Hurts Like Heaven

Chapter 9 - Hold On, John, I Think There's Something Going On

***BARRY***

I'm fast, but I'm pretty sure Kara is faster, as she proves when she blitzes past me while I'm walking down to the interrogation room to see what's going on. Where she's going, I'm not sure yet, and I can't ask her without turning around to follow her and racing to keep up. So I decide to let her go for a bit and instead talk to her counterpart. Maybe Other Kara can shed some light.

I find her observing the interrogation with her boyfriend, that Mon-El dude. He turns around first and flashes me a small smile. Small, but a little tense too. Please tell me it's not some kind of male-dominance thing. I'm no alpha. I'd lose this kind of fight before I even begin. But that tension vanishes quickly with a barely perceptible twitch of his jaw, and he winks at me, as if giving me a signal to enter his space.

"I'm surprised you're not following your girlfriend, dude," he says.

"If I did," I say, "she'd probably wonder why the hell I'm not leaving her alone once in a while."

"She probably would," concurs Other Kara.

Mon sighs wistfully. "I remember when Kara and I were that fresh-faced in our relationship. She always called me a clingy little Daxamite puppy."

I chuckle to myself at the thought of Mon being anything like a puppy. He's handsome, and his presence commands the room. Though not quite as much as Other Kara, or the interrogation in progress behind the nearby window.

The first thing I hear when I really pay attention is the voice of my other self. "Lena Luthor hasn't been seen in years. Are we sure you haven't killed her?"

"Yeah," Jax chimes in. "I heard she had, what, twenty more IQ points? Professional envy, man. You probably keep her on ice in your basement...ehh, sorry, Frosty Girl."

"No offense taken, Burny Boy," says Other Cait. "As usual."

Lex Luthor, on the other hand, stays completely silent. "He didn't lawyer up, did he?" I ask with more than a twinge of annoyance just from thinking about it. Blame it on my law enforcement background, I guess.

"Lena Luthor," I mutter to myself. "Great, another one. Is she as evil and bald as her brother?"

"How'd you know she was his sister?" asks Other Kara.

"Yeah," Mon says, still smiling that small, silly smile. "She could've been his mother."

"I thought his mom's name was Laura," I say, pulling on a factoid I somehow retained from paging through a tabloid in the Safeway checkout line.

"Only on your Earth, I guess," says Other Kara. "Here, we call Mama Luthor 'Lillian.'"

"What's she like?" I ask.

"Nasty piece of work," says Other Kara.

Mon's smile finally vanishes completely. "She toxified her kids. Made them the bad guys they are now, and none of them fought back enough to..." His voice trails off as he realizes he's clenching his fists. "Sorry. Manipulative parents trigger me every time."

I nod, not wanting to further open up clearly old wounds by pressing him with questions. Even so, Mon's not about to return to his previous smiley state anytime soon.

"So where'd my lady go in such a hurry?" I ask.

"To find her cousin, I think," Mon says.

"Yeah," says Other Kara. "Lena might be coming to find him, so..."

I smack my forehead, kneading it too for good measure, then say, "Gotta go!" before taking off running just like Kara did.

I'm pretty sure I leave the whole building swirling with dust bunnies and paper tornadoes by the time I finally find Kara. She's outside, flying around the perimeter of STAR Labs about a hundred feet up. Conner's with her, usually somewhere from five to ten meters ahead until she pushes herself to catch up. No sign of Lena Luthor, though, thank God. How would she get up to that level, anyway? Jetpack? Rocket boots? And how would I even know Lena Luthor from Eve? I have no idea what she looks like. She could be blonde, brunette, beautiful, or even blue like a Na'vi. I'm almost starting to picture her as blue in my head, though given Lex Luthor's history, I highly doubt he'd willingly work with an alien under any circumstances.

My favorite Kryptonians (sorry, Clark, but I don't know you as well. But you're third on the list all the same) keep on flying, so for now, I'll assume they're largely safe. Unless someone's on the ground or in a helicopter, armed with a kryptonite RPG.

I race around the building, pausing every so often to scan the area and look for anything suspicious. In my head, I build a map of the parking garages and streets, then layer that map with details like cars and people passing by. My first instinct is to inspect the coffee cart a little more closely. Kara told me once that someone attempted to poison Cat Grant's coffee, and Kara found out when she paused long enough to ride the elevator up to the office and smelled "almond milk" in the flat white. Health-conscious though Cat is, she'd never touch almond milk. Always skim, or soy if she's feeling particularly acerbic, but "glorified nut water" (her words, not mine, and if they were mine, I'd just be laughing my ass off at my own immature joke) is for no. For another reason, now.

But no, there's no sign of weaponry or cyanide on the coffee cart. You're good, barista.

Now for the surface parking lot. Like my STAR Labs, it's a small one, pretty much reserved for the upper management. I don't drive myself - I can, but I don't own a car. Yet. I'm still saving for a good one. There's a lady down the street from Joe who's been looking to sell her red Mazda3 sedan. A speedy ride, perfect for me. I see no sign of any car like that in the lot - I'm guessing my Earth-2 self either drives a pretty vanilla car because it's more his style, or, like me, he doesn't, period.

Nothing out of the ordinary here, I don't think.

And then I check out the parking garage. Floor by floor. First floor, fine. Second floor, okay. Third floor, all clear. But then the fourth, that's where I find something that I really don't like.

There's nobody parked right on the edge with a perfect view of the building. But there is someone sticking out of a Mercedes moonroof in the far corner, armed with binoculars. About as far as you can get from an outside view without losing it.

I speed over to the car, carefully alighting on the roof and crouching down so I block the view without damaging the sheetmetal.

The binocular owner lowers them, revealing her face. I'm assuming she's Lena Luthor. Not at all blue, except for her eyes. Which aren't the beautiful shades I've seen in the Kryptonians, but a piercing, icy shade. She's super pale, too, like she doesn't get outside enough.

"As someone who works for the police," I tell her while struggling to keep a straight face, "I'm compelled to let you know that stalking is a pretty serious crime."

"What are you gonna do, bring me up on charges?" Her voice is a little low and flat, and her accent is hard to define. Not quite British, but not really anything North American either. "If I know you, and I'd like to think I do, your police credentials don't matter. You're literally from another dimension."

"And yet I'm here now." I take the binoculars from her hands before she can look through them again. "I'm the angel who's gonna avenge my besties." Smothering a giggle at how Cisco-like I sound right now, I leave her alone for a couple of seconds. Just enough time to open the driver's door, pop the hood, disconnect the battery, and close all those open hatches. "And sabotage you just 'cause I can. Good luck getting away now, lady."

I run off again, still carrying Lena's binoculars. I was tempted to throw them against the wall, but they look so high-end and well-crafted that it'd be too much of a shame.

I mean, anything to give me eyes as good as Kara's, even for a moment.