITY program.

Selena was first to refuse the role as Supergirl’s bridge back to the authorities. Then it was McGee who refused next. If Selena remembered correctly Supergirl would have found Lisa unavailable after being shot and there was no way Laura was anywhere near to being up to the task. So in the end that left Neyra.

“You didn’t give her much choice,” Neyra bit back.

Selena took a breath and began to try and process what this all meant. “Lucy, is she…”

“Luna, Luna Wang. She’s in a hospital. She’s in a coma…” Neyra started to explain, raising a calming hand as Selena reacted to the news …”but her prognosis is good, they say all the basics are there, all she has to do is find her way out of it. Lisa is with her now..” Neyra explained.

“Lisa? You’re sure? She’s not called Elizabeth or…” Selena asked, a little of her old caustic self returning.

Neyra rolled her eyes,“Yes… she, McGee and Laura are not in it. Just me, god help me, you and Luna..err Lucy,”

“Molly, she fucked us hard, didn’t she,” Selena said, head dropping.

“You probably don’t even know half of what has been going on,” Neyra said, finally having the courage to enter the cell, key in hand.

“I bet. Get me out of here, we have work to do,” Selena said, a hint of determination appearing in her face.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Dakota reached into a locker and pulled out the white plastic bag holding the former prisoner’s effects. As she held the bag she noticed a tiny black smudge on the white surface and she gasped. Quickly checking her hand she noticed she had left a tiny bit of finger-printing-ink on one digit and quickly stooped down to her black boot and wiped it off.

No one would ever know she had managed to superimpose her own prints over the original file copy of Selena Walsh. She gambled they would only do the manual comparison between her set and the prisoner’s set and she had won.

My debt to you for getting my father home is repaid, ‘Buttons’ …

= = = = = = = = = = = =




Lisa put the key to Lucy's door, turned it and entered. Lucy's apartment was home to fond memories but now it was tarnished by the events that had transpired only a few days before. Lisa had been there, waiting for Lucy to come home when the mercenary Delacroix and some deadly friend of hers had barged in. It had been right here at this very door.

Worst pizza night ever!


Lisa hesitantly entered, scared of what she might find. Stepping thought the doorway she closed it behind her quietly and looked around. The guard chain which had been shot apart was gone save for a few links that hung from the door frame, the chain now unable to do its job. In the ceiling Lisa could barely see the bullet hole, the repair well done.

It was there in front of the open plan kitchen that Lisa and Delacroix traded blows. A shame, because Lisa had good memories of the kitchen, either making meals, or having them made for her, as well as the other fun she had shared with Lucy. Lisa continued to survey the scene looking for hints of what had transpired. Just there at the end of the small passageway was where Delacroix had been shot... and the arm of that man who was with her had been with cleaved clean right off by a wounded Lucy with her sword. Lisa glanced at the sword on its rack with the others, the Japanese steel having no trace of its deadly deed upon it.

Lisa felt sick a moment remembering all the blood that had pooled where she now stood but kept herself together. The scene looked clean and immaculately so such was the effort to hide the deaths that had happened there. Lucy must have worked all night to get the blood up and as for what she had done with the bodies...


Lisa dismissed those thoughts and went into the bedroom where the assault on her had happened. Pinned to the bed by Delacroix Lisa had been punched, groped and almost killed. The mercenary had bested her on every level it seemed yet it was the cop who was alive and the mercenary who was dead. Took another mercenary to do it though.


The bedding had been replaced and the pillow cushion that had been used to hood Kozny during the attack was gone, hopefully burned to atoms. Because if not it could be used to incriminate her, her DNA would be all over that thing. Lisa touched her own bruised face reminding herself of the events that had taken place there.

Stop wallowing. What was Lucy up to?


Lisa spun away from the room and back to the rest of the apartment which was open plan. In one corner was an exercise machine, perhaps the source of Lucy's endurance. Lisa approached and then saw that there was more to it than it appeared. There was a face mask of some kind with an air hose and it was hooked up to some other machine that seemed to control the whole thing.

What is this...


Lisa pulled out her phone and opened the browser and began to search what the equipment was about. The make and model of the gear led her to some hard-core looking sports page and then it made sense...


"ALTITUDE TRAIN IN THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME!"

Lisa's eyes widened as she read on, the webpage FAQ giving her the answers she was seeking. By mimicking higher altitudes the equipment would trick the body into learning to work with less oxygen. Then, at times when Lucy ran in the park near sea level her body would make use of the abundance of air making her fitter than ever. But perhaps she wasn't training for the sake of being fast. Her speed actually represented how well she had gotten used to having less oxygen. So, if she was preparing to be exposed to low oxygen then that meant...

She knew! But how did she know? And why didn't she say? Selena must have known what she was up to, surely? Oh my god, that bitch probably knew the whole time... but...what was the job?

Lisa backed away from the exercise equipment then turned around to leave. That's when her phone buzzed heralding the arrival of a message.

FROM: Nerys Jones (S.A. FBI)
I have “Celine”... Call me, we need to hook up.


"Damn right we do, Selena has some explaining to do!"

====================



President Garrison walked the halls of power, making her way from what was her private quarters towards the West Wing. It was late evening but she had wanted Westmoreland to bring her any important news in person. So of course, regardless of the hour, when her most trusted security advisor said he had news, she had to be prepared to listen. A cleaner who was working in the Rose Corridor flinched as she saw the President casually dressed pass her by, a secret service agent in tow.

“You’re doing a great job, thank you,” Garrison said as she passed by.

The cleaner watched the late evening visitors, mouth gaping while the agent walked on straight ahead, talking softly into his lapel. Passing through some doors guarded by Secret Service men Garrison arrived in the Cabinet Room where Clive Westmoreland waited, files at hand.

“Clive? I am so sorry, I wasn’t thinking when … well … I can’t insist you do this in person anymore. You are going to be back working to prepare the morning briefing before you know it. Do you ever sleep?” Garrison apologised as she took a seat at the table opposite her advisor.

“Well, hopefully sleep will be a little easier to come by if this news pans out. Supergirl came forward and is going to perform the Sanderson Test on Doctor Matthews. It’s set for tomorrow just before noon at the Southern District Courthouse in New York.

“Excellent, but, that can’t be it, can it? You could have just phoned this in to me,” Garrison said with a frown.

“No, you’re right. I have some circumstantial evidence for your consideration, it is Infinity related,”

“Circumstantial? Explain,” Garrison asked, her eyes twinkling with curiosity. Westmoreland was usually a deliverer of facts, not speculation.

“Forgive me if I sound cryptic at any point, but I sense your need to have a light touch when it comes to INFINITY…” Clive began.

Garrison nodded in gratitude and gestured to Westmoreland to continue with his news. Basically what he had told her was he was being vague just enough to enable her to deny full knowledge of what had been going on, if it came to it.

Westmoreland leaned forward and opened a file and began to summarise the information, “It’s complicated, but bear with me. Essentially two persons of interest were discovered among the passengers of BlueGlobe 251. One was in a coma and was treated as a suspect due to her behaviour on the plane. She was being held by the New Jersey police on behalf of Homeland. The second person was believed to be an escapee from Leavenworth and was being held by the army at Stewart until her identity was established. Both these people had been sat near eachother on the flight,”

“Interesting, but how does INFINITY figure into this?” Garrison asked with a frown.


“Well, at some point an FBI agent came forward to claim both the passengers were actually FBI too, and that they were flying undercover. The coma patient is now no longer a suspect and the prisoner held at Stewart has been released,” continued Westmoreland, showing some emails confirming what had happened.

“These three FBI agents, do you think they are really the three hits we had on the INFINITY system on Friday?” Garrison asked thoughtfully.

Westmoreland nodded, “Absolutely. It was a clumsy move switching the passenger ID’s mid journey but it has worked out,”

“My only concern is that this has been an abuse of the INFINITY system. This was not used to help Supergirl, this was used to get potential suspects out of trouble instead,” Garrison said with concern in her voice.

“Perhaps. But if these people really are Supergirl’s assets then perhaps it was an effort to preserve them. They had been nearly killed by the pilot, Andy Matthews after all. If he and his sister were just the same as the Sandersons it would make sense,” Westmoreland reminded Garrison.

Garrison leaned back in her chair in silent thought for a moment, “Blueglobe 251, it was in the air when I was attacked, wasn’t it?” Garrison asked

“Yes, about a third of the way out,” Westmoreland acknowledged, wondering what Garrison was thinking.

“Work with me here… and I know these assumptions are on thin ice… but say these people on the flight really were being targeted by Vel then perhaps it was a way to get Supergirl caught between two places. She had to protect me or protect them. Or perhaps it was a means to strike at all of us at once, a no lose situation for Vel perhaps,”

“Not an unreasonable idea, but the attack on you was very sophisticated and well planned out. It seems a little overkill for a diversionary attack only to then focus on two seemingly minor targets,” Westmoreland said, his hands palms turning face up on the desk, representing the two separate attacks.

“In that case perhaps the passengers were meant to be the diversion and I was the real target after all?” Garrison suggested.

“Yes, that seems more likely. But it is interesting then that Supergirl did not try to rescue her friends after the attack on you had been thwarted. If they were meant to be a decoy someone forgot to tell Supergirl they were in trouble,” Westmoreland said with a frown.

Garrison sighed, “The more we theorise the more we seem to be wrong. We really need our infinity contact to …well … get in contact,”

“I will get our backchannel to put some pressure on them to tell us what is going on. I think they’ve had enough time to give us information,” Westmoreland said.

“Thank you Clive. Now please, get some rest, you’re making me feel bad,” Garrison said, concerned she was burning out one of her best colleagues.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =



Lisa entered the elevator for the multi-storey car park and pressed a button taking her to the very top floor. She ran through things in her mind, double checking and trying to be sure of her facts before she did what she was about to do. Having been at the hospital with Lucy she had caught a cab to Lucy’s apartment. Now, having arranged a meeting point with the others she had caught a second cab to get here.

BING

The escalator doors opened and Lisa found herself just off a stairwell which carried an odour of urine. Lisa stepped out and then turned a corner and through a door taking her into the top most level of the carpark. Lisa peered at the few vehicles that were there in the low light, the FBI SUV’s lights momentarily flashing their greeting. Lisa walked up to the SUV that was shrouded in semi darkness then saw the interior light come on revealing Neyra in the driver’s seat and Selena alongside her. Lisa walked up to Neyra’s driver side door and Neyra lowered the window, preparing to talk.

“Hey,” Lisa said, her tone serious.

“Hi, you okay? I could have picked you up at the hospital if you wanted,” Neyra began innocently.

“No, I had moved on to Lucy’s apartment,” Lisa responded leaning to one side and seeing Selena who did not seem quite herself.

“Hop in and we can talk,” Neyra suggested.

“No, I want to talk to Selena. Alone.” Lisa said sternly.

“Hey, come on, don’t do this to me,” Neyra replied, her disappointment evident. She really wanted to stay involved in the team, especially now that she was in the hot seat as the lead INFINITY member for Supergirl.

“Neyra. This is between me and her,” Lisa said, slightly riled.

“Neyra, it’s okay. Give us a moment,” Selena added, though she sounded tired.

“Really? I don’t believe you people! Haven’t you all kept enough secrets already? And now you’re doing it to me?” Neyra protested.

Lisa turned her face towards Neyra, revealing THAT expression, the “don’t mess with me” expression.

“Fine. I’m going…” Neyra said bitterly. Twisting the key in the ignition she pulled it out and opened the door before stepping out. “Satisfied?”

“This won’t take long” Lisa declared side stepping Neyra and climbing into the driver’s seat.

“I don’t get you guys. You do all this training, trying to make us a team, and then you pull shit like this, it’s a joke,” Neyra said, throwing her arms into the air and walking away.

“Go take a walk, we won’t need long,” Lisa said as she pulled the driver’s door closed behind her and observed Neyra walk away, waiting for her to put a little distance between them.

“What is it?” Selena asked flatly. She knew a shitstorm was imminent but she didn’t know for what reason.

Lisa took her eyes off of Neyra as she stopped by the door of the stairwell, seemingly making a phone call on her cell phone. The detective turned to face Selena who looked like she had been in the wars, and more so than herself. Selena too noticed the healing bruises on Lisa’s face, the last confrontation with Delacroix still visible.

Lisa, tempered a little by Selena’s appearance began, “Did you know what was going to happen up there? Did you plan it? Or know about it?”

“Lisa? No, of course I didn’t know. How the hell could you have come up with that?” Selena shook her head in disbelief.

“So help me god I will make McGee read you if I have to, so don’t lie. Lucy had been training and training hard, using altitude training gear. She was preparing for what happened. I found it in her apartment with her running machine,” Lisa explained, a spark of anger appearing in her voice.

“Altitude training…” Selena said in surprise, “Lisa, seriously, it was nothing I had planned. Look, lots of athletes use those things. Perhaps she just wanted to keep her edge…”

“When I probed her about how she was improving her times she nearly bit my head off like it was a secret, how do you explain that?” Lisa pressed.

“Lisa, I can’t. I can’t. I want to tell you I had everything figured out but I failed. I’m sorry, I can’t tell you any more than that,” Selena said, sounding exhausted.

Lisa looked down in disappointment at not learning any more, the cabin of the SUV falling silent for a moment.

“Neyra says Lucy has a good chance, right?” Selena said, diplomatically.

Lisa nodded in worried silence a moment before speaking, “What happened to your face? Did you get those before the flight, or was the landing rough? I thought it had been ok but…”

“I ran in to an old military acquaintance of mine, it’s nothing,” Selena lied.

There was a pause again, the thaw slow in coming. Selena watched Neyra talk on her phone and slowly it began to sink in what Neyra had done for them so far. Seemingly some of the group training had rubbed off on Laura’s powerless partner. Never would Selena underestimate an artist again.

“Are we done, Lisa? We should call her back,” Selena said, nodding her head towards Neyra who was across the carpark deck, still on her phone.

“Yes, we are done. For now,” Lisa said ominously. It was evident to Selena that this topic was not resolved to her satisfaction just yet.

Lisa popped open the door and stepped out the vehicle catching the attention of Neyra who seemed to end her conversation, slipping her phone back into the inside pocket of her jacket. Neyra walked back to the SUV with a little urgency in her step.

“Everything okay?” Lisa asked.

“That was my boss, my INFINITY boss” Neyra groaned, “…people above him have started to ask questions about when I am going to do my job and start some dialogue with them about what Supergirl thinks is going on,”

“Ouch,” Lisa said, wincing.

“So, I’ve had to tell him about my problems pulling my team together, what with them being in coma’s and detention blocks. Worse, I had to tell him I’ve not even seen Supergirl yet since the attack…” Neyra continued in annoyance as she climbed inside the SUV again.

Lisa stepped to the rear door and drew herself inside, the trio all together at last.

“…but he’s organised it that we get to see her tomorrow. She’s going to be doing the Sanderson Test on Molly Matthews at the courthouse. My boss has put me on the invite list and I get a plus-one,” Neyra finished.

Selena went wide eyed and turned her head to look at Lisa who nodded in acceptance, the conversation unnecessary. It would be Neyra and Selena who would attend; Lisa could take a rain check. Neyra looked between the pair of women, a knowing hint of a smile appearing, understanding their code.

“I’ll be glad when this is over. The moment Molly glow’s I’m rewinding myself and Selena to our original ID’s. As for Lucy she needs to stay active inside INFINITY until she wakes up,” Neyra said, obviously eager to get home as soon as possible.

“That’s acceptable to me,” Selena nodded, glancing at Lisa.

“Well I am not in this INFINITY thing but I think I can speak for Lucy and say that sounds reasonable. I am sorry Neyra, I should thank you for what you have done. You were put in a tough spot but you managed it. Supergirl saw something real in you after all,” Lisa said.

Selena looked on a little forlornly, “Yes… thank you Neyra… you’ve given us a chance to come back from the brink,”

“Well, we were damned lucky. I think I was only able to convince people you were targets because your new names are so similar to the real ones that Vel was looking for on the database hack McGee told me about. It was the social security numbers of your travelling aliases that I gave INFINITY, so what happened? Was it just luck?” Neyra asked.

“A little,” began Selena, “I of course can’t fly as Selena Walsh, I’m a fugitive. But, as is good practice, I use a similar name to fly on. If anyone accidentally blurts out my real name I have plausible deniability, that my name was misheard. Selena Walsh becomes Serena Wallis while I am in the air. INFINITY however has changed me to Celine Weiss, so I am guessing they also use the same practice of switching to plausible similar names, in case someone recognises someone who is using a new ID,” she explained.

“Luck or not, despite my reservations you’ve got the gang out of a hotspot,” Lisa added.

“Maybe, but, I don’t feel great about any of this. Lisa, I respect your badge for all the hard work you did to earn it. You were right, mine was just thrust at me and the sooner I can give it back, the better,” Neyra confessed.

“I know I bit at you earlier, it was just, just a little tough back there. This whole thing, it’s like we were set up. All of us,” Lisa explained.

“Yes, Molly and her brother really nearly put an end to us all. But that was then; we need to be ready for tomorrow and these army fatigues are not FBI approved,” Selena said as she looked down at herself.

“Lisa, give Sel her stuff,” Neyra said, gesturing with her head to the padded envelope on the backseat.

Lisa didn’t look enthusiastic as she offered out the padded envelope and she kept a tight grip as Selena accepted it, the two locking eyes a moment.

“Do NOT abuse this. Remember it’s Neyra taking point here. Not me. Not you. Her. Don’t screw this up,” Lisa cautioned Selena.

“Listen, I am just about in shape to be able to get into bed, let alone mischief …” Selena began to say before Lisa’s glare bullied her into making a promise, “…fine… I will behave, I promise,” she relented.

With a tug from Selena Lisa released the package which the red head then slowly began to decant into her lap.

Glock, ammo clips, holster kit, FBI badge, ID, debit card, driver’s license, cuffs, keys, passport and an FBI issued cell phone.

“How much is on this debit card?” Selena began, a hint of a smile appearing on her face.

“I control the feed to it apparently via my INFINITY boss; but for now you have two thousand dollars,” Neyra answered reluctantly, sensing Selena’s mischief returning.

Selena looked disappointedly down at the card in response like someone had ruined Christmas.

Neyra scoffed. “It’s for one day, Selena! You’re only going to need a basic black suit, and a change of underwear, how much money do you need?”

Selena rolled her eyes, “You’re right, I guess. I recommend that we find somewhere to crash for tonight and tomorrow I will get some clothes for our court appointment. Lisa, I know you live in the city but I’d prefer we three stay close together until this is all over,”

“Sure, I can survive a hotel stay, especially if the FBI is paying…” Lisa nodded with a shrug of the shoulders. Clean sheets and room service was by no means a problem for her today.

“Good, I will find us a hotel …” Selena began, a glance from Neyra hinting at something, causing Selena to pause, “yes… a reasonably priced hotel. And then we shall eat before we get our heads down, we have a big day tomorrow.”

“What time is it anyway,” Neyra asked as she fired up the engine of the FBI issued SUV, the lights illuminating. The three musketeers were finally together and while their d’Artagnan was in hospital in a coma they all felt that they were close to their journey’s end.

“It’s just gone midnight, and I hate Monday’s” Lisa groaned.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


This is all the stuff I've done here but don't tell anyone about this!
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Abductorenmadrid
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MONDAY


“This is the midday news. Here are the headlines from Schweiz Nachrichten Live. Investigators of the Dort road tunnel disaster will continue their investigations later today having toured the scene of Saturday’s disaster. A preliminary progress report is expected to be released in the coming days though no conclusions to the cause of the disaster are expected to be released for some time. A senior officer from the fire service has warned that no single factor might be to blame for the fatalities but rather there may be a chain of events coming together that had been in play… In finance news the Swiss finance minister, Ueli Maurer, is expected to discuss interest rate policy with his opposite numbers at the ECB today…”
= = = =

A slender lady moved around the horseshoe shaped conference table, tidily positioning a nameplate, a notepad and a pencil for each attendee. Then she returned, placing water pitchers and upturned glasses on trays, spacing them evenly between groups of empty chairs. The lady glanced at her watch and knew that it would not be long now before the investigation panel would begin to review their evidence together.

Meanwhile a technician pressed a button on a projector’s remote control and stepped back to check his work. On the projection screen appeared the title page of the day’s meeting.

“DORT ROAD TUNNEL FIRE – PRELIMINARY FACT SHARING MEETING”

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

A new working week was starting in the USA and as the sun broke out above the horizon Clive Westmoreland made his way to the President’s office. There she was, sat in her favoured seat, her gaze falling on the beautiful grandfather clock stood nearby against the wall. Glancing between the time and her faithful advisor she confirmed he was on time. As ever Garrison heard Alice her chief of staff offering her greetings to the agent before widening the doorway to let him pass inside. Westmoreland finished saying his pleasantries to Alice before being closed in with the President who had her favourite beverage in her hand, taking a sip.

“Good morning, Madame President,” smiled Westmoreland as he took his seat opposite her. He sank into the plush leather and rested his files across his knees the ETTA file as usual on top.

“Clive, good morning. I trust not too much has changed regarding those odd goings on since we spoke,” Garrison quipped.

“Trust me, the whole world can change in a minute, let alone the hours that have passed. Remember how your predecessors felt safe knowing Russia was so far away one moment, and then discovered that they had inserted a satellite right over their heads the next? Their world changed in an instant,” Westmoreland explained.

Garrison nodded in acceptance of his wisdom, “True but I trust nothing so seismic has happened while I slept …So… what do we have?”

Westmoreland took the first file containing the extra-terrestrial threat assessment and opened it.

“Well, as you know the Sanderson Test is being performed today sometime between eleven and noon. Our backchannel has arranged that the lead INFINITY member of Supergirl’s group and a teammate could be at the test if they so wanted. With luck Supergirl will prove that Dr Matthews is indeed infected by Eight-Ball,” Westmoreland continued.

“Yes we can only hope Vel has control over this Dr Matthews. It would be a pity to lose someone of Dr Matthews’ quality if it was found she acted by herself.” Garrison agreed.

Westmoreland nodded, “Well, we should take things as they come. Either way Matthews certainly recorded that message and her trap was most effective at killing those police officers. All we have to do is establish if it was her, or Vel, that was in control,”

“I want to know the results of the test as soon as they come in,” Garrison said, before taking another sip of her drink.

Westmoreland nodded. “Of course, we have people who will be on sight to let us know the result. Continuing on then,” he said, holding up a piece of paper for the president to see, “these are the tracks of Guardian that we managed to pull together. As you can see, they are a little, disorganised. One analyst described these tracks like someone trying to find where they had put down their car keys or their wallet…” he scoffed.

“Supergirl looking for more instances of Vel, perhaps. Oh, err, Eight-Ball, rather?” Garrison wondered aloud, leaning towards the paper with the track plots that Westmoreland held.

“To be frank I am not entirely convinced these are all her. It’s not an exact science tracking her and we can easily lose her, or get false positives. Besides, we are hoping that Vel is bottled up inside Molly Matthews waiting to be tested, right?” Westmoreland confessed.

“True. I guess all we can do is observe when it comes to Supergirl related matters but please have someone check the archives, see if this has happened before,” Garrison instructed Westmoreland.

Westmoreland nodded as he made a note in his jobs-to-do list. “Sure, we can do that. And that’s all we have for that file, so, next, naval dispositions. This is a summary of the locations of our aircraft carrier deployments,” he explained, producing a map listing off the locations of the US Naval forces.

= = = = = = = = = = =



Agent Dan Goodell of the NRC walked down the aisles of the Brucker scrap yard as his teams did their last diligent inspections of the harder to reach places. By now though everyone knew they were getting desperate and the more they looked they more it seemed unlikely that the source of radiation was there.

If it’s not here is it because they got rid of it? Or was it because it was never here at all? Goodell wondered.

Goodell reached into his trouser pocket and pulled something out. Opening his palm he looked at the metal disc that he had found the previous evening. At least he had something to challenge the owners of Gadget, the stricken dog about. They had been sure the animal had never been allowed out unsupervised but this was proof the dog had been here at the yard.

= = = = = = = = = = = =


Somewhere near Pittsburgh a railroad worker observed the diesel locomotive idling at the approaches to the freight yard, its powerful front light warning of its presence on the tracks. The worker’s gloved hands grasped the handle for the switch in the rails and tugged firmly, preparing the route for the train to enter the siding. The steel tracks bended to his will, the new destination for the train was set. The worker clicked on his walkie-talkie, and then spoke to the driver in the distance.

“Thirty Twenty Two, come back,” the worker said into the microphone.

“Hey, good to hear you Barney! Long-time-no-see. Are we on four as usual?” the driver’s crackly voice replied back on the radio.

“Yeah, bring her in on four, track is set,” Barney said confirming the plan.

The horn on the train blared out playfully in the mid distance and a puff of black smoke could be seen blasting from the exhausts atop of the engine as the driver began to push his train on forward. Barney clapped his dusty gloved hands together and began to walk to his shed. His feet trod noisily on the ballast as he made his way safely on one side of the tracks with his back to the slowly approaching train.

Hisssssssss sang the rails as the train neared.

Barney looked over his shoulder, just to confirm the train was crossing onto the correct rails and continued walking when he saw the locomotive make the subtle turn onto siding number four.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK was the slow paced sound as the engine and its wagons approached on the rails at a crawl from behind Barney. The long column of freight wagons were destined to be parked in the siding for some time, though the engine would be decoupled and free to take a new load of product to its destination.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

The engine closed and eventually passed Barney, the load of empty freight wagons trailing behind it. The vibrations through his feet, while incredible, didn’t even make Barney flinch.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

Barney barely looked up as wagon after wagon passed him by, he had seen so many and this was no unusual consist. His attention was now fixed on a piece of paper he had pulled from his pocket listing the shunting activities in the rail yard for that day.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

Let’s see, decouple this locomotive then set up for a reverse shunt on line five and then the double header after lunch on line three Barney thought studying his job sheet.

BAM BAM BAM

“Please … Help me is anybody there !!”

Barney looked up, then around, startled by the voice and then tried to see the source.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

“Heeeelp!” screamed the voice once more. The sound was faint and getting fainter as the train advanced past Barney.

The wagon, a tall sided open topped ore transporter was designed to be loaded from the top while a mechanism allowed the contents to tip out once the goods arrived at the customer’s factory. If this person was inside when the container was filled again, well, he would probably be buried alive and if he did survive all that he would probably be killed once the container was emptied, who knew when. Had Barney not heard the owner of this voice the consequences would have been grave.

Oh jeezus, there is someone trapped in one of those wagons! Barney realised, hands rising to his head in shock.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

Barney quickly understood what he had to do and put his walkie-talkie to his mouth and spoke.

“THIRTY TWENTY TWO – STOP STOP STOP” Barney ordered the train.

“Barney, what did you say?” called back the driver in surprise.

CLACKCLACK – CLACKCLACK

“STOP! STOP! THIRTY TWENTY TWO!” Barney yelled as he began to trot after the train which was difficult work on the slightly sloped ballast base beneath his feet.

SCREEEEEEEECH!!

The brakes on the train clamped shut around its wheels causing a cacophony of wailing screams from the big metal discs. Sparks showered from where the wheels met the rails, the friction required to stop the train revealed. The train, while not carrying a load still had a lot of momentum and it was going to take a while to come to a halt. Freight car after freight car continued to pass Barney and he began to try and mentally count how far he would have to advance before he would encounter the one holding the trapped owner of the voice.

= = = = = = = = = = = = =

Mike Loughlan, CEO of Sanderson Corp looked a defeated man as he watched the muted financial news on the TV in his office. Sanderson Corp stock had been teed up to take a hammering in the futures market all weekend and then on the opening of trading the self-fulfilling prophecy had started. It began in Japan first, then in the European markets but now New York’s Dow Jones was helping drive home the nails into the coffin.

One of the Sanderson Corp’s divisions had been responsible for building the Mechs, the ones used to try and kill the president. Now it was well known that the division head, Molly Matthews had left chaos and destruction in her wake. Fears she had sabotaged her own division were rife. Was Sanderson Corporation going to be on the hook for damages? There were dead soldiers and dead cops and if there was spill over from what Molly’s brother had done too… well… there was no end of bad news.

To compound matters today was the oversight meeting. The corporation needed financial support while it climbed out the hole created by Vel during his control over Bobby, it’s then CEO and majority stake holder. Mike Loughlan was starting to sense the conspiracy against him. In the build up to the meeting it became apparent that several good supporters of Loughlan and the corporation as a whole had died in mysterious circumstances and he was yet to get a feel of how their replacements were going to treat him.

“Mr Loughlan sir?” Gina, his trusted secretary said.

“Yes, Gina?” Loughlan responded with a sigh, tossing the remote control for the TV onto his office sofa in disdain, the image on the screen fading to black.

“The first of the attendees has arrived, it’s Mr Thessens, from the Viennese Investment Bank,” Gina said, her fingers lacing in front of her as she waited for her instructions.

“OK, put him into the conference room and make sure he is comfortable. I will be with him shortly,” Mike sighed. Today was not going to be a good day.

= = = = = = = = =

Across town Selena, Neyra and Lisa gathered inside Neyra’s hotel room. Neyra had had to go out and get Selena some clothes after only having the army fatigues she had been given while in custody at Stewart. Lisa however was stuck in what she had been wearing from the day before and was less happy though Neyra had been thoughtful enough to get her a change of underwear.

Selena emerged from Neyra’s bathroom in her new outfit causing Lisa to roll her eyes. The dark suit, and white women’s cut shirt beneath looked right for the part but Lisa found it a little galling that it was all to impersonate someone from the FBI.

“Shut up,” Selena growled albeit harmlessly as she went to the bed and picked up her gear. Her pistol went into her holster first, her badge clipping onto the belt of her dark suit’s trousers.

“Well, you at least look like a fed, even though you aren’t,” Lisa flatly in reply.

“Seriously, I cannot wait to be out of here. Having to listen to you two bicker is the worst,” Neyra groaned.

“Yes, mother,” Lisa and Selena replied in unison. The two recoiled from each other as they considered what their shared answer might mean, causing Neyra to blink in surprise.

Selena shook her head and then patted herself down and checked she had everything she needed. She memorised her new ID, and she had worked on her new fake signature too. In her pockets were the FBI issued cell phone though she had her own personal phone that were part of her effects that had been given back to her after her detention. Selena was satisfied that she was set and then glanced at Neyra.

“You set? How are you getting on with your piece?” Selena asked with concern gesturing to Neyra and her weapon holstered at her side.

“I’ve not shot myself in the foot with it yet,” Neyra said in disdain, patting her jacket down.

“Well you were always better at the gun safety part. Terrible shot though. If only you could make yourself imagine your gun as a paintbrush you’d be the best shot out of all of us…” Lisa said, speaking form experience seeing Neyra’s struggles with a gun.

During Laura’s training as Spydra the young redhead had been taught all about guns; how to shoot with them, how to load them, how to clean them, how to make them safe. And since Neyra frequently observed Laura’s lessons she sometimes even got involved. It made sense in a way that if she got accidentally caught up in Spydra’s world she might have a better chance of taking care of herself if she knew her way around a pistol. Luckily for her the frequent weapon of choice to practice with was a Glock, similar to what was in her holster right now.

“Thanks, I think,” Neyra scoffed.

“Good, let’s go, I want to get there early so we can choose our ground,” Selena suggested.

“What do you want me to do while you’re gone?” Lisa asked. She did not make the invite list for the event at the courthouse but was evidently keen to be doing something.

“I do have something in mind, actually. Come with us on the drive to the courthouse, I will explain what we need,” Selena said cryptically.

“Oh?” Lisa responded, eyebrow arching up with intrigue.

“I hear you have a stationary fetish, you’ll get to play with coloured pens and post-it-notes…” Selena continued.

“Oh well then I am in. Come on Agent Jones, let’s roll, ” Kozny quipped with a little enthusiasm.

Neyra nodded reluctantly but Lisa patted her on the back, trying to give her courage seeing Neyra’s lack of enthusiasm for maintaining her pretence.

“It’s ok, let’s do this and then we can all go home,” Lisa said.

= = = = = = = = = = =


Janet Trello watched from the sitting room as Dan Goodell got out of his car and began to head up the garden path to her front door. Dan noted the twitching curtains and was not surprised to be greeted by Janet before he even had a chance to ring the doorbell.

“Mrs Trello,” Dan began, his voice tired, “may I come in?”

“Of course, have you been able to find anything? Anything at all? Your men searched here yesterday but found nothing then left …” Janet said as she widened the doorway and let Dan inside.

Janet gestured to the sitting room hoping that hopefully some good news would be coming. Dan moved into the sitting room where Kerry was drawing with her felt tip pens in the corner. Janet gestured to a seat then sat down herself opposite the NRC investigator, ready to hear what he had to say.

“Well we spent all day going over that yard yesterday and again for a few hours this morning. We’ve not found anything yet but I think we may have made a small discovery…” Dan said, his hand reaching into his suit pocket and producing something small.

Janet frowned as Dan reached out his arm, his hand like a fist before he upturned his palm and opened his fingers.

“Do you recognise this?” Dan asked. His eyes locked onto Janet, ready to see her reaction.

Janet looked into man’s palm and saw a small round metal disc, a name tag, a pet’s nametag.

“GADGET”

Dan flipped the metal disc over in his hand, the reverse revealing the number of Janet’s husband’s cell phone.

“Where did you find that?!” Janet exclaimed. Gadget had lost a nametag just like it, and she had thought it had just got snagged somewhere in the garden.

“Well, it was found on the property of the scrap yard, caught on the inside of a perimeter fence. Now we have gone over that place with a fine-tooth-comb and cannot find anything there that may have hurt your dog but, it proves at least he must have gone off your property once …” Goodell explained.

“But… Lou and I have explained that. He’s never been out unsupervised; we would remember something like that. I mean, we would have had to go out and find him if he went missing and that’s never happened. The only time he is out is when we walk him and he’s not let off his leash,” Janet responded.

“Well, this tag didn’t get there on its own. But now we have to check what might be between here and the Brucker’s yard. All we can see between here and there are a few rows of houses. This thing could be near people, children, animals. I can’t stress enough how important it is to find it,” Goodell answered.

“Mom … would it help Gadget get better … if … if you knew where he went?” Kerry asked. She had risen from where she had been colouring and was now half hidden behind a chair, shielding herself from the man with the badge.

Janet eyes widened while Dan cocked his head in surprise.

“What was that sweetie?” Janet asked in a low voice as she turned her head.

“Didn’t you hear what she …” Dan said with a firmer voice causing Kerry to back away.

“Shhh …” Janet responded, a pointed finger silencing the man in an instant. The wrath of a protective mother was not to be messed with.

“It’s okay sweetie. Come on … do you think you know something about what happened to Gadget?” Janet said softly, coaxing the child from behind the chair.

Kerry emerged, her folded arms covering her torso as she tucked in tight to her mother. The whisper the child uttered was low, but Dan suspected a confession was imminent. Janet listened, nodded gently and broke away from her daughter.

“The man here wants to help us, you’re not in trouble. I promise … tell her,” Janet said, looking to Goodell to back her up.

“What .. oh .. ok … Kerry? It is Kerry right? Did you think you would be in trouble? We aren’t mad at you. This isn’t your fault, but, we need to figure out what happened or maybe someone else’s pet might get sick too,” Goodell said, trying to remember what it was to talk to a child.

= = = =

At the U shaped meeting table the gathering of fire investigators discussed the incident at the Dort tunnel. A projector flicked from one image to the next on the large white screen at the end of the room. Wreckage of vehicles went first, then images from inside the tunnel next.

The air was filled with voices as the investigators chatted amongst themselves as they reviewed files and information on the laptops. Their chargers and cables were draped over the tables, the black spiderweb meeting at rows of extension cables that sat on the floor at the center of the U formation of tables in the room.

The gathering had poured over the transcripts, the data, the testimonies and still they were no wiser how what should have been a fairly routine engine fired had turned into such a disaster. The firemen were more than competent. The scene should have been uncomplicated, and yet …

“The mathematics are undeniable. There was only so much energy in the tanker. Whatever it was that forced it back up the tunnel was external. There is no evidence of a bomb. No meteorlogical effects, nothing. These deaths are … are inexplicable,”

Photos of the dead fire crew snapped into view on the screen next. The commander. The sub commander. The pump operator. First Leading hand. On and on they went, the fallen paramedic, Luca Huber appearing last.

“Come on, there must be something we are missing, we need to think outside of the box on this one,” one of the fire officers said.

= = = = = = = = = = = =



Supergirl landed on the congested roof of the Southern District Court House building in Manhattan. It was occupied by air conditioners and water towers but in among it all were a few court security men who were there to greet her.

“Good morning, Supergirl,” one guard said, his arm gesturing in the direction for the pair to go.

“Good morning, I hope I am not too late,” Supergirl replied with a soft smile.

“No, everything is more or less ready. Judge Lowe who witnessed the test last time is in his chambers and the prisoner, Matthews is being brought up from the cells,” the guard explained as he guided Supergirl to the stairwell exit on the roof.

Doctor Matthews,” Supergirl corrected him sternly.

“Oh, sure, Doctor Matthews,” the guard answered, a little surprised by her tone. He cursed himself for his slip up then opened the doorway for the heroine.

“So, how are we doing this again?” Supergirl asked as she passed through the doorway and looked down the stairwell seeing the many flights of stairs between her and her destination.

“Well, like before I guess, not that I am an expert or anything but I was there when you tested Bobby Sanderson. Last time you used the whole length of the corridor on floor eight. We guessed it was to keep the beam power down, you know, to keep it safe. Was that right?” the guard asked as he began to walk down with the heroine.

Supergirl looked a little unsure but …“That sounds right, I guess. I’ve not … well … forget it. It’ll be fine,”

= = = = = =

Down on the eighth floor Selena and Neyra were stood in the long marble floored corridor. Guards were dotted about as were court officials and observers from various agencies. A judge in robes anxiously emerged from his chambers from time to time to check on how the preparations for the proceedings were going.

“Where do you think Matthews is now?” Neyra asked anxiously.

“Either just arriving in a transport from somewhere or waiting in the holding cells downstairs in the basement,” Selena responded.

Neyra nodded in acceptance but continued to try and imagine how the set up was going to work out. At the far end of the corridor there seemed to be a mild commotion building and then Supergirl appeared in all her blue and crimson glory, looking radiant.

“That’s my girl,” Selena said softly.

“What?” Neyra asked, not hearing what Selena had said.

“She’s here,” Selena answered more loudly.

Supergirl could feel all eyes on her as she made her way up the corridor, subtly waving to the occasional person as she passed by. Making her way closer and closer to the judge’s chambers she finally passed by Neyra and Selena not even giving a hint of acknowledgement. Then the heroine saw the judge emerge from his chambers who smiled, his hand offered out in gratitude that she had come.

“Well thanks a bunch,” Neyra hissed under her breath. She suspected it was known that her invite was based on being on Supergirl’s team so it was annoying not to have been recognised by the guest of honour.

“Hey, she might be unsure about our cover, I guess,” Selena said, trying to reassure even herself. To not even have been given a hint of recognition was disconcerting. Usually Kara was at least a little transparent but today she was solid as a rock.

Supergirl spoke to the judge in a low voice, unheard by most, and then there were a few nods and gestures to bailiffs who quickly departed from the floor. Then there were murmurings in the corridor as guards and other select observers awaited the arrival of the woman to be tested, Doctor Molly Matthews.

“It can’t be long now,” Selena said hopefully.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Dan Goodell, Janet Trello and her daughter Kerry were walking briskly through the streets leading towards the perimeter of Bruckers salvage yard. The child was in the lead, mother in tow being led by the hand while Goodell made a record of the route they had taken.

Kerry had finally confessed that she had accidentally let Gadget out of their garden and, rather than summon an adult to help her she had sought to bring the playful pet back home on her own. It was once she had committed to the effort that her adventure began and as things got more and more out of hand the more she had sought to keep what she had done a secret. Only the guilt of what was happening to Gadget had finally given the child cause to reveal what had happened.

Goodell made a note of each turn they trio made and soon they were looking across the perimeter road of the subdivision and towards the salvage yard. With care they crossed and soon were among the trees that were a weak attempt to make the unsightly yard more visually appealing by disguising it altogether.

“So… you followed Gadget to here? Then what happened?” Janet asked as she glanced at the salvage yard with suspicion. If those bastards at Brucker had taken on some illegal waste they were going to pay!

“I couldn’t find him. I think he went inside the yard so I walked around the edge a little …” Kerry said coyly.

“Yes this is where I found the tag, he went in here. Which way did you go? Do you remember where you were when you found gadget? Maybe you recognise a tree, or something inside the yard close to where you were?” Dan Goodell asked.

The child looked around herself innocently then with a tug on her mother’s hand continued.

“I went this way…” the child said innocently and then lead the group onwards for a few minutes before she came to a stop.

“It was here, I remember the tree because it has a heart on it, I saw him on the other side and then he came …through,” Kerry explained pointing to a tree with a heart shaped knot in its bark.

Goodell walked up to the perimeter fence of the yard and looked at what lay beyond. The first area where the girl had lost Gadget was where he had found the name tag, snagged on the other side. Now he was interested in this second area where the dog had got back out. Perhaps the radiation source was between the entry and exit point the dog had taken.

Dan stepped back for a second and then noticed the fence. Chain linked, the metal had a fine rust red surface, confirming its age, though it looked in good condition. He tested where the fence met the posts and they were fixed fast. The fence was even taught to the ground, not bowed out at all. He glanced up and down the line, looking for holes beneath the fence but …

“Kerry? Gadget got back out through here? But where? Are you sure it was here?” Goodell asked, his tone a little more child friendly than before.

“I don’t know, he … he just came here,” Kerry explained. Goodell had doubts but Janet was more in a place to know better if she was lying.

“Kerry …” began Janet. Her tone was one all parents use with small children when they are challenging what they think is a lie. “Is that true?”

“Mom, please! He was right there, I promise, and then I took him straight home,” Kerry protested pointing back toward the subdivision behind them. In fact between the outer row of houses you could make out the Trello’s residence just beyond.

“Kerry, how did he get out?” Janet pressed. The fence was way too tall and protected by razor wire along the top.

“Please, mom …” Kerry pleaded.

Janet was confused at Kerry’s resistance. Knowing her daughter she crouched down to her height and tried to reason with her, “Kerry, what’s wrong. You know you aren’t in trouble, right, baby?”

Kerry nodded shyly.

“And … we want to believe you. But, you can see, Gadget couldn’t get out here. Is it because you were somewhere you think you shouldn’t have been? You think you can’t tell us? If you were somewhere else it may be the place that made Gadget sick…”

“No mommy it was here! It was here …” Kerry replied, tears forming.

Goodell tried to figure it out. The paradox of logic was circling around his mind. The child can’t be telling the truth and yet she was adamant the dog emerged here.

“Then how?…Please, Gadget needs your help,” Janet said, slightly cross.

“But … I pinky swore …I …” Kerry stammered.

Janet’s heart slumped to her stomach just before her heart began to race. There had been someone else here? Who!? What did they do, what did they say. Did they touch her daughter. What did they do?! What did they do?!

“Was there someone else here who … who helped Gadget?” Goodell piped up.

“But .. I pinky swore … and …”

“Kerry, sometimes things change and you have to tell mommy or daddy what happened. The person you pinky swore with. Did they help Gadget get out?” Janet asked, her tone finding a diplomatic level.

“Uh huh,” Kerry nodded.

“And they brought Gadget to you here?” Janet continued on carefully.

“Yes,” Kerry nodded again, trying to avert her eyes from Goodell who had attempted to maintain a respectful distance from the mother and child.

“And then what happened? Did you go anywhere together?” Janet asked, dreading the answer.

“Then we started to walk home….. that way … but Gadget had a poorly leg …” Kerry continued, pointing back towards home.

Alarm bells rang in Goodell’s mind. The primary site of exposure on the dog was its leg. The dog had already been exposed before it was returned to Kerry? He was going to have to go back over the Brucker’s yard. Whatever it had been must have been inside.

“Errr, do you mean, you, Gadget and the other person were walking together? Or did the other person go away?” Janet continued to coax her daughter.

“The three of us … when I saw Gadget was poorly we stopped but she…” Kerry began until she froze, her hand rising to her mouth.

“It’s okay, sweetie. So it was a lady or a girl who was with you?” Janet asked gently once again.

Kerry nodded. Janet, though still concerned was partly relieved a woman was with Kerry and not a man though even then she knew the monsters of the world came in either gender. Goodell, on the other hand while interested to know who this woman was who had access to the inside of the yard was no longer too concerned about what happened next. The girl was fine and at this point in her little show-and-tell-story Gadget had already been exposed.

“Uh huh – we walked this way a little …” Kerry explained, leading her mom past a couple of trees then stopped.

Goodell, flipped open his phone and was preparing to make some calls. He wanted a warrant now knowing his goodwill was already spent at Brucker’s yard. This time he was going to do everything more thoroughly and this time go through the books. First up, arrange the resources to do a more thorough search, a helicopter too if he needed an aerial assessment and then …

“Oh god .. agent Goodell … come quickly … come on sweetie … step away … step away …” Janet had yelled with her calming yet urgent voice before drawing Kerry to safety.

Goodell snapped his phone closed and spun around, walking with urgency to the sound of Janet’s voice. Just then she appeared from behind a tree, her daughter walking ahead of her with her mother’s guiding hands upon her shoulders.

“What is it?” Goodell asked only to see Janet toss her head back, her eyes reinforcing where it was Goodell should go.

With a frown Goodell passed through some trees and came to an abrupt stop.

“Kerry, what happened there? What did the other person do!” Janet asked, once again kneeling in front of her child, her hands wrapped around the upper arms of her daughter and giving her a little shake.

“But I pinky swore …” the Kerry insisted.

“KERRY, WHO WAS IT – WHAT DID THEY DO?!”

= = = =
Kerry, her head down, remembered how events played out a few days before on that fateful Friday.

“Oh Gadget, you’re walking funny! Do you have a poorly foot?” Kerry asked as she tugged the young German Shepherd to a halt.

“Oh! Let me look!” the voice of the woman said from behind. Her safe kind hand was resting on Kerry’s shoulder.

“Okay! Don’t worry Gadget, we will find out what’s wrong!” Kerry said, looking up at the sun bathed outline of the silhouette of the woman behind her.

= = = =

“I said if anyone found out I had let Gadget out I would be in trouble, so, she said if we did a pinky swear we both did not have to say what had happened!” Kerry sobbed.

“It’s ok. She wanted to help Gadget right? So, if she knew Gadget was in trouble now, she would want you to say, right?” Janet said, still holding her daughter tight.

“I … I guess …but she won’t be mad at me?” Kerry asked nervously.

“No, of course not sweetie. So .. who was it ..?” Janet asked in hope that this would be the last and final time of asking.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Dan Goodell stood speechless in the little clearing where the girl, Kerry and her mother had stood. The grass was mostly dying or dead. But what had shocked him, and no doubt Janet Trello too was the pattern of good grass left in the ground.
Left in the damaged grass was a healthier greener patch, but this was shaped like the outline of a dog on all fours. The darker and more damaged grass was around the hind end of the dog shaped form.

“My god! The exposure happened HERE?” thought Goodell.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

The fire investigators were scraping the barrel, reviewing evidence they had initially considered unhelpful. On the screen a few frames from the paramedic vehicle’s dashcam appeared, the camera had been recovered from the wreckage. Only a few frames remained from the moments when the disaster occurred.

“Wait … what is that?” Karl Mueller asked. He had seen the photos before, albeit on a smaller screen. Now, projected up onto a projection screen, each pixel of the image was no longer a mere dot, they could be scene individually and were a centimetre across.

Barely a blur of pixels a bluey-purple-red blob was evident among the bright orange light of the approaching firewall. The blob appeared for a single frame, neither there in the preceding frame, nor the frame after.

“It’s .. probably lens flare or debris in the tunnel,” someone speculated.

Karl rose from his seat and approached the screen from the side, his shadow casting over some of the image. The part he was interested in though remained unobscured and he stood and stared at it.

“Hold it on this frame….” Karl asked, hands falling to his waist as he examined the image.

Some of the others noted Karl’s interest in the picture for a moment then resumed talking among themselves.

“Karl, this audio, may I go through it,” Karl’s colleague asked who was still sat alongside where Karl’s seat was. He had noted Karl’s dictaphone which held some recorded interviews on it.

”I’ve seen this before,” Karl murmured to himself, cocking his head as he took in the the dozen or so blue, red and purple pixels.

“Karl?”

“What, oh … yes … sure…” Karl responded, gesturing to his colleague to continue without him. Karl was still transfixed on the pixel blob of colour contrasted against the reds and oranges of the explosion behind it.

The colleague hit play on the tape, looking to cue up an interview with one of the civilian survivors. The tape ran quietly and the investigator turned up the volume to listen.

“Whose voice is that?” was a hushed question as a distressed female voice played out.

Karly broke away from what had been an enchanting image and replied to the question, “It’s Mia Keller, the paramedic. She is obviously quite traumatised but she mentions red and blue,” Karl said with a frown, glancing back at the image.

“Turn it up, turn it up. Is she saying ‘Eggs, rather’ ? What does that mean?”

“Surely nothing, it’s gibberish, right?”

“Well she is clearly saying red and blue, but what does, ‘rather eggs’ mean?”

“Wait a minute, that’s not German, that part is in English!”

“I don’t think Dr Keller speaks English,” Karl said doubtfully, recalling the details in her personnel file. He did however think that the way she was saying those words was a little strange.


“But what if it were English? What do you think she is saying?”

“In English it sounds like she is saying ‘I am sorry’,”

“I am sorry? Why is she saying that? Surely she doesn’t think that she is to blame for what happened?”

“Of course not, besides she wouldn’t say that in English …”

“No but … what if …” Karl began to wonder. He looked back between the picture and the voice of Keller.

“What if … what?”

Karl returned to his desk with urgency and began to type at his keyboard.

“What it .. red and blue refers to what she saw … and what if the rest is what she heard?” Karl explained, as he sought what he was looking for on his laptop.


“As if? You think this blob speaks?” someone scoffed making a dismissive gesture at the pixelated blob on the giant screen.

“Yes I do …this is the talking blob…” Karl said in annoyance at being mocked before striking a key on his laptop

With a click the image was thrown up to the projection screen and there were sounds of dismay, scoffs, shock and surprise. Could it be true?

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

In amongst the trees the NRC agent Dan Goodell stood with Janet Trello.

“Agent Goodell … Kerry … she told me … she told me what happened …” Janet said in disbelief from behind the agent.

Goodell glanced over his shoulder back at Janet, “What the hell happened here? I don’t understand! I’ve seen photos like this, but from Hiroshima, or Nagasaki!” he stammered.

Images from lectures of long ago flashed in Goodell’s mind, the stark power of nuclear weapons having been well documented from the end of the war with Japan. Janet looked again at the unmistakeable outline of her pet dog burned into the dying grass and with a deep breath told the agent what her daughter had finally confessed to her.

“It was Supergirl. Supergirl rescued Gadget, and then I guess she examined his leg, just here when they saw he had a limp. They say she can project, like X-rays, right?” Janet explained, slightly breathlessly.

“Supergirl?! Supergirl did this?!” Goodell exclaimed.

= = = = =

At the Dort fire disaster enquiry meeting the attendees looked up at the projection screen. On the screen was one of the most famous posters in the world. A real life jetliner, from the late 60’s caught on camera in distress. Engine aflame and doomed to crash a reddish-blueish-purpleish blur was about to make the first rescue of her career.

DAY ONE – announced the poster, beneath the action.

“But that's impossible! Supergirl has never been, and never would be so reckless,”

The men’s voices rose as they contemplated the disaster and what the significance of their potential discovery was. If the superheroine had really been responsible for what happened then what could possibly happen next? Even those who doubted the idea that Karl was right realised that with Supergirl’s immense power the mysterious scenario they had been confronted with was more than possible. They would have to report their concerns, and quickly …

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

At the railway siding in Pittsburgh Barney held a ladder while a sheriff’s deputy escorted a cold, wet and miserable young man from inside. Shivering from exposure the young man gratefully received a blanket as he sobbed in gratitude for his release.

“Where… where am I? I’ve been trapped in there forever!” he asked, shivering as he was handed a hot cup of coffee.

“Pittsburgh, son. You’re in Pittsburgh,” the deputy replied.

The youth took a mouthful of coffee and swallowed it down gratefully.“Pittsburgh? Oh god, mom is gonna … how am I gonna get home? I’ve no money, no wallet … “ the youth pleaded.

“Woah steady, first things first, young man. What’s your name?” the deputy asked, hands on his gun belt as he looked down at the huddled yet grateful young man.

“My name… my name is Dale, Dale Furley, sir” Dale said, respectfully despite shivering.

“And how did you wind up in the freight car, Dale?” The deputy asked.

Dale looked down guiltily, his skin turning paler than ever. How was going to explain this? Who would believe him when he said it had been Supergirl who had tossed him in there and left him, possibly to die. And if she had been prepared to do that, what else could she possibly do … in fact … where was she even right now?!

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Neyra and Selena tried to make occasional eye contact with Supergirl to no avail, much to Selena’s annoyance but perhaps there was a reason why she was trying to maintain this separation that was not obvious now. Maybe later she would explain what was happening.

Then Molly arrived. The elevators had opened and men in combat gear stepped out revealing their prisoner behind them. The sight was almost medieval in nature, Molly restrained in some kind of contraption that the Spanish inquisition would be proud of. Stood within a steel frame, Molly’s wrists were bound at neck height, her neck itself trapped in a metal hoop. Molly’s ankles were also bound apart to the steel frame and was forced to stay up on her feet. She was dressed in a white cropped top and white shorts, her respectable midriff bare. Matthews was wheeled into the corridor, a trapped target, and her bare stomach was the bullseye for Supergirl to aim at.

“Rather her than me,” Neyra whispered to Selena who nodded though to see such bondage delights had her hoping to have Kara trapped in there. At any rate Neyra certainly would not have minded seeing Spydra trapped like that for her own pleasures.

“Please, please tell me what is wrong with me!” protested Molly as she squirmed in her restraints.

The heavily armed guards positioned Matthews to face Supergirl and the judge who stood together at the other end of the long corridor, the other spectators glancing from end to end of the corridor, waiting for the test to begin.

The judge looked on as the bailiffs surveyed the scene and gave their seal of approval. Everything was in place, security was tight, the prisoner was ready and Supergirl was there to use her powerful laser like eyes and test if Vel resided inside Matthews. There was a quiet hush, a sense of anticipation that the event was about to begin.

The judge gestured with his hand for Supergirl to step forward and begin. Supergirl nodded and stepped onto the center line of the long passageway and with a frown of intense concentration her eyes flared a cool deep blue.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

There was a low slicing sound through the air as a thin beam of light lit the length of the corridor striking Matthews on her midriff.

“Nghhhhhhhh……” groaned Matthews as the laser struck, gently teasing at her skin with a subtle tingling.

Nothing could be seen emanating from Matthews, no green glow at all. The lazer light was pin-sharp accurate and slowly tracked over Molly’s bare flesh, seeking out a spot where Vel might be revealed.

More! Supergirl thought to herself.

Supergirl’s eyes narrowed as she focused harder on Matthews the beam intensifying while the blue colour lightened a shade.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

“Hnghhh please … find him. Get him out!” pleaded Matthews as the discomfort dialled up a notch.

Selena looked between Supergirl and Matthews, surprised that the glow which had been so obvious in Kimberly and Bobby Sanderson had so far refused to be seen in Molly. Surely Vel was there, he had to be.

“Come on, Kara, force him out,” Selena said in a low voice.

“Something… something is wrong. He has to be there,” Neyra responded. So far she and her trusted friends had been sure it was Vel within Matthews that was behind everything and yet … where was he?

Supergirl looked on at the pleading Matthews wondering how far to push.

She wants us to find out what is wrong. Let us help her. Keep going!

Supergirl shuffled her feet to change her stance and renewed her effort. The beam broadened with the shades of blues lightening a little more again.

“Ahhh .. ahhhhh ….oh god … please…” whimpered Matthews as now there was a hint of pain in what Supergirl was doing to her.

The judge stepped forward and whispered into the heroine’s ear. Supergirl listened to the Judge’s advice with a nod and continued.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The light was getting whiter and brighter as slowly Supergirl ramped up the power from her eyes.

“Ohhhhh it hurts … please … I can’t” Matthews sobbed, slumping in her restraints. Now a tiny red glowing spot could be seen on her stomach as Supergirl energised her skin.

“Supergirl, I don’t think she’s able to…” the Judge began to intercede.

“But she is so close, Vel could be hiding in there,” Supergirl insisted as her glare intensified.

Yes, where is he hiding do you think! Not in those failures Bobby and Kimberly. Those pathetic losers squandered their chance to host Vel’s mind… surely Vel must be in there, inside Molly! Supergirl reasoned.

“Keep going, keep going, he’s in there, he must be …” whispered Selena to herself.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

The power rose and the light intensified as Supergirl pressed her attack and the onlookers had to turn away from the pale beam that passed before their eyes. Molly was now hard to see in the white light but ….

“Arrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhh please ….. stop, please stop, please stop ….” Matthews begged. The pain now outweighed her desire for Vel or his monster to be found inside her.

“Supergirl. Stop!” ordered the judge.

“NOT YET!” Supergirl snapped back, her eyes locked firmly onto her target.

Neyra looked back and forth from Supergirl and Matthews sensing things were not right, “Selena, something is wrong! Do something,” Neyra urged her friend, grasping the red head’s wrist.

Yes, tear her up, punish her for all those things she did! thought Supergirl with a grimace.

“But… he must be there … I …” mouthed Selena weakly.

“Aaaaaarghhhhhhhhhhh” shrieked Molly, flailing her torso within the frame, her limbs held fast in her bondage.

Neyra looked desperately between the hard to see Molly, Supergirl and those that seemed beholden to trusting that the heroine was doing the right thing except …

“Oh jeezus, she’s killing her!” Neyra exclaimed and lept out from the side of the corridor and broke the beam. Supergirl’s beam cut across Neyra’s chest and the black beauty let out a shriek as she fell to the floor.

“SUPERGIRL! ENOUGH!” barked the judge.

Supergirl blinked, her beam relenting. Panting softly Supergirl spun on the spot to face man in the black robes her anger written across her face as the glow in her eyes receded.

“With Vel you have NO IDEA what you are dealing with. I had to be sure he was not there and he is not. This procedure will always be more powerful for those that are not infected than for those that are, that is why it is not to be done lightly,” Supergirl explained angrily.

The judge glared at Supergirl silently for a moment before he gestured to the bailiffs and the guards and they trotted towards Matthews who hung unconscious from her wrists in the frame. Her torso glowed orange though it was slowly calming down but the clothes she had been wearing were left as charred rags leaving her practically naked.

Neyra rose to her feet and checked herself over, one hand resting over her breasts which stung. Her jacket and blouse top beneath had a browned pair of parallel lines cut across them where they had briefly encountered Supergirl’s beam.

“Arghhhhh” Neyra growled in protest as she held her chest and spun around to look back at Supergirl.

The pair looked intently at the other, a chill running through Neyra’s spine as she looked into Supergirl’s eyes. Neyra was an artist but before she had worked in a bar. That look in the heroine’s eyes, that was the look of a bad trouble maker. That was the look of a person who was going to wait in the parking lot for you to come out and then get you with a tyre iron.

The corridor was alive with chatter as Molly was quickly wheeled out of sight in her restraint frame and a worried and the angry Neyra found Selena in front of her.

“What the fuck was THAT?” Neyra demanded of Selena as she gestured at herself and then the path that the beam had taken. By now Supergirl had moved out of sight, already leaving the building by the roof.

“I’ve made a mistake. I could have sworn Vel would be there. I would have bet everything that he was there …” Selena said quietly.

“Something is not right Selena. There must be a reason Vel is not there and why .. this .. happened!” Neyra demanded.

“Ok, Ok, I will try and find out,” Selena responded, her voice betraying her confusion.

Pulling out her private phone Selena went to her contacts list and selected a number and waited.

BEEEP BEEEP BEEEP sounded the ringing tone in her ear as she waited for Supergirl to answer.

Eventually Selena heard Supergirl’s voice but…“Hi, this is Kara, please leave a message,” said the voice happily.

Selena angrily disconnected the call and put her phone back in her pocket, “No answer,” she grumbled.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

Far away inside the army base where Molly Matthews and everyone else from the Mech demonstration had initially been detained there was a hangar housing all the evidence gathered from the attack. There was helicopter wreckage, wrecked vehicles, the command trailer for the Mechs and the impounded Mechs themselves, the Spider’s canopy still smattered with blood and paintball ink.

On a shelf were a collection of evidence bags, each numbered and tagged. One of them held a cell phone, the screen illuminating for a moment.

Missed Call – Mistress – 1142am

Then the screen faded to black, a red notification light flashing.

Working in the hanger a technician from the corps of engineers lifted his head and looked to the shelves of evidence and cocked his head, thinking he heard a noise. He paused a moment in his work and waited then with a dismissive shake of his head continued doing what he had been doing.

= = = = = = = = = = = =

“Well what the hell do we do now? Supergirl’s not talking to us and Vel isn’t in Matthews,” Neyra said angrily.

“I don’t know. I am thinking!” Selena spun around, raising a hand to tell Neyra to keep back.

“Special Agent Jones? Special Agent Weiss? Come with me please,” said a voice from behind the women.

Neyra and Selena spun around to see a trio of black suited men, one holding up an ID card of the NSA. Neyra looked anxiously at Selena who knew this was not going to be good, her head dropping with a sigh.

The three men escorted Selena and Neyra to a vacated courtroom which had been closed for the morning and the leader gestured to the women to take a seat.

“I’ll stand, thank you,” Selena responded, arms folding.

“Yes, I’m good I guess, thanks” Neyra followed on from Selena’s lead.

“Agent Jones,” the lead NSA man began, “Matthews is evidently not holding Vel. We want your feedback on events, or have you achieved nothing the last three days?”

“Achieved nothing?” Neyra snapped, “Can’t you tell, this has been a set up the whole time? They came after our team! Agent Weiss, Agent Wang, Andy Matthews tried to kill them. I’ve been tied up in knots just trying to get this all straightened out.”

Selena nodded, “The same assassin that killed the pilot that started all this even tried to kill our other colleague, Detective Kozny from the NYPD!”

“We already know about Delacroix and the plot to get Andy Matthews on that flight but where is VEL? Who has he infected?” the NSA man demanded.

“Well…” began Neyra.

Selena closed her eyes, Neyra’s protests fading from her mind. She tried to clear her thoughts and tried to remember … to remember a dream … but not a dream. It was a clear vision and yet the words spoken by her subconscious mind were silent.

Neyra continued “so …something has changed. Everything points to Matthews having been responsible for the attack but perhaps Vel has moved on. Can’t you see, Dr Matthews was begging for help and Supergirl ….”

“So you don’t know anything?” the NSA man cut in.

“Come on, let’s go, we need to report in,” the second NSA man said dismissively.

The trio of men spun around and began to leave, Neyra momentarily speechless at her treatment.

“What? Wait … hey, screw you,” Neyra growled causing Selena’s eyes to open.

Neyra’s arm reached for one of the agents as they spun away. She had more to say and she didn’t want them to go just yet.

Selena put her hand on Neyra’s shoulder and tugged her subtly back, just in time to stop Neyra doing anything rash. One the NSA men glared back at Neyra, a stronger response no longer needed seeing that Selena had stepped in already.

“Hey… hey… leave them… leave them …” Selena urged Neyra.

Neyra’s dagger eyes chased the NSA men out the room and then gestured angrily at the door the men left by, “I can’t believe those assholes!”

Selena “Look, our credibility is compromised right now. What you need to do is get ahead of those guys. You need to tell your INFINTY boss what just happened. ”

“Yes, you’re right, but Supergirl…” Neyra began to complain. For her it was Supergirl’s behaviour that was most concerning. Neyra felt undermined, ignored and now had been physically hurt by the very person who had asked Neyra to help her.

“I will keep trying to raise her,” Selena said, apologetically. Selena seemed to be hanging on to the idea that she could bring Supergirl to heel.

= = = = = = = = = =
Mike Loughlan sat at the head of the meeting table discussing the actions he had taken since the last meeting to stabilise and improve Sanderson Corporation’s position. The presentation was going relatively well though he sensed some resistance amongst the bankers who he played host to.

Mike’s laser pen highlighted a percentage figure on one of his slides when there was a buzzing from one of his guest’s cell phones. A mere message no doubt but enough to be a distraction.

Mike Loughlan continued after a pause where he cast an annoyed glance at his guest, “…anyway… as you can see the royalty income on this patent is growing as it becomes an industry standard product and we expect …”

VWWRR VWWRRR VWRRR buzzed another cell phone on silent.

Loughlan looked back in annoyance at the second interruption.

Mr Legrande of Bank Nacionale Paris looked at Loughlan apologetically “Sorry, Mr Loughlan but …” he began before another few phones also vibrated with some kind of message.

Loughlan cocked his head, wondering what was going on, a few of the bankers reluctantly gesturing for a pause as they checked their messages. Beyond the glass walls of the conference room Loughlan could see Gina, his personal assistant looking concerned, trying to catch his eye. Loughlan looked at his guests who all collectively began to read their messages and so he rose from his chair to leave the room a moment.

“Excuse me gentlemen while we take a pause,” Loughlan said, slightly sarcastically.

Loughlan opened the glass door and swept out to see Gina approach him. Casting a gaze back into the conference room Loughlan noticed that some of the men in the meeting were starting to dial out, seeing Loughlan had paused in his presentation.

“Gina, what’s going on?” Loughlan asked in confusion. Evidently something was happening but what?

“Sir … it’s … it’s about Dr Matthews,” Gina began.

“What, what about her?” Loughlan asked, glancing anxiously back at the bankers who seemed to be having serious conversations of their own, most of them with their phones to their ears.

“It’s just hit the wires, Supergirl did the test, Matthews, she wasn’t being controlled by the alien. She … she was working on her own. The markets, they’ve …” Gina began to explain.

“Oh jeezus christ …thank you Gina … I … I need to get back in there,” Loughlan growled as he spun around and returned to the conference room leaving Gina to stand visibly shaken by what was happening, outside in the passageway.

Beyond the glass wall the scene played out in silence as Gina watched from outside. Loughlan found the remote for the TV and brought up the financial news. On the ticker tape at the foot of the screen was a banner, its deep red background redder than the lifeblood pouring out of the corporation’s share value.

KEY SANDERSON CORP STAFF - SUSPECTED ISLAMIC TERRORIST … NO LINK TO ALIEN ENTITY VEL DISCOVERED …

To say this went against what the markets had hoped for was an understatement and now the Sanderson Corp share value was in freefall. The markets had thought as rumour had suggested, that Dr Matthews had been under the control of Vel, and so to discover that she had been working alone, pushing her ‘manifesto’ that had she had shared with all the media outlets … it was the end.

= = = = = = = = = =


President Garrison sat back, relaxed on the hard backed chair at the head of the oval office dining table, her bowl of chicken salad in front of her along with a glass of sparking water. Near her was Daniel Slater, the defence secretary and opposite him the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Gorham of the Marine Corps. Alice, Garrison’s chief of staff had managed to shoehorn this lunchtime meeting into the President’s busy schedule at short notice.

“I am sorry this was the only time I could manage to see you today at such short notice, Joseph” Garrison apologized as a steak, medium rare, was placed in front of the General.

“There is no need to apologize, you have your job to do Ma’am” Gorham replied as he eyed the meal in front of him on the fine White House china plate.

Daniel noted that everyone had their food and speared his own steak with his fork, ready to cut.

“So,” Daniel began as his placed his knife onto the succulent piece of meat, “I understand you have concerns about the Mech program, General,”

Garrison eyed the two men understanding their agenda already but let their charade play out. Daniel drew his fork to his mouth having cut a piece of steak and began to chew as Gorham began to answer.

“You know I was there in that grandstand when things went south, but I would be the last man in the world that would want us to suspend the program. The other Joint Chiefs have already approached me hoping the program survives…” Gorham began, the process of cutting his steak continuing as he spoke.

“Hmmm …” Daniel managed to say in acknowledgment as he swallowed before cleaning his pallet with a sip of water. “You know that the thing has to be reviewed after what happened,” Daniel continued.

Garrison let her fork settle in the bowl, speared lettuce, kale and tuna waiting to be eaten. “My understanding is this, Matthews, regardless of her motives was directly involved with the coding and design of that machine, and no matter how good it is, we need to be sure there are no nasty surprises buried in there,”

“We agree, but, we know how once these things get stalled …” cautioned the General.

Daniel paused with his fork in the air, ready to bite on the small cubed roast potato that was on it, “You have to admit, Katherine, when have you ever seen a defence program like this ever get produced so trouble free? It was ahead of time and it was to budget. The Airforce guys were wishing they had Sanderson Corporation work on the F-35, look how that thing played out...”

“If you are wondering if the project still has my support, it still does. The broad benefits this platform could have, and I am talking about all the roles, not just combat, but the more humanitarian roles too, are obvious,” Garrison explained.

“And so, if you are going to back it, we need to ensure that we keep Sanderson Corporation on side,” Slater said cryptically, the General subtly nodding.

And so, here it was, the real motive for this meeting. Garrison raised her napkin and dabbed her lips before tossing it onto the table and leaning back. This wasn’t about the Mech program. It was about Sanderson Corporation. Garrison was not going to walk into the men’s trap, she was going to let them have to point at it, with a flashlight. Where were they trying to steer her?

“Go on,” Garrison said subtly, hands resting on the table’s edge.

“Well, all this doubt over Sanderson Corp, it has put them in a difficult financial position, what with what has already happened with Bobby and all,” Daniel explained, dallying on the fringes of the truth.

“If we are going to keep the program,” the General cut in, “we need to make sure that Sanderson survives, one way or another,”

Garrison scoffed at the notion. “Are you suggesting a bailout?” Garrison asked, leaning on her laced hands, her elbows now straddling her salad bowl.

“No, no, nothing like that,” Slater said defensively ,”but … if a suitable suitor became available, well, I’d like to know if we can at least grease the wheels and make it happen,”

Garrison’s guard dropped a moment. The idea of market forces dealing with the problem rather than the burden falling on taxpayers was much more acceptable. Perhaps then, Slater and the General were not being so manipulative after all though she suspected that buried within the deep mire of lobbyists that skulked the halls of power there was some hidden interest in play.

“OK. When the cabinet meets tomorrow, Daniel, remind me to ask Ben about it, see what our options are,” Garrison said, referring to Benjamin Moss, the secretary for Commerce.

“Yes, and thank you,” Slater responded before casting eyes at the General who nodded subtly, his concerns for now placated.

Alice, then entered the room and approached apologetically. Garrison nodded seeing Alice had a message for her and the folded piece of paper exchanged hands. Alice then stepped back not knowing if she had to take a reply.


“Excuse me,” Garrison said as she opened the paper to read the message. Her eyes scanned line by line then with an exasperated sigh passed the paper to Slater to see.

Garrison seemed deep in thought, while Slater also read. General Gorham observed, noting their body language and concluded there was a problem.

“What is it?” the General asked with concern, pausing with his glass of water to his lips.

“Matthews. The alien Vel, he wasn’t there.” Slater said, glancing at a silent Garrison, wondering what her thoughts were.

Garrison leaned back in her chair, dumbfounded. She had been certain that Vel was pulling poor Doctor Matthews strings, turning an innocent lamb into a wolf, just as poor Kimberly Sanderson had been since childhood. But, it wasn’t so, it seemed.

“Well, that changes things,” Garrison said looked into the distance, resting her chin on her closed fists, supported by her elbows.

= = = = = = = = = = =

Neyra and Selena had returned to the hotel which served as their temporary base, and were later joined by Kozny who had not been able to attend Supergirl’s test on Matthews.

Kozny entered the room, Selena having checked who had knocked at the door using the spyhole before letting the detective in.

Kozny looked anxiously back at Selena after entering and giving a subtle acknowledgment to Neyra first. Kozny’s eyes narrowed slightly on seeing Neyra’s discoloured clothes but dismissed it before speaking to Selena.

“So .. what happened? The news is saying Vel wasn’t there!” Kozny began; she was as shocked as everyone else.

“Well, he wasn’t,” Selena answered, that sore point now starting to take its toll on her temper.

Kozny looked down for a moment trying to understand what it meant. She had discovered the link from the murder of the pilot Van Der Walt that led to Andy Matthews and in turn his sister, Molly. Molly had been the one to discover the crystals that had infected the Sandersons with the mind of Vel and the monster. Surely, surely, surely Molly must have been infected too?

Neyra watched as Kozny computed the significance of everything, no doubt also confused by the conclusion that she and Selena had already come to. They were missing something and that something had to be important.

Kozny’s head rose, “Didn’t Kara say anything to you about it? Surely she …”

Neyra scoffed, “Forget that, it was like we didn’t even exist”. Neyra’s annoyance was easy to see.

Kozny went to speak but you could see the mental paralysis that seemed to take hold of her. Kozny turned to look at Selena for inspiration but she also seemed lost in thought. It was disconcerting to see her this way, usually the cold calculating woman was the one to come up with a plan. This time the leader looked rudderless and it showed.

“I … I don’t understand where I went wrong …” Selena said quietly, her eyes looking distant, “… I was so sure …”

“Maybe we should back off. If Kara …” Lisa began, though she did not sound confident in what she was saying.

Neyra jumped in, “Back off? It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t be there but if you had seen what happened you would know. Something is WRONG, Lisa. Very wrong. Supergirl was off with us for some reason and as for Matthews ...”

“Matthews, that bitch nearly had her brother end us all …” Selena said wearily.

“But that only works if you think she was working like Bobby and Kimberly were and for that you needed Vel in the mix; but he’s NOT THERE” Neyra barked.

“Oh listen to the wolf howl. That tin star they gave you doesn’t make you right, you know?” Selena responded, she was still tired after her arduous time with Walker and Dakota at the army base.

“Hey!” Nera protested, “I am just saying, something has changed, okay? Everyone was sure that Vel was inside Matthews, but, just because Kara says he isn’t there now doesn’t mean he wasn’t bef….. oh …is… that it? Oh my god …”

“What?” Selena asked, her annoyance with Neyra overcome by her curiosity.

“What is it Neyra?” Kozny asked, closing in on where Neyra stood.

“If you had to bet before the attack on the President about how sure you were that Vel was in Matthews you would have bet the farm, right?” Neyra said to Selena.

“Yes, but …” Selena said before being cut off by Neyra.

“And Molly has been in custody since, right?” Neyra added.

“Well, that’s what the news said. She didn’t get a chance to escape from the scene,” Kozny confirmed.

“So the trap that killed those police men and the manifesto, it was already in place, ready to go before the attack. What if Vel used Dr Matthews and the Mech demonstration as a way to infect someone else?” Neyra said.

Kozny processed the idea and reached a horrible conclusion in an instant, “You mean, like the President? Jeezus, you mean the President could be compromised?”

“The Pres.. the President, I.. I hadn’t even thought of that!” Neyra added on, “No … I was thinking of Kara…” Neyra blurted.

“No, no, no, no, no …that can’t be true. Kimberly had her surrounded with the crystals on the oil rig and didn’t infect her then. We guessed then Kara was probably immune,” Selena said, though you could hear the doubt in her mind.

“Well, what about these Mech things the news has mentioned, could it be something to do with that? Selena, Supergirl was a stranger to me in that room, the more I think about it the more I think it wasn’t even her!” Neyra pressed.

Kozny reconstructed Neyra’s theory in her own mind’s eye like she would a suspect’s version of events, the bullshit detector in her brain not even making a peep of complaint.

“Selena, could she be right?” Kozny asked sincerely.

“I don’t know, we don’t have enough information…” mumbled Selena.

Neyra pressed her point, “You saw Matthews, she was positively begging for help. It’s because she’s been abandoned and left holding the bag. I don’t know how much she knows but … is it not possible she did something to Kara?”

Neyra, from her time in the bar realised that Matthews’ pleas were real. Sure, her memory loss might possibly separate her from what she had actually done … but ... if she was innocent then …

“If Vel has her, if the monster has Kara … we … oh god, we are all in danger…” Selena realised as she held her head in her hands, visibly distressed at the revelation.

Kozny while in thought had begun to realise the important gaps in their knowledge “We need to know what Molly did and find out how to undo it!”

“We? But …” Neyra began hoping that she had done enough already.

Kozny, hands on hips spelt out what Neyra’s possible future problems could be, “Listen, if Vel has Supergirl how long do you think it is going to be before shit starts getting out of hand? And when that happens who do you think they are going to come to? You could become a bargaining chip, or be held responsible for helping Supergirl… those IDs you have tie you to Supergirl’s team, and now with your deal with my Captain I am on the hook too!”

Neyra slumped onto the bed like a mortal blow had been struck. Kozny was right, she was Agent Nerys Jones of the hand-picked Supergirl task force. Getting rewound back as Neyra Thornton might not be possible for much longer if Supergirl began to become trouble.

“Well that’s great, I should have known this was a … dammit, dammit, dammit …” Neyra cursed.

“Neyra, you should think about backing out, before it’s too late…” Kozny advised Neyra before making eyes at Selena to back her up.

“Yes, Neyra, you’ve … you’ve done enough. You got me out, and Lucy is safe. The Kara we know would be proud of you for what you’ve achieved already, I promise,” Selena said, offering out an uncharacteristic olive branch.

Neyra took a breath as she realised she was about to make a critical choice. Should she choose safety and become Neyra Thornton again? It would be easy, make the call, hand back in her gear and go home and be safe with her love, Laura. Except Lisa would fight on while her love was in hospital in a coma. And Selena would no doubt fight to her dying breath to get her unlikely … soulmate… Kara back safe, assuming she really had been infected with a bad case of Vel or the monster that dogged him. And what if they needed Laura this time? Surely then Neyra would have to be involved again, but from the outside…

Why am I even thinking about this! I can’t quit now!


“Back out? But … there’s so much we have to do! Lisa, don’t you want to see the site of the attack? We need to speak to witnesses and find out exactly what happened. And what about Matthews? Shouldn’t we at least try and somehow get McGee to interview her? He might be able to see something in her head…” Neyra explained anxiously.

Kozny and Selena exchanged glances, jaws slightly open. They had been wallowing in doubt and doom and gloom, Neyra however had hit the nail squarely on the head. She had just made up a plan, and a good plan at that.

“Wow, well, that’s a good start I guess…” Kozny said looking to Selena whose eyes widened in surprise.

“Uh .. okay … we will go with that I guess. Ummm, I need to make a few calls. I think we are going to need some muscle on this one …” Selena said.

“Oh, who?” Neyra asked, suspicious of Selena’s methods.

“It’s okay, I think I know who she has in mind …” Kozny said, casting a glance at the red-head who seemed to be pulling herself together.

Kozny had seen the mercenaries that Selena had recruited during the test that Spydra had been put through. The good detective knew well the “muscle” Selena was capable of getting hold of.

Selena felt herself become renewed with a purpose to work on, “Let me do my thing, you get on and do yours, Neyra. It’s getting late, get your requests to your INFINITY contacts, see if you can make the plan work, and, Neyra. I think you better warn Laura … just in case,”

Neyra froze a moment, the thought of Laura getting taken unawares by whoever or whatever was masquerading as her idol, Supergirl, filling her with dread.

= = = = = = = = = =

Mike Loughlan looked out at the Manhattan evening skyline with its lit towers and twinkling lights. Above was low hanging cloud illuminated by the city beneath giving it a colourful glow. In Loughlan’s hand was a small glass of whisky that he took a respectful sip from before sighing.

So, this is how it ends. Not dead, but as a zombie he concluded referring to the corporation he managed, not himself.

The bankers that kept Sanderson Corporation alive had had enough, today was the last straw. They were going to seek a more permanent solution rather than hope the corporation would climb into good health while aided by their life support and that meant finding a buyer. A buyer they knew was already out there, a buyer already well stocked on cash that would help them buy enough stock to gain control. That corporation was non-other than Global Defence Solutions.

Loughlan had an odd feeling about GDS, there was something about their CEO, Liam Donovan which was hard to place. But something Loughlan did admire was their focus there. When they chose to do something they chose to do it well. Bobby at times had been a bit wishy-washy and had done things based more on sentiment than in a disciplined way. GDS wove whatever goal they were aiming for into their very culture and work ethic. While they played few games the games they played they won.

GDS, were more into defence contracts than anything else but they also managed other things like security services, prisons, and so on and often dark and sometimes mysterious operations. They normally stayed out of the limelight too, though there had been that embarrassing incident involving one of their latest concepts, an Auto-Prison. One hundred and, twenty, was it? One hundred and twenty women, all abducted and hidden in an Auto-Prison which was supposedly not even operational yet. No one at GDS knew about it apparently, though they were still going to pay compensation to the victims.

Mike’s only doubts were that GDS was a tight, compact and potent corporation and the Sanderson empire might be too big and sprawling to fit their style. However, those thoughts aside, change was coming and it looked like GDS would be filling the void the fleeing bankers were going to leave behind them. All GDS had to do was buy the shares, and if Bobby Sanderson’s appointed custodian of his business interests sold out to GDS then they would have more than enough to secure a controlling interest.

Interesting times … thought Loughlan. Taking another sip his drink was almost gone, just as Monday was soon to be.


= = = = = = = = =

It was dark and there were hushed whispers in the corridor which had high barred windows on the external wall, a white light outside casting shadows on the dimly lit figures inside. Four people walked free while a hooded figure in the middle of the group shuffled along uncertain of their steps in their personal darkness. The column of people stopped at the end of the corridor, their way blocked by barred gate and a soldier who had a red light torch clipped to his chest pocket.

“It’s us, let out us,” whispered a voice.

“You got thirty minutes before the sarge does his rounds, got it? You better be back here,” said the man beyond the gate.

“Thirty minutes, ok we got it now hurry, let us through”

The metal gateway groaned as it swung open and the five beyond moved on, the hooded person in the middle mumbling something as they moved.

“Go!” growled one of the men quietly to the figure.

The man who had opened the gate looked on anxiously as the other five people passed by then locked the gate behind them and stood his ground. As the others moved away and he found himself left alone he started to look at his watch, the sweep hand counting the seconds away.

“Shit!” he said anxiously wondering why had agreed to take part in whatever it was that was about to happen.

The group of five arrived at a doorway and quietly they moved inside save for the hooded figure’s mumbled protestations. The light was low as they shoved their victim into the center of the space they now found themselves in, a hand whipping away the hood. The lights came on and Molly Matthews found herself in the middle of a tiled room. One of the men grabbed Molly by the upper arm and ripped the tape gag from her mouth.

The men looked at her, then glanced between each other, it was time to do what they said they were going to do.

“What …. What do you want?” Molly stammered, edging back as she did so.

The youngest of the men felt the eyes of the other three on him. He hadn’t been the ringleader, he hadn’t even known what was about to happen until a few minutes before. No, the ringleader, his idol the corporal, stood behind him. He was the one who had looked out for him while they had been in Afghanistan and this was his gift to his young protégé.

“Tell her. Tell her what you’re here for,” the corporal barked.

“Yeah, tell the bitch” the other two men added on, looking to the private to make his move.

The young man shuffled on his feet like he was trying to psyche himself up for the occasion.

“TELL HER!” growled the Corporal, causing the young private to flinch.

The private’s fists pumped as he summonsed the courage inside him. It wasn’t that Matthews represented a challenge, but that the line he was about to cross was …

“Come on, do it, DO IT” barked the others, causing the private to break his glare from Matthews and look back at them.

“Shut up, shut up ….” The Private snapped before focusing his anger back onto Matthews.

“Listen, BITCH … all those men may have been nothing to you, but one of them was my brother. He was in the mortar team that you fucking cut down… like he was nothing! You piece of shit! You killed them all …” the young Private snarled.

Molly looked on wide eyed at the angry men, their motives now clear. Revenge.

“Do it Horst! DO IT .. DO IT” shouted the three men around the Private, his name Horst apparently.

Molly raised her hands defensively, “Please, believe me, whatever they said I did … I …didn’t do it … I … I swear … I …” Molly pleaded before …

THWACK

Horst’s blow swung across Matthews’ jaw sending her stumbling back, blood drawn from her lip. She recovered her balance, a hand discovering her wound and feeling the swelling already.

“Again! Come on, make her pay, man, for your brother!” the ringleader insisted.

“No, wait … I …” Molly said, a little more assertively only to get cut off.

THWACK

The next blow had dropped Matthews to her knees, her hands supporting herself on all fours. As her head dropped the blood from her lip dripped to the tiled floor before her eyes.

The voices around Matthews echoed off the tiled walls and her vision blurred a moment. She was bleeding she realised, a reaction that felt new, even alien to her. The jeers, the shouts, the goading, they all called for her to get up. So far she had been assaulted and threatened, abused and beaten, but now, at what should have been her lowest moment she felt she had to get up. She had to rise.

“Nghhh…” Molly groaned as she pushed herself from the tiles to her feet. Wiping her mouth with her sleeve she saw the angry young man backed by his three friends.

“AGAIN! Knock her down… you won’t get another shot,” the ringleader urged Horst again.

The young man sensed blood, Molly had killed his brother, everyone knew it, and what he was doing was right, wasn’t it?

With a clenched fist Horst lashed out once more but Molly partly dodged and partly blocked his blow, causing her blocking forearm to knock into the side of her head lightly.

“Come on, harder, bust her up!”

Horst tossed his head in annoyance at Molly’s emerging defiance. “Huwaa” grunted the Private as he launched another crossing swing at Molly who seemed to step through it and …

THWACK

Although not as strong as his Molly’s strike was clean and it seemed to catch Horst just right. Molly clutched her fist which felt pain and then saw Horst take a knee from her blow. He seemed shaken to the core having stepped right into the punch that stopped him in his tracks.

“Woooooahhhh” groaned the collection of men who first saw Horst go down and then turned their heads to look at Molly who seemed to be in shock at what she had done.

Molly looked at her hands, the ones that had suddenly begun to block Horst’s blows and had then punched him down. How had she done that? Where had she learned to fight?

“Fuck her up!” the ringleader grunted and the other two men closed in with him.

The punches rained in and Molly blocked one, then another and got a shot off at one man sending him down. But then a shot landed on Molly putting her back to the tiled wall and there was no coming back. She blocked a few more punches but some got through and as she struck another man things slowly faded to black as she was increasingly overwhelmed …

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Supergirl looked down, seeing the island beneath her which was bathed in darkness and descended. Landing softly she continued to walk ahead in one seamless transition then stopped. She was at the top of a rocky slope which ran steeply down to where the sea sloshed lazily at the shore. Supergirl dropped to sit down, elegantly wrapping her cloak around her to one side as she made contact with the ground and sighed as she drew up her knees. Her gaze looked westward across the open sea towards what was supposedly home, America. That way was bathed in the impending midnight darkness while behind her she sensed just a hint of the sun which was about to rise.

“Why did I do that? I am Supergirl! I am a good person. I .. I don’t hurt people… I help them!” Supergirl said to herself, picking up a rock and tossing firmly out into the water.

A rock thrown from there by most mortals would have taken a few seconds to reach the sea but her angry throw made the journey last a lot less.

PLOP – the small rock made a splash as it struck the water though the waves overcame any hint of a ripple she might have caused.

“I need to stop hiding from my problems…” Supergirl continued as she picked up another rock, this one more like a thick oddly misshapen disc.

Bitterly Supergirl threw the second rock, this time putting some spin on it and causing it to skip and jump across the water a little before it too was consumed by the waves.

“I need … I need to see Molly. What did she DO to me?” angrily Supergirl lurched up into a hover and arced over to a large boulder. As she was about to put her hands onto it she froze in her tracks, her expression becoming blank.

Supergirl clenched her jaw, turning her head this way then that, her neck tense like she was resisting against herself and then …

“Raaaah ….. finally …” Supergirl growled, “I have control …”

Supergirl rotated her head on her neck before looking down at her powerful hands.

“Finally, it is MINE! I have another BODY!” Supergirl said as she looked over herself before taking in a deep breath through her nose, drawing in the salty sea air and savouring the smell, savouring the sensation of air in her lungs, savouring … freedom.

“Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” Supergirl exhaled with pleasure.

Not entirely all yours, I am here too. And Molly is not gone, just … disconnected

Supergirl’s hands rose to her head, resting on her ears, her angry face understanding the truth. “YOU!”

Of course. You don’t think I would let you get full control of this body, do you?

“You cannot stop me VEL. I own you and I own this pitiful human mind too!” Supergirl ranted as she began to pace the clifftop, back and forth, fists clenched, biceps taught.

When she finds out she is actually Molly, when she finds out how you have deceived her, even sacrificed her brother …

“She won’t figure it out! That imprint of her true ID may have spilled onto that card she manifested but she couldn’t see the truth. And besides she was WILLING to become Supergirl, regardless of the cost. All she could see was the genius mind you offered … she wanted YOU …” Supergirl bellowed.

It was YOU who twisted her. She had but a seed of envy for Supergirl and you twisted it, made it burn like ranging jealousy inside her mind until … she gave you what you wanted, a route into Supergirl’s body!


Supergirl clutched her head as she responded, “Don’t play the innocent, Vel! You too have hungered for control of a body again! I gave you most of Bobby’s mind and together did we not do well? Bobby was nothing without you and Kimberly …. how sweet were her kills!” Supergirl said aloud to the voice in her head.

You never let me have full control, I was a mere whisper in his thoughts. What are you? Where did you come from?

“SILENCE..” hissed Supergirl angrily, cocking her head and closing her eyes, focusing on the voice in her head that defied her.

Nghhhhhhh …… nghhhhhh…. stop … please ….

Supergirl’s eyes opened and she glared menacingly as she seemingly spoke to herself, pacing back and forth angrily, “At the moment my plan is in danger of failure. With our disorientation after the pulse we let Molly have too much free reign. And look how badly she failed! The dog is as good as dead and if the woman in the mountain pass speaks, the world will know what Supergirl has done! Even that weak willed boy, DALE could ruin us! I can hide the truth from Molly but not this pitiful world! No, I need to take steps to contain this. Molly must continue to think she is Supergirl and the world must think that all is well!”


Nghhhh …what … are …you …. going to … do…..
“I will make Supergirl a hero again, then nobody will want to listen to the painful truth! They will forget the dog, they will forget the fire, and no one will care what poor weak defenceless Dale will say. Even her chosen ones will fail to convince the world anything is amiss!” hissed Supergirl with a sneer.


Chosen ones? … Hnghhhhh who do you mean ?

“Don’t pretend you did not see them. The Eyes! She should have been with the Sword when Andrew … that failure of a brother was to kill them! But the Eyes are alive! And if she is alive the Sword must be too! And today we have finally seen their Heart. My enemies multiply!”

Ha …. Ha …. For all my genius you have failed to kill them … then you are doomed …

“Silence, WORM. I will deal with THEM. But first I will make the world trust Supergirl before they turn against her. I still need time for Donovan and Loughlan to unite … I need time for them to build my army!” Supergirl growled.

The humans … not fools …they … will figure out … nghh…what you have done! And what if Supergirl’s mind remembers!

Supergirl’s eyes flared a moment in anger, “Oh no they won’t, and as for Supergirl, we made sure the encoding process wrote a block on her memory during the quantum transfer. Even if she does remember … no one will believe her! She is TRAPPED and inside a powerless human body and with the face of a self-confessed murderer! No… the next step will put us firmly back on track!”


What … what are you going to do?

“Oh you know what I intend to do! ” Supergirl scoffed as she looked left to right along the flank of the cliff.

Oh no … you … you mustn’t … Molly … Molly can’t …fix that …thousand will die

“Then you best guide her when I let her awaken. Besides, she does not need to save everyone, she merely needs to be seen to play her part. And do I not keep my word? Molly wanted to be Supergirl and do what it is she does. And I so I shall set her a problem worthy of her powers and let her live the heroine’s life!” Supergirl said coldly as she sized up the task ahead.

No … please … don’t do it!

Supergirl smiled wickedly as she heard the voice in her head, “But the perfect world we will build later, ruled with this body and your genius mind will all be for the greater good …”

Supergirl looked along the ridge line and sized up what she had to do. From a nearby town where the inhabitants and holidaymakers slept a bright but small point of light ignited before it could be seen passing back and forth on the rocky slope. Supergirl dashed one way then the next, her laser eyes cutting into the ground as she weakened the rock until it began to turn liquid and then…

There was a rumbling, an epic rumbling as hundreds of thousands of tons of soil and rock began to slip from the side of the island into the sea. The movement at first was slow but then there was momentum and quickly the slab fell, the ocean welling up ahead of the descending land. Supergirl watched as a dome of water appeared only for it to seemingly dissipate in a crescent shape heading to the west. Then the event was over with nothing more to see than the sploshing of loose rocks as they continued to fall into the water… for now at least.

“There! This mere sheep Molly still thinks she is Supergirl … when I let her wake you can silently guide her in putting this right!” Supergirl said aloud looking at the reshaped profile of the land.

But ..what have you done!

“WE have done, fool! WE! In seven hours the tsunami triggered here will strike … just as your genius knows it will! Unless Molly saves them the people of New York will drown!”

THE END

(591)
My avatar courtesy of https://www.deviantart.com/sleepy-comics

My current story is Supergirl V Bane


This is all the stuff I've done here but don't tell anyone about this!
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DrDominator9
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Sorry it took so long to get to this chapter. I read it ages ago but never commented on its incredible quality and subterfuge and character development. I... uhmmm… had to wash my hair you see, and, well, then I got busy and forgot.

People should read this story if they're interested in a brilliantly conceived Supergirl drama.
Follow this link to descriptions of my stories and easy links to them:

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DPrince
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Abductorenmadrid,
do I like your Broker series. A great story with SG as the super and many other, totally different characters with each their own interesting personalities. I love it. Referring to the main actress as “the blonde” is genius. All the characters having a sling for lesbian and more so action is a catch. The suspense is really tense and the way the different plots enfold keeps me captivated all the time.
The blonde and Selena are an interesting couple. Sometimes I was thinking Selena deserves one of her own treatments. Thinking a nasty villainess would show up and torture her would be nice. And a rescue by SG would make everything all right. The scene you came up with was even better. And her torturer being her savior (along with Neyra) was all the better.
Hope to see more from these series, and thanks for sharing!
D.
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