LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 33.2
Kara’s eye followed the Tamaranean down the building until Kara managed to snap out of it and cut off her X-Ray vision.
Rao, was she really going to be doing this? There was a reason Kara had avoided even thinking about Kori before, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t attracted to the girl.
No, Kara had been avoiding thinking about their relationship because knew she wasn’t in a very healthy place after her ordeals. Her life was a mess, she still hadn’t dealt with her second set of memories and, worse, she was getting involved with superhero stuff. Red Arrow’s death was proof of just how dangerous that was.
In the comics, superheroes usually ended up surviving but, even there, nobody could accuse them of living very happy, or very safe, lives, and Kara wasn’t in a comic book.
Feeling frustrated, Kara punched the wall using far more strength than she meant to, causing a noise like an explosion. “Oh crap!”
Her fist punched all the way through the wall and must have hit something important. For a second, the entire apartment shook, the lights blinked and the TV actually fell off the wall.
Flashing towards it, Kara caught the device before it could hit the ground and released a breath of relief. Looking around the room, she thanked Rao that there was nobody else to see her blunder.
“Meow!” Dexter complained. Climbing back on the arm of the sofa, the cat glared at her with large and judgmental eyes before shaking himself and starting to lick his disheveled fur back into place, his tail puffed up like a feather duster.
“Shut up, don’t judge me!”
Narrowing his pupils, Dexter turned his back to her, lifted his butt in an imperious way and walked away to hide in Kori’s room.
Putting the TV back into place, Kara considered the hole in the wall. It seemed she had actually hit some kind of support structure, but it hadn’t been with her full strength, so there was no real damage.
Releasing a groan, she grabbed her computer and started tapping away. A few minutes of programming later, her Fog inspired drones floated towards the hole and filled it up before changing colors to perfectly mimic the rest of the apartment. “There, nobody will ever know.”
Ugh, she knew she had to find a new home soon, there was no way people didn’t know there was something strange about her building by this point, not after everything that had happened.
In truth, she was supposed to have found a new place weeks ago, she just didn’t have the time before. Maybe she should take the chance to apartment hunt with Kori this week.
And now she was thinking about Kori again, great.
Taking a cold shower, Kara prepared herself a sandwich and threw herself on the sofa. Twenty minutes later; Dexter appeared again, jumping on top of her chest to steal some of her heat.
With one hand caressing her cat’s fur, Kara grabbed her tablet with the other and spent the morning lazing about on her device.
First, Kara sent a message towards Detective Chimp asking him to look into Poison Ivy’s location, then she released a few bots on the internet to look for any clue about the villainess, finally, Kara spent the rest of the morning playing around with designing new devices. Turns out there were a surprising number of ways to create a laser pistol even with Earth’s technology, some were even non-lethal.
From blinding to just dazing someone, from making them explode from thermal energy to playing with Dexter, laser weapons are very versatile, if you know how to build them.
Maybe she could incorporate them with her new solar panels. With her tech, it would make for a good defensive option, capable of shooting down pesky alien invaders and the inevitable eventual villain doomsday satellite or two. Nobody had to know she had the option unless she was forced to use it.
Dismissing her thoughts for later, Kara lifted Dexter away and put him back down on the sofa before changing clothes, she had promised to check in with Guardian about the CADMUS situation and the man wanted to talk with her in person.
Taking the Zeta-Tube, Kara arrived in an underground chamber below her factory. She couldn’t wait to replace the Zeta-Tube with her own teleportation tech but, until then, it was better than just flying around alone.
“Miss Danvers!” An average looking man called out as he deactivated the defensive turrets from another room. He looked like he was just behind a glass window, but Kara knew that, if she tried to attack it, things wouldn’t end well for her.
Kara lifted an eyebrow. She didn’t know Dubbilex had allowed humans on the underground facilities. “And you are?”
“Jonathan Banks, Miss Danvers. The boss has me guarding the Zeta-Tube.” The young man bowed towards her.
“Dubbilex himself gave the order? He’s still supposed to be resting.” Kara grumbled, and then sighed. The irony of her statement wasn’t completely lost on her. “Well, keep up the good work.”
Laying a hand against the door, she waited for the several identity checks to finish before the door slid open, revealing a long hallway. Stepping inside, she felt the door snap closed behind her and hurried towards the other side before the enclosed space started bothering her.
A second check and the other door opened as well, finally letting Kara out into the Genomorphs’s underground facility.
Finding Dubbilex still in his wheelchair and talking with Guardian had Kara pause. She considered both men, but decided that she couldn’t blame him for getting immediately involved with organizing things, not when he was the current leader for their entire race.
“Dubbilex, Guardian, I take it everything is in order?” She greeted them as she walked into the room.
“Good evening Miss Danvers.” Dubbilex nodded back.
“Evening Miss. Ah, I’d really prefer you just called me James.” Guardian said, scratching at his newly grown beard. “I’m giving up the Guardian persona; it doesn’t have very much to do with me.”
“Are you retiring from hero work completely?”
“Well, I still plan to act as chief of security here, but I’m not using my costume anymore.” The redhead answered and stepped away from the desk, allowing Kara to sit down on the comfortable chair there.
“Speaking of security, what’s this about normal humans down here?” She tested the chair a little before fully concentrating on both of them again.
“Don’t worry, the G-Gnomes are keeping an eye on everything, but some of the CADMUS personnel decided to stay with us and we are putting them to good use however we can.” Dubbilex informed her, then considered things. “Also, I should warn you that a surprising number of humans in this city have grown close to some of us, and they’re proving themselves trustworthy, some of us have already revealed ourselves.”
Putting a hand over her regenerating eye, Kara sighed. “I guess it was really too much to ask for an entire race to remain hidden.”
“Do you prefer we remain isolated? That we keep underground and permanently under illusions?”
“No, no, it’s fine, as long as you continue to keep any recordings from getting out and are careful.” Kara waved his accusations away. “I’ll just have to be less involved with this facility so I can do a Lex Luthor and plausibly deny what happens here.”
Truth be told, she would have preferred they did remain isolated and under illusion, at least for a little longer, a year or so. But Kara couldn’t begrudge them, and she could work with it.
It would still be incredibly suspicious if someone found out but, with the Wayne contract, she was already looking to open a second factory, and an office in Metropolis. If things went wrong, she could just pretend she was being used. ‘Oh no, they had a telepath, I didn’t even know what was going on, I’m just a young human girl alone in the world.’
Shaking her head, Kara refocused. “So, how are we dealing with the whole CADMUS thing?”
“Well, you told us you were willing to blow the whole CADMUS debacle open once Luthor found out about it, so we told the scientists everything that was going on and offered them jobs.” James answered, sitting down on his own chair at the other side of Kara’s desk. “Once I explained that the other option wasn’t death, most of them chose to leave, but a few stayed with us.”
“I take it those who left have no idea where this is?”
“No.” Dubbilex shook his head. “Although I wasn’t here, they were under the G-Gnome’s illusions the whole time. They don’t even know what the facilities truly look like, much less where it is located.”
“Good, so why exactly did I need to be here?” Kara asked, she had been perfectly willing to leave things in Guardian's hands and monitor from home for a few days.
“One of the remaining scientists, Doctor Amanda Spencer, had a breakthrough on the treatment of the Genomorphs.” Dubbilex started, looking both happy and a little uncertain. “It will require constant treatment, but she has found a way to drastically slow down Genomorph deterioration.”
“Do you need more funding? I told you I’d help however I can.” Kara leaned forward, happy for her friend.
“We do require some equipment, but I called you here to discuss our shared relative.” Dubbilex leaned forward, then grimaced as something pulled at his wounded side. “Kon-El has only a small amount of Genomorph DNA, and his Kryptonian heritage is helping to keep him healthy, but the treatment should still be able to improve his situation.”
Well, now Kara was really interested. Leaning forward, she was about to continue questioning them when she realized something and couldn’t help making a disgusted face. “Did you say her name was Amanda Spencer? Dr. Desmond’s assistant, that Amanda Spencer?”
“…Yes.” James said, leaning away from her with a worried face.
“The same genetic scientist that was part of Project Kr, happily played with my cousin’s DNA without his consent, or any signs of professional ethics, in order to create Kon-El?” Kara felt her fingers digging into the table, carving into the wood as if it were butter.
“Miss Kara…” Dubbilex started to say, but Kara lifted a hand, interrupting him.
Slowly leaning back on her chair, she took a few deep breaths, noticing the small spots of red starting to gather on her vision and doing her best to calm herself.
Amanda Spencer wasn’t a Psion; she probably wasn’t an amoral woman that actually enjoyed causing pain and doing invasive experiments on people without applying anesthetics either, just one that didn’t think through her actions.
Rao, Kara could understand getting lost into her own experimentation and not actually stopping to think about what exactly she was doing. She didn’t know if she could forgive it, but she could understand.
“You… trust this scientist? Even after what she did?” She asked after she had finally calmed down enough.
“Doctor Spencer is not the most attentive, or the most caring, but she has been attempting to make amends since Kon-El escaped and we took over.” The Genomorphs explained, being careful not to trigger her again.
Closing her eye, Kara thought about Kon and, more than him, she also thought about Match still resting in a pod at the Fortress. “Fine, but I want to talk with the woman first.”
