Instead of answering, J’onn whirled on Alex. “What is your sister thinking? Does she have any idea what she’s done?”
Alex didn’t as much as flinch under his relentless glare. She’d been on the receiving end of his outbursts more than a few times, and she knew they never ended in harm to her. Coffee mugs, on the other hand . . .
“She’s just protecting the supercitizens from themselves,” Alex told him.
“And exposing them to all of National City. Possibly the world!” J’onn pointed to the news broadcast. “The DEO is about secrecy and security. What part of that has Supergirl forgotten?” J’onn chucked the remains of his coffee mug into a trash can.
Winn cleared his throat. “Not to be the guy who disagrees with his boss, but pretty much everyone in National City already knows.” His fingers flew across the keyboard, and in minutes the video wall was flooded with Tweets, Instas, and other social media posts that mentioned supercitizen sightings. “If you look at the time stamps, these are all from before Supergirl’s speech.”
Alex studied J’onn, whose forehead was still wrinkled into peaks and valleys. “That’s not the only thing bothering you about this, is it?”
J’onn held up his index finger. “I said the DEO is about secrecy, but I also said it’s about security.” He lifted a second finger, and Alex nodded.
“And Supergirl is concerned about the security of everyone in National City,” she said. “That’s why she asked the supercitizens to stand down.”
J’onn shook his head. “She didn’t ask them, Alex.” He pointed to the floor. “She drew a line in the sand and dared them to cross it.”
“But they won’t cross it,” said Alex.
J’onn scoffed. “Some of them won’t. What about those who do?”
Alex shrugged. “We’ll take care of them.”
J’onn’s expression didn’t lighten. “I’m going to check on James and Mon-El. If we can find an antidote for this nightmare, maybe we won’t have to worry about the fallout from it.”
He stormed off toward the infirmary, where James and Mon-El were being examined. Or rather, James and a Japanese man who claimed to be Mon-El. When the two had arrived at the DEO, James had told everyone he and Mon-El had gotten new powers like the supercitizens. James then asked to borrow two quarters he could see in Winn’s closed desk drawer. The Japanese man with James had lifted the snack machine over his head and shaken a bag of chips free.
He definitely acted like Mon-El, at least.
With an exasperated sigh, Alex followed J’onn into the infirmary, where James was reading an eye chart from across the room . . . while facing the opposite direction.
“Amazing.” The physician, Dr. Hoshi, jotted a note. “How about with your eyes closed?”
James did as she asked and read the eye chart again, this time from the bottom to the top.
“Are we sure he doesn’t just have the thing memorized?” Alex asked with a smirk.
James grinned. “Don’t believe me? You’ve got a roll of breath mints in your pocket,” he said, squinting at Alex’s jacket. “Wintergreen.”
Alex crossed her arms over herself and frowned. “Stop that.”
“How’s the DNA analysis going?” J’onn asked Dr. Hoshi.
“It’s taking longer than we’d hoped,” she confessed. “We know nearsightedness and color blindness have associations with certain chromosomes. But supersight that includes the ability to see through objects, to see things behind your head, and in total darkness?” Dr. Hoshi shook her head. “That’s unprecedented.”
“You can see in the dark?” Alex asked James. “That’s pretty cool.”
From an examination table in the corner, Mon-El groaned. “Can we stop talking about him for one second and focus on me?”
Everyone turned their attention to the grumpy Daxamite in the Japanese scientist’s body.
“How much longer am I going to be like this?” he asked.
Dr. Hoshi sighed. “That’s harder to tell than with Mr. Olsen. I can’t even get a needle into your skin to pull a blood sample.” She paused and wrinkled her forehead. “Not that I’m entirely sure I can splice alien DNA. But I’ll see if I can find something to penetrate your skin.”
“At least you still sound like yourself,” Alex told a pouting Mon-El as Dr. Hoshi left the room. “If we turned out the lights, we wouldn’t even know you’d changed.”
“Well, I would,” James said with a chuckle.
Alex smacked his arm. “Not helping.”
“So James has supersight,” said J’onn. “And Mon-El can change his appearance.” He looked from one of them to the other. “Do either of you know how this happened?”
“I think this might have something to do with it.” James pulled a thimble-sized jar from his pocket, the contents of which clinked against the glass container.
J’onn took it from him and held it up to the light.
Inside the jar was a scrap of metal that looked like iron, but with a reddish tint.
“We found it at Dr. Wanabi’s apartment,” said James. “Along with that.” He nodded toward a spiral-bound notebook on a side table.
J’onn put the jar on the table and glanced at the notebook. “It’s in Japanese.”
Alex pressed the intercom button. “Winn, can you come to the infirmary?”
“Be right there!” he responded.
Alex picked up the jar containing the metal. “So what do we think this is? Some form of red kryptonite?” she asked.
“Nope. I’d definitely feel it,” said a voice from the doorway.
Supergirl.
Alex pressed her lips together and shot J’onn a warning look, but he was already advancing on the Girl of Steel.
“I am not happy about that little TV stunt you pulled,” he growled. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
“Yes, I’ve stopped a bunch of power-happy people from destroying the city.” Supergirl held up the bag of Chocos. “Cookie?”
“I’ll take one!” Mon-El hopped off his examination table. “How was your day, babe?” He leaned in to kiss Supergirl, and Alex cringed.
Because Mon-El had apparently forgotten he looked like someone else.
“Whoa!” Supergirl ducked out of his reach. “Back off, dude. I have a boyfriend.”
Mon-El’s forehead wrinkled. “Another boyfriend? First the guy at Noonan’s, now this? How many other men are you dating?”
Alex cleared her throat. “Mon-El?” She held up a steel surgical tray so he could see his reflection.
“Oh, right.” He chuckled. “I keep forgetting.”
Supergirl, who’d been clutching the bag of Chocos like a protective shield, let it fall to the floor. “You’re Mon-El? My Mon-El?”
He held his arms open. “In the flesh! So to speak.”
“What . . . happened?” Supergirl touched his cheeks with both hands.
“James and I visited Shady Oaks apartments, and we got hit by some weird substance. Probably the same thing that gave the residents superpowers,” said Mon-El.
Alex shook the jar containing the red metal. “We think it was this.”
Supergirl looked from Mon-El to James. “You were both affected? James, what’s your superpower?”
James glanced at the wall beside Supergirl. “Winn’s about to walk through that door.”
He pointed to the infirmary entrance, and a second later, Winn entered. Supergirl stared, openmouthed, and Winn froze.
“What? Do I have something on my face?” He reached up and wiped his nose.
Supergirl turned to James. “You have X-ray vision, like me?”
“X-ray vision, exceptionally enhanced peripheral vision, night vision.” He started ticking them off on his fingers.
Mon-El made a scoffing sound. “Yeah, but he can’t alter his appearance. That takes real talent.” He popped his collar.
Supergirl shook her head. “How—”
“Excuse me!” J’onn spoke up, frowning. “We’re
not done discussing that broadcast you made,” he told Supergirl.
For the second time that night, Alex had to endure a speech about the many ways her sister had screwed up. The longer J’onn spoke, the tighter Supergirl crossed her arms. If he was trying to convince Supergirl she was wrong, it wasn’t working.
“First of all,” Supergirl said when he’d finally finished, “it’s too late to change what I did. Unless you want me to, I don’t know, fly around the Earth a bunch and reverse time.”
Winn clucked his tongue. “Yeahhh. I don’t think that would actually work.”
“Second of all,” Supergirl ignored Winn, “everyone was bound to find out about the supercitizens. We live in an age where everything’s on the Internet .”
“Plus, you told every media outlet during the Reyes interview,” Winn said out of the corner of his mouth.
This time Supergirl fixed him with a look before continuing. “And I didn’t challenge the supercitizens. If they feel like they’ve got something to prove, it’s not because of me.”
“Of course it’s because of you!” J’onn exclaimed. “You’re their idol! They want to be you. I see little kids running around wearing capes all the time.”
“Then if they really look up to me, they’ll listen.” Supergirl gave a firm nod.
Mon-El put a hand on Supergirl’s shoulder. “I think I understand what she’s trying to say.”
But nobody was paying attention to Mon-El’s interpretation of Supergirl’s words. They were all too busy staring at him.
As Mon-El spoke, his appearance as Dr. Wanabi changed. He grew several inches, and his torso and face slimmed down. Instead of short, dark hair, he now had a mane of long blond hair that cascaded around his shoulders—shoulders covered by a red cape. His brown eyes brightened and turned blue, and when he pointed to himself, he pointed to a symbol of the House of El stamped on his chest.
Mon-El still sounded like himself but now looked exactly like Supergirl.
The real Supergirl, who’d been glowering at J’onn, was the next to last to notice, and when she glanced at Mon-El, she jumped.
“Jeez! What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m being supportive of my girlfriend,” he said, taking in all the awestruck faces around him. “Was that wrong?”
In answer, Alex held up the steel tray again, and Mon-El did a double take at his reflection.
“Oh, crap,” he said.
Winn cleared his throat. “You know, they say after a while couples start to resemble each other.”
James hid a smile. “You guys just took it to the next level.”
The two Supergirls faced each other.
“I swear I didn’t do this on purpose,” said Mon-El. “I just wanted to connect with you.”
Supergirl tilted her head to one side and grinned at him. “Really?”
“Well, yeah,” he said, taking her hands.
J’onn massaged his forehead. “This is deeply disturbing.”
While the Supergirls made googly eyes at each other, Alex mulled over Mon-El’s words and thought back to the supercitizens the DEO had identified so far.
Mon-El had taken on Supergirl’s appearance to connect with her, and lately he’d been interested in learning more about humans so he could understand them.
“Focus!” Alex blurted.
Everyone looked at her.
“Focus on what?” asked Supergirl.
Alex shook her head. “That’s why the supercitizens get the powers they do. We almost had it right earlier today. It’s whatever they’re focused on, whatever they’re passionate about.”
“So James is focused on seeing?” asked Winn.
Now everyone looked at James.
He ran a hand over his shaved scalp and tucked his chin. “When Mon-El and I went to Shady Oaks apartments, he noticed things I didn’t—things I wished I’d seen.” He chuckled. “I guess I must have been more focused on it than I thought.”
“Wait. So you got your power because you were jealous of me?” Mon-El asked with a grin.
James gave him a withering look. “Don’t read too much into it.”
J’onn paced the room. “So we know who gets powers, why they get them, and where they get them.” He indicated the jar of red metal Alex was holding. “But we don’t know how they get them.”
“Or when they’ll lose them,” said Supergirl.
“Or why you called me in here,” added Winn, waving a hand.
Alex smacked herself on the forehead. “Right! Sorry, Winn. James and Mon-El found a notebook in Dr. Wanabi’s apartment.” She nodded to J’onn, who handed it to Winn. “Can you use translation software to find out what it says?”
“Absolutely.” Winn took his phone from his back pocket and snapped a picture of the first page. He tapped a few buttons on the screen and waited. “It looks like scientific formulas.” Winn’s eyes flitted across the screen. “Yikes! It also looks like the first one was a huge failure. It’s crossed out in red with ‘explosive’ written beside it.”
“The landlady at Shady Oaks mentioned there was an explosion,” spoke up James.
“And shortly after that, everyone in Dr. Wanabi’s building developed superpowers,” said Supergirl.
“Everyone on floors three and up,” corrected Mon-El. “Based on our talk with Dr. Wanabi.”
J’onn exchanged a look with Alex. “How much are you willing to bet that after the explosion, particles of that metal went—”
“Airborne?” Alex finished for him. She looked at Mon-El and James. “Did either of you touch that red metal directly?”
They both shook their heads, and J’onn and Alex exchanged another glance. This time, of satisfaction.
“As long as we quarantine that apartment complex and keep this stuff under lock and key”—Alex held up the jar—“we don’t have to worry about any more supercitizens.”
“I’ll make some calls,” said J’onn—at the same time an alarm sounded overhead. He pointed to Alex. “You check on that.”
She nodded. “Winn?”
“I’m on it,” he said, closing the translation screen on his phone and pulling up the DEO’s security matrix. “Looks like it’s coming from Bubbles’s cell.”
Alex motioned to Supergirl. “Let’s go see what our fishy friend is up to.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Mon-El, flinging his cape over one shoulder.
Alex looked him over and smirked. “No thanks, sis. I want you and James to use Winn’s camera cogitari and think about your visit to Shady Oaks. Hopefully, we can fill in some missing details.”
“Use Winn’s what?” asked James.
Winn gestured toward the door. “Follow me, gentlemen.”
Alex and Supergirl let them pass before stepping into the hall, and Supergirl watched Mon-El with a curious expression.
“I’ve never seen myself run before,” she said. “Do I always look that weird?”
Alex laughed. “Mon-El only has your exterior appearance. Everything else is totally him.”
Supergirl made a face. “Then don’t tell him I said that.”
The Danvers sisters hurried to Bubbles’s cell, where overhead strobe lights flashed in sync with the warning buzzer.
Alex pressed her hand to the scanner, and when she and Supergirl entered the room, they saw Bubbles’s tank . . . but no Bubbles.
“Uh-oh,” said Supergirl, glancing around.
Alex pressed an intercom button beside the closing cell door. “Winn, I need a location update on Bubbles. He’s not in here.”
There was silence from the other end for a moment. Then, “Uh . . . yeah, he is.”
“What?” said Alex, at the same moment the wall beside the intercom started to move.
“Alex, look out!” shouted Supergirl.
Bubbles lunged for Alex, his skin the color and appearance of the wall he’d blended into.
He’d set a trap, and she and Supergirl had walked right into it.
Alex crouch
ed and rolled to the side to avoid Bubbles’s grasp as Supergirl launched herself at him, fists raised.
Bubbles pressed himself against the wall, and Supergirl smirked.
“You can’t hide this time!” she said.
But Bubbles didn’t even try to blend in. Instead, he seemed to be anticipating Supergirl’s attack.
And that was when Alex realized he was standing in front of the lighting panel.
“Kara, wait!” she shouted, forgetting discretion.
It was too late.
Just as Supergirl’s fist was about to strike Bubbles’s face, he stepped to the side. The lighting panel received the force of Supergirl’s punch, and after a shower of sparks and metal shrapnel, the room went dark.
“Alex?” Supergirl’s voice came from behind her.
Alex didn’t answer. She couldn’t risk Bubbles finding her by sound, and she knew Supergirl could hear her heartbeat. That would have to be enough to satisfy her sister.
Sinking low to the floor, Alex let her other senses compensate for her lack of sight. She heard a whoosh and a flapping sound: her sister, flying up to the ceiling. Alex inhaled and smelled the sea. Bubbles was close by.
Then, suddenly, footsteps thundered toward her, and the scent of the ocean grew stronger. Bubbles was running at her full tilt. Clearly, he had no trouble seeing in the dark.
Alex straightened and sprinted for the center of the room, taking off her jacket. “Supergirl! I need you to start a fire!” she shouted, swinging her jacket in front of her until it smacked against the fish tank wall.
“With what?” Supergirl shouted back.
“My jacket! At the center of the room!” Alex dropped it and sprinted away just as twin beams of blue light cut the darkness where she’d been.
Supergirl’s heat vision roved the floor for a second until it fell upon Alex’s jacket, which instantly ignited.
The fire wasn’t much, but it was enough to see by, and enough for the fight to be a little fairer.
Bubbles swung a fist at Alex, who veered to the side and landed a punch of her own to the creature’s rib cage. Bubbles grunted but didn’t go down. Still, it was good to know he was vulnerable.
Alex stepped back and raised a leg, kicking out hard. Bubbles caught her foot between his hands and twisted, flipping Alex in midair so that she was headed face-first for the floor. Alex threw out her hands to stop herself, and as soon as her palms touched the ground, she kicked back with her free leg, connecting with Bubbles’s stomach.
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