LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 11.1
“Well, damn,” Kara couldn’t help but say as she read the information on the tablet.
She took a minute or two to read about the other genomorphs and felt sick to her stomach. She too wanted to throw the device away, the only thing stopping her was the fact its Kryptonian metal would probably break through the wall and kill someone, or at least alert the building to her presence.
The entire thing just hit far too close to her previous experiences at the hands of the Psions for comfort. It seems like Cadmus didn’t just create the genomorphs from nothing or from a single genetic sample from an unknown race.
During Cadmus creation, the U.S. government saw some merit to Luthor’s goals and quietly supported the project in exchange for data on the emerging metahuman threat.
The Genomorphs were actually created by using DNA from previous experimental subjects, humans who were experimented on by Cadmus in one of its smaller branch laboratories until they either escaped or died. The scientists had taken the DNA samples with the most promising powers and created the Genomorphs from them.
The current Genomorph types weren’t the only ones created, just the only ones stable and useful enough to be mass produced.
Kara didn’t recognize most of the names, but one of the subjects drew her attention, it seems like Dubbilex himself was created by using the DNA from Ace in the hopes of replicating her reality altering powers.
They were greatly disappointed, but not surprised, when he only showed signs of having her telekinesis.
It only left Kara angrier, she had been willing to give the Justice League a chance but damn, for them to have missed the Genomorphs even after Batman himself had shut down Cadmus human experimentations… how could they have fucked up so badly?
Later… she could deal with that later, now she had to focus on getting Match and Roy out of here, preferably, but not necessarily without anyone noticing it. “Alright, do you need my help taking over?”
“Depends,” Dubbilex said in thought. “How exactly are you planning to take over? We could easily take over the building if we worked together and there are enough G-gnomes to mind control every employee but, either way, we would quickly be found out if we did so.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of just… nudging the researchers away from anything we didn’t want them to do, let them work on things we want while we gather information on their misdeeds,” Kara confessed, she may have been a Kryptonian, but she wasn’t really a mastermind or criminal genius. “Someone will still find out but, hopefully, when they finally realize there is something wrong, we will have enough information to get them all in jail… and it would buy me enough time to find a safe place for the genomorphs.”
Kara didn’t think she could fool The Light indefinitely, but she hoped they could do it long enough to be able to prove their identities to the Justice League and, more importantly, a court of law.
Worst case scenario, she’d still get some work done by Cadmus employees and Luthor would be paying for it.
It wasn’t exactly a lawful thing to do, but Kara had long decided she cared more for what was right than for the law and she didn’t really think her cousin would mind too much.
After all, he had been flying around and fighting crime long before the Justice League formed and had a UN charter. Vigilantism wasn’t exactly legal either, as far as she knew.
“We can definitely do something like that,” the leader of the Genomorphs said. “Usually, messing with someone’s mind doesn’t sit that well with me but, for those people, I don’t think I’ll have any problems.”
“Good, I’ll make sure to alter their electronic communications while you make sure they just… forget to do anything too unethical, hopefully we get a few months without detection.”
“Likely,” Dubbilex nodded while considering the people he… worked for. “We have been their servants for so long the scientists have become used to just ignoring us, nudging them away from noticing our activities will be easy if you can make sure we aren’t caught on camera.”
Kara wasn’t exactly a programming genius. Her education had been more focused on producing hardware not software, but adapting the program she was using to delete her image so it would also include a few G-gnomes was easy to do.
“I can make it so no security camera notices any G-gnome where he isn’t supposed to be but, if you want to do something big, you’re gonna have to find a blind spot or warn me beforehand,” then she pulled out a small casing and wrote her number on it. “If you need anything just use one of the employees phones to call that number. Also, inside the casing, there’s a panic button, press it if you need immediate help.”
“Thank you,” Dubbilex bowed his head, his horns pointing her way. “This means a lot to us.”
“It’s nothing, I’m really sorry my cousin didn’t do this earlier.”
With their deal sealed Kara decided it was time to deal with the other problems in the building.
With access to Luthor’s own secret server, she was able to find Match and Roy’s locations with no trouble and, with Dubbilex and the G-gnomes, it was laughingly easy to traverse the building. She only had to modify the elevator data to indicate it wasn’t moving and then walk towards it as if she owned the place. Right now, she kinda did.
It was incredibly easy for Dubbilex or any G-gnome to keep the human workers from even noticing her passage.
As they descended towards the storage area where Match was kept, Kara read about his situation.
It seemed like the complexity of Kryptonian DNA made his body really unstable. Not only did it have to be kept frozen in stasis to avoid further deterioration, it also had to be constantly fed with solar radiation to stop Match from dying.
Kara wasn’t specialized in biology and she really didn’t know if the Fortress had a solution for his problem. Krypton itself didn’t deal very much with clones, much less failed Kryptonian clones made with Genomorph DNA as glue.
Although, Krypton scientists had been masters of biological, and even DNA manipulation, so there may be information about it on the Fortress.
She’d have to see what could be done, but there was a real chance she’d need to find someone trustworthy to help her solve it.
“It’s really here,” Dubbilex commented as the secret door opened revealing hundreds of stasis pods with failed experiments inside them.
“You didn’t believe me?”
“You already proved how easy it was to infiltrate Cadmus computer systems,” the Genomorph confessed with a blush. “It was entirely possible everything I read was something you put there.”
Well… he wasn’t wrong.
Kara shook her head and quickly located both Roy Harper and Match’s stasis pods in her tablet. Both were locked in place, but could be moved with the use of a battery to temporarily power their systems, she went towards Match’s first.
Despite being created through different methods, Match looked exactly like Kon-El, it made Kara wonder if that was how Kal-El had looked at their apparent age.
Mental note, make sure to ask for some photos from the Kents.
She made sure everything was in order with Match’s pod, but didn’t deactivate it. She remembered how the boy had reacted in the show and, despite her strength, she didn’t know if she could subdue him without causing too much damage.
Kara stood there looking at the pod for a long time, her head twisting from side to side as she scratched at her chin in thought; Dubbilex eventually approached her side and asked. “Is something wrong?”
“Hmmm… I may have been a little hasty coming here,” she confessed with some shame. She had just been staring at the clone with a single thought going through her mind, how was she going to bring the giant pod to the fortress? “I was thinking who I could call that wouldn’t ask questions about a giant pod with a person inside and help me move it. Do you know if Wonder Woman has an invisible jet?”
“I… do not?”
Kara sighed. Well, it wasn’t like she couldn’t carry it there with her own arms but, well, flying around with an almost car sized pod above her head would be incredibly awkward.
Maybe she could call Batman? She could ask for help after she shouted at him about missing all this just a day ago. The only problem was that she still wasn’t very familiar with the caped crusader of this universe.
Would he keep it a secret? Or would he try to take over the operation in the name of the League? Did she care if he tried?
Kara was surprised to discover the answer was no, no she did not. He could try all he wanted, she wouldn’t let him.
In her mind, she had been making excuses for the way the League had just… missed an entire race of slaves right in the middle of the U.S but, after meeting and talking with Dubbilex, she could no longer pretend they hadn’t royally screwed up.
Deciding to make a decision later, she went to check on Roy’s own pod, even frozen as he was, the boy had a scared look on his face, he looked far too young to be captured by villains and his missing arm tugged at Kara’s own strings.
She briefly glanced down at her own prosthetic and swore she’d grow him a new arm as soon as the Fortress cloning facility was ready. He wouldn’t need to get a prosthetic from Luthor with who knew how many backdoors inside.
Then she glanced between the boy and Dubbilex and had a thought that brought a new smile to her face, it wasn’t a very nice smile. “Say, just how good of a telepath are you?”