Note: Definitely alternate universe. Also has two parts. This was a prompt given to me by a reader. Any other prompts you want to see can be put in the reviews!

… .,.

At some point over the years, Maggie Sawyer had lost count of the number of CADMUS bases they had raided.

The Mission Prerogative, a code they swore by, had always been to infiltrate the bases, take any stragglers into custody, acquire all relevant intel, before tagging them for destruction.

Nothing big, not the huge facilities that'd been left to the far more equipped, comprehensive strike teams. Just the smaller, more remote bases that weren't immediately high risk, but nonetheless deemed necessary to eliminate after it had been discovered the once glorified business corporation had really only been a front for a significant share of seedy, fraudulent, cult-like, terrorist activity.

Most times, the remote facilities were empty, close to it, or filled with the less soldier types and more seedier academic types, who were eager to surrender, but unwilling to give any credible information.

Regardless, it was an upgrade, filling her and the rest of the five-person team with a satisfaction unlike they'd ever experienced in their previous occupations. Certainly different from Gotham, where her days as a beat cop always seemed to be on loop, never getting better.

This was different.

Repetitive, but different.

Repetitive, but still dangerous.

They still got shot at.

M'gann M'orzz, the team's former field technician was a testament to that. Two bullets to the leg a few raids back and she still hadn't been cleared back for active duty. She'd been replaced with Winn, a DEO liaison, much to some of her team's chagrin, most pointedly, the team's hard-bitten, outspoken leader, Samuel Lane, a former marine with a chip on his shoulder.

Maggie knows that a large degree of her team's antagonism towards Winn likely stems from the, perhaps a little too unhealthy, rivalry between the NCPD and other intelligence organizations, which certainly wasn't helped by Winn's affiliation with one of the most elusive, the DEO. That, coupled with the younger man's status of probationary agent and his lack of field training, meant Winn would likely continue to be on the receiving end of rest of the team's ire, but Alex had actively advocated for him from her position at said DEO, so the former detective had at least tried giving him a chance.

A chance worth given, seeing as he'd downed the entire security system and electricity grid for the side sect facility they'd most recently begun to infiltrate in less than a minute.

"Still no heat signatures, Davidson?"

Lane asks their demolitions expert, a tall, muscular redhead, who's already surveying the entire scene with his wrist electro-grid shield once again.

"Nothing that the scans are picking up. Though there could be floors beneath the sub-basement level. These scanners are only accurate four floors each way."

The man shrugs and Lane nods once, looking somewhere past them, then nods again, expression hardening.

"Okay. Positions."

Maggie backs up half a foot to stand with the team's field medic, Vasquez, as the men fiddle with setting the charge against the steel entrance.

Seconds later a hissing crack sounds, slicing a hole through reinforced steel, and with smooth coordinance, the strike team moves silently through the doors.

The interior swathes itself in darkness, illuminated only by the barest of emergency lighting, courtesy of Winn and as expected, nothing nasty jumps out at them.

Maggie flicks on the flashlight attachment to her service weapon for a clearer look, a suspects nothing that could have jumped at them has been here in a while, a thin layer of dust covering what appears to be a small entrance way.

A few doors here and there. One, that was probably a closet, and another that, according to schematics, led upstairs, another to an electrical room, and one that was more of a sliding system, like that to the entrance of grocery stores, leading to the main area.

It looked completely boring and safe and terribly, terribly empty.

The closet doors are cleared in a matter of seconds, confirming them for what they were and it takes a few more to force the electricity barren sliding door to the main entrance apart.

Lane is the first one in, tightly coiling to the side, to find cover against anything that might be there, but he only gets two steps in before stopping instantly, forcing Maggie, as her position of second in command, to backtrack hastily so she won't run into him.

But her blood runs cold anyway, because she's already seen what he's seen. They all have.

"Holy shit."

Davidson mutters. The only one to voice anything, though Winn is green around the edges.

There were people here, laid out on the floor, sprawled at the desks, hunched in workstations. But they were dead… everyone was dead. Had been for at least a few hours judging by the rigor mortis.

"Vasquez?"

Lane questions thinly, and Vasquez steps out from behind Maggie, already knowing the unspoken command. Gingerly moving toward the closest body, crouching down next to it, the woman snaps on a pair of gloves before beginning a quick pair of gloves as she begins her examination. After, a few moments the culprit is found.

"Cyanide," she states, holding up an empty pill bottle. "They did this to themselves."

Slowly, Lane nods, but the uneasiness is palpable, they'd come in on a lot of things, but never this... The general looks at schematics on the electro grid again.

"Alright, keep moving. Schott, see what you can get off of those computers. Vasquez stay with him."

The two nod and Vasquez moves a body away from what looks to be the main control desk, while Winn pulling out a transference adaptor as he moves to boot up the machine.

"Sawyer, you take the top floors. Davidson, go to the lower levels and make sure it doesn't go deeper. I'll get the levels in between. Just clear the area for now, check the pulse of everyone who doesn't look to be in rigor, so they aren't any more surprises. If you need non-emergent back up, Ten-oh-oh. If you run into trouble you can't handle, Nine-nine-oh. Don't be a hero."

Frowning, Maggie glances around the room again, grinding her teeth together. This was normal protocol for the raids. Subdue the enemy, steal what intel they could find, destroy the base. But… CADMUS themselves had never done the deed for them. She'd heard whispers of some of the higher ups at the bigger facilities doing it. But this one? Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, almost completely off the grid?

It felt different.

It felt wrong.

She acquiesces anyway.

… …. … .. . .. ..

The majority of the next hour yields the same results.

Room after room of office nooks, conference rooms, and storage facilities, that looked like any other mundane normal office building she'd find in National City. A few more bodies of scientists.

And she's clearing the last few rooms of the top floor, when the comm in her ear deviates from the steady pattern of murmured clears and updates of the intel extraction.

"Ten-oh-oh. I've got a door that won't open."

Davidson's voice crackles over the comm.

"Schott, thought your techboy magic unlocked all the doors."

Lane's authoritative tone booms dryly over the feed, more of a statement then a question.

"Uh… All the doors should be unlocked and rewired to the new code I implemented. If it's not, it's probably because it wasn't added to the mainfram-"

"Lane, the electrogrid picked up a heat signature on the other side."

A beat of silence.

"What's your position, Davidson?"

Maggie asks, and at the same time, Lane commands, "Hang back, Davidson, everyone else reroute to his position."

"I… it isn't on the schematics. But it's Sublevel 3, Next to room… 462."

Davidson mutters.

It's easy to see that her earlier presumption of 'normal' office building being quickly debunked as she maneuvers to the basement levels of the facility. Office nooks turn into science labs and decontainment cells. Empty. Empty. All empty. But nothing she's seen in the other facilities.

When she arrives to the room, she's the last one there. Winn's been planted in front of another sophisticated-looking computer, Vasquez, just behind him, scanning an array of packages with fancy chemical names on them, while Lane stands near a large metal paneling, that covers the mass majority of the wall, discussing something with Davidson in low, muttered voices.

"- no movement?"

Lane questions as she moves closer.

"No movement," Davidson confirms, stepping to the side to allow Maggie to join the conversation. "According to the scanners, it's more of a corridor, long and deep, than a room, and the doors are composed of titanium, reinforced steel, lead, and something called andiminium. We don't have charges strong enough to break down that door. Not without leveling some of the structure."

"So the only way is to hack it remotely?"

Maggie questions, taking a closer look. The handle is like that of a vault, but there seem to be automatic fissures locking various parts into place, alluding to something more than just a door.

Lane nods once, his expression still tight, obviously displeased at all the unexpected occurrences that'd had sprouted during what was supposed to be a one and done mission.

"Schott's on it. He confirmed that the tech in this room wasn't on the mainframe. It wasn't on the schematics either."

Maggie nods. That at least, explains why it was so hard to find this room.

"A panic room, maybe? You said there was a heat signature..."

"Yeah. It could be Lillian fucking Luthor herself, if we're lucky. Hell, I'll even take Max Lord at this point. To see the look on their faces if we brought in one of the head honchos-"

Lane cuts Davidson off with a withering glare.

"A life signature was detected. So the person in there is living and breathing. Running hot too, clocked in at hundred and four degrees. So not dead yet, but likely on the way."

Lane relays for her.

Maggie nods.

"I got something," Winn calls out from the laptops, "It's a l-ledger, a rolodex of names, of case files, no… medical files."

"It looks like they were experimenting on people."

Vasquez clarifies, looking over Winn's shoulder at first, Maggie, then Lane.

CADMUS doing human experimentation? That was a vast deviation from the illegal weapons trade, money laundering, dirty politics, xenophobic stance, and the other activity they'd become known for, but she guessed it wasn't too far off mark. There'd been rumors about a genetic engineering sect back in the day, but she'd never heard anything come to fruition of it.

"Volunteers or prisoners?"

Davidson asks hesitantly, knowing that the cult-like personality of CADMUS meant they would quite literally do anything, if anything upstairs was an indication.

Vasquez only shrugs.

"Did it work?"

Lane questions, hand visibly clenching against the pistol in his hand.

"Not according to this, most were deemed experimental failures, killed in action, or… exterminated. Gayle Marsh. Deceased. Imra Ardeen. Deceased. Leslie Willis. Deceased. The list goes on. Wait.. hold on a second. One's still listed as alive. "

An uneasy silence befalls them.

"Male or female? Is there a name?"

"No, just says K-52-L."

Maggie turns back to Davidson, who's suddenly taken a particular interest in examining the heat signature register on his electro grid.

Still no movement.

"Shit. There's a lot of meds listed here. Benzos, methamphetamine, trazodone... that's an antidepressant-," Winn adds almost in afterthought, oblivious to the scrutiny as he scrolls through the chart on the screen monitor. "More than a few antipsychotics, including methotrimeprazine. And… shit, they have phencyclidine listed here too."

"Phencyclidine? What's that?"

Davidson asks, moving back towards the entrance, leafing through some strewn notepads that'd been left in disarray of their infiltration.

"PCP. An intense psychedelic. Puts em through the works. It's as much proof we're gonna get that whatever's on the other side of that door likely wasn't a volunteer."

Vasquez answers for him, continuing to lean over Winn's shoulder, much to his chagrin, apparently clicking to another page of the case file, judging by the way he tries to stop her.

" Jesus ," Maggie murmurs under her breath, rocking backward on her heels as she jerks away from the metal door. "And all of these… drugs. What are they for?"

"Well… they should be killing it," Vasquez states dryly, then seeing their skeptical looks, hastens to explain. "I'm serious. Most of the dosages listed are at least nine times the therapeutic amount given to any average two hundred pound male. And it says here…" she continues, pushing Winn further out the way, "that they're being automatically injected every few hours. Subdermal devices in the… left bicep, upper right quadrant of the torso, and just below the collarbone. This person should be dead."

For a moment, everyone is silent, absorbing the heaviness of those words under the humdrum of electricity and Maggie scrubs at her face, rubbing away at some invisible smoke, dust, grit that still feels as if it's ingrained in her skin.

They all know that whatever's on the side of the door clearly isn't dead.

"So what? Super soldiers?"

Maggie wonders aloud. At the very least super-metabolism, but that kind of thing had always been H.I.V.E's style not CADMUS's.

"This must be the only one, or at least one of the first. I would have heard from the hire ups if it were anything different. Is there anything significant?"

Lane replies flatly.

"Wait. Here! It's a girl."

Vasquez comments suddenly.

"It says that?"

"No. An X-ray shows it," She answers, turning the screen slightly toward them, revealing a black and white pale radiograph of what has to be a skull, as she points at various parts. "This, this… and these are all typical markers of female anatomy. And judging by the sutures in the skull, I'd put her anywhere between ages of nineteen and twenty-five."

Silence.

"What are those?"

Maggie asks, looking at the small blips of white thin protrusions… three, four, five on each side of the jaw.

"Uh… According to the file, those are… pins."

More silence.

"Is there anything in that file that can tell us about that door? About where that individual is? Any transport information, things of that nature?

Lane questions, hands moving to rub the stubble of his jaw, Maggie's unsure if it's a deliberate movement or if he's unconsciously ghosting over where the pins were in the mystery girl.

"It's likely that…" Winn starts. "If it wasn't in the schematics and since it was detached from the electrical grid, they didn't want this to be found. There is a key log with a register of who was signed in and out over the last few weeks. Subject K-52-L was signed out six days ago, signed back in the same day. Since then only staff has been through those doors."

Even more silence.

"All other information is redacted. Wiped from the drive. Just like the computers upstairs."

Tension stretches across the room.

So thick it could be cut with a knife.

Then Davidson awkwardly clears his throat.

"Are we going to open it?"

All eyes turn to Lane.

"Not yet. Schott, can you get a visual? "

Winn swallows, but his expression evens out into one of determination.

"Yeah… give me five minutes."

He cracks it in three.

Revealing a black and white CCTV of ten cell-like apparatuses.

Nine of them are empty.

The tenth one isn't.

A lanky individual swathed in oversized scrubs, stands barefoot against one of the walls, arms wrapped to her chest in large, hulking silver cuffs that Vasquez insists isn't a stress position, and something magnetic holding her up against the wall by her back.

Through the gritty footage, Maggie can see the mask, steellike and metal, anchored around her face.

K-52-L.

"That look like a volunteer to you?"

… … …. ….

"You sure about this, Sawyer?"

Davidson asks, fingers tightening against the grip of his automatic weapon, while Winn prepared to open the door.

"Schott has control of the restraint system, the electrical grid, and the reinforced plexiglass walling off the cell. The fail-safe is shoot to kill at any inclination of malicious intent to harm. Lane's right, we have to treat it like an interrogation until we know for sure the individual is friend or foe."

Maggie states bluntly, watching Lane examine the fissures that had previously drawn her attention.

"Shoot to kill. Whatever happens. I know. That wasn't what I was talking about."

They both know that falsely presuming someone innocent before the dirty work was done had the potential for casualties, so no, he isn't worried about that. He's talking about is the haphazard plan, they'd put together in the last few minutes. The one that involved Maggie, as the team's most adept interrogator, going in with only Vasquez as backup to try to break the ice and see where things stood.

And Davidson, self-proclaimed muscle of the group, was clearly uncomfortable with letting them go alone. It wasn't a chivalry thing or a masculinity trait, she knows it's because he still blames himself for what happened to M'gann.

There's nothing she can say to temper over that guilt.

"Going in guns blazing isn't the best idea, that would put us on the wrong side of things. And should something happen, the less people in there, the better. Makes for a quick escape. You can stay outside the door with Lane, he wants to observe anyway."

Maggie replies.

"Not when those people are the medic and our second in command."

Maggie pretends not to have heard, busying herself with detaching her own weapons apparatus from its holster as Vasquez approaches with a tablet in hand, having finally left Winn's side.

"Current vitals, the monitoring system still works," Vasquez says in explanation at the questioning look in their eyes. "though everything in her file is saying the temperature is baseline. You ready?"

Maggie exhales a long breath, glancing at the footage displayed on the monitor.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

… …. …..

Establish a pattern. Say hello in the same way. Don't raise your voice. Be conscious of your tone.

Ingrained into Maggie since her early days at the Academy.

The corridor seems longer from the inside. Davidson posts himself at the entrance, but it takes a solid five minutes of forced easy walking, heads on a swivel, moving past empty cell after cell to reach their destination and by that point Davidson is the size of her thumb.

Maggie inhales sharply when she first comes into contact with who could only be K-52-L, reading the file and seeing it in person are two vastly different things in this scenario.

She's taller than what Maggie would have expected, but there's no strength, power, or confidence that would portray that in her stance, still as the strong magnetic hold pins her to the wall.

Now that she's closer, the brunnette sees clear details of what was murky on the grainy video footage. Sees that the large shackles encase most of her for arms, forcing them to fold across her chest, but her hands, large and bruised, remain free. Sees the mask shackled across the bottom part of her face, a metallic silver in front, with leatherish brown straps on the sides, the insertions of the pins just barely visible beneath a halo of dull blonde hair. Sees the purposeful impassiveness on what she can see of the blonde's features.

Sees that Vasquez was right, this woman couldn't have been older than twenty-five.

"Hello." she says, trying to keep her voice gentle, holding her hands to demonstrate the lack of weaponry.

Nothing.

Not even a blink.

"Do you speak English?"

Nothing.

"Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

Still nothing.

"According to the file, she should."

Vasquez breathes lowly over her shoulder, but the woman doesn't even blink. Unresponsive isn't the best way to put it, K-52-L's eyes, a striking, haunted, cobalt color, have been tracking their movement through blown pupils ever since they entered the room.

Her mind skirts through the possibilities. Was she being stubborn? Could she physically not speak because of the mask? Or was it something else entirely?

Damn redacted information.

"Can you talk through the mask?'

Nothing, the disconcerting stare only growing more unsettling.

Vasquez shifts uneasily at beside her.

"Vitals are climbing, you might wanna reroute," the medic whispers.

Nothing visibly supports this assertion, but Maggie doesn't dare question her friend's expertise.

"We're not here to hurt you, but we need to know if you can communicate so we can figure some things out. Can you nod if you understand that?

Nothing.

Then…

The blonde nods her head.

Jerky, barely there. But there.

"Good. Good. Are you going to cooperate?"

Slowly, the woman nods again.

"My name is Maggie Sawyer. This is Diane Vasquez. I want you to nod for 'yes'. Shake your head for 'no'. And… clench your hands for 'I don't know'. Do you understand?"

Nod. Yes.

"Okay... It says here your name is listed as K-52-L. Is that true?"

Head shake. No.

Figured.

"Is that what you want us to call you?"

Another head shake. No.

"Do you have a name? Something you want us to call you?"

Hesitance and Maggie watches the whites of the younger woman's eyes catch against the fluorescent. Steady, but somehow lethargic, as if she's aware but struggling.

Then, a shake of her head. No.

The former detective lets out a patient breath, without a name they'd have nothing to run through the databases, but she supposes that there were more pressing matters.

"Are you aware you're in a CADMUS facility, a sector of a known terrorist organization wanted for violations of the Nuremberg Code and crimes against humanity?"

Against the wall, the blonde's eyes bore into hers, cold, impassive, but not unfeeling, eventually, she nods.

"Are you working for them?"

Headshake. No.

"Is there a way we can verify that?"

She clenches her fists in response, seemingly pressing herself further against the wall.

An emphatic 'I don't know.'

Okay. Okay…

"Do you know how long you've been here?"

A jerk of the head. No. Further limiting Maggie's need for a timeline.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Lillian Luthor?"

Headshake. No.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Maxwell Lord?"

Headshake. No.

"Did you ever have contact or report to anyone called Hank Henshaw?"

Headshake. No.

Maggie pauses for a moment as she considers that information. Nothing in that line of questioning exonerates her, this woman barely knew anything, so the former detective is forced to redirect.

"They're giving you a lot of drugs, lots of them at extremely high dosages," this time Maggie sees the blonde's anxiety spike, sees how her shoulders suddenly rise, how her chest starts to lift, how her eyes betray the barest implication of something other than cold, defeated impassiveness, "Do you know what they were doing to you?"

The blonde's hands clench tight. So hard Maggie can see the whites of the blonde's knuckles and unclipped nails digging into calloused skin even through the plexi plated glass.

I don't know.

"Sawyer..." Vasquez warns, but the former detective isn't ready to let it go just yet.

There's a reason she's playing hardball, because there is no goddamn way the federal law enforcement, government entities, or hell even, Lane, will release anyone, friend or foe, out into the general public without knowing the slightest inclination of what was done, past experience had proved that a more horrific mistake than anything else.

"I need you to think for me okay? Really think, did anything ever- "

The blonde's hands start to tremble, but it isn't what makes the former detective stop talking, something behind the blonde hisses, like a gear unwinding or pressure being let off.

Vasquez stiffens at the noise, but Maggie continues to look forward at the woman, examining her expression for any inclination of what's to come, but the cobalt eyes had rapidly shuttered off.

And suddenly something the attention is drawn to something glowing between the creases of the metal cuffs shackled along the woman's forearms, a peculiar neon green sludging through the darkened lines. Then horrifically up through the blonde's skins, like water in a straw, protruding the veins in a sickly green light.

The younger girl's head bows forward, shadowing her face with the dirty ringlets of blonde, but Maggie can still see the emerald green coursing up her neck.

And only one thing glows like that.

"Is that…?"

Vasquez starts, taking a step back.

Kryptonite.

"Hey… Hey… look at me-"

The comm in her ear roars to life.

"End it. Come back now."

…. …. …

"You shouldn't have pulled us out, Lane."

Maggie hisses, stalking out of the long metal hallway back into the incandescent pale yellow safety of monitor room. Vasquez right on her heels, fiddling with the tablet, scanning frantically through the files.

"Don't insult my intelligence by telling me you don't know why the fuck I pulled you out of there."

Her officer in command snipes back from his position above Winn at the monitors, glaring at her with emerald eyes that are oddly reminiscent of the green she'd seen seep up the blonde's veins moments earlier.

"I know why you pulled us out. I'm saying you shouldn't have."

Maggie replies steelily, staring him down.

"Did you not see what I- You going in there was an exploratory measure. Observe, see what we can learn, come back and form a strategy. You were in there for five minutes and the subject is already seizing."

The detective scoffs.

"I was trying to build rapport. Leaving her in the middle of that just builds mistrust."

Lane is silent. As are the rest of them. Watching the war of words with wide eyes.

"She," Maggie says pointedly, "was afraid."

"She's afraid," Lane growls unconvinced. "she's been harbored by a terrorist organization, she's under the influence of several mind-altering substances, and her body has been physically modified to prevent her from communicating," the team's leader continues unflinchingly, "And new people waltz in with questions, jesus fuck you didn't even say who you worked for, of course she's afraid!"

"That's not what I meant and you goddamn know it."

"Lane." Vasquez interrupts carefully, "Sawyer was right… about the fear. The kryptonite was released after her heart rate reached 140 beats per minute. It seems to be a precautionary reactionary measure put in place by the staff."

"Don't call it that."

"Don't call it what, Lane- kryptonite? The hell! You know that's what it was, no other liquid glows like that. Travels through skin like that!"

Vasquez rebuts cynically, unimpressed by the burgeoning anger seeping underneath the older man's seams.

"It's not possible."

"You can't be serious, Sam, I can count on two fingers the liquids that glow like that, and it sure as hell isn't strobe-light paint. You're only worried because kryptonite only reacts like that in the presence of one species and it isn't human," The fuse is lit and there's no going back now, Vasquez has unwittingly gone for the trump card. "That's right. Kryptonian. And that means you were wrong about Superman. Don't let it distract you from common sense."

Maggie steps forward slightly, the pieces of the puzzle coming into place slightly later than they had for Vasquez. What little she knows about Superman vastly derives from outside sources. Just that he used to be one of those hotshot heroes, adored by the millions despite his status as alien in a world where aliens certainly weren't and still aren't cherished.

But something had happened seven or eight years, a mental break, they called it. Where the self-proclaimed last survivor began insisting there were others of his own race, becoming more and more unhinged, radical, attacking people who weren't necessarily the bad guys, excusing them of capturing them without proper recourse. There'd been many victims caught in the crossfire including, Lane's cousin's fiance, famed reporter Clark Kent. Something Sam still took personally to this day.

He'd allegedly been part of the strike team that had put him down and forced him off-world six years ago.

"Superman has nothing to do with any of this. And even if he did, it only proves my point. People like that are dangerous."

"She was cooperating."

Maggie starts.

"Guys."

"Cooperating." Lane scoffs. "What choice does she have? It's not the same. She doesn't know she's been 'rescued,' Sawyer. For all intents and purposes, she hasn't. She's still locked in a cell."

"Guys."

"Hey, hey, hey! Can't we discuss this in a civil matter?"

Davidson yells, sliding in between them before the argument can continue.

All of them deflate, though the anger's still there, seeping away with the tension.

"Guys!"

And for the first time, they look at Winn, who'd been witheringly silent since the argument began.

"If… If subject K-52-L is Kryptonian it's likely too valuable asset to just be abandoned. There's a high possibility that CADMUS could come back and try to recoup its losses."

Silence.

"It'd be advisable to bring the DEO into the fold, Lane."

Silence.

"Come on, man. It's the department of fucking extranormal operations if this isn't extranormal operations I don't know what the hell is."

Davidson gripes.

Silence.

"Fine, tech boy, call in the National City sector, have them send in a team."

Lane mutters with barely constrained fury.

'I'm going back in, Lane."

Maggie says, but Lane doesn't even look at her.

"No. You're not. You're going to wait until the DEO get here, so if that thing ends up on the front page news wreaking havoc on the world, it's not on us."

…. … …

Tense isn't even the word to describe it. With the metaphorical clock ticking, the air feels weighed down with the heavy prospect of another communication breakdown, until the tension makes her hyper-aware of every movement. The options they have now are slim.

They couldn't leave the blonde here, too much negligent risk if CADMUS did come back to recoup their asset and continued whatever the hell they were doing. Eradicating the base with her inside it wasn't an option either. That'd only mean a Ruby Ridge situation, if it was verified she was in fact innocent. Or catching a lot from the flack from government entities for destroying a 'missed opportunity. Which means the only option left is transport. Something that Lane was unlikely to acquiesce to and unless more contact time was put in, Maggie was uneasy about herself.

Fucking Hell.

Winn had stepped out into the hallway with the stat comm, along with Vasquez who tagged along to watch his six. Lane left shortly after to finish clearing the rest of the building and no doubt take his anger out on the plaster walls. Davidson stays with her, it's not explained explicitly why, but it's obvious Lane doesn't trust Maggie not to venture into the room.

"Just thought you'd want to know, we ran the names through the databases cross-referenced them with missing persons reports in National City. Most of them were runaways, small time criminals, homeless…"

The muscular redhead coughs awkwardly, breaking the fragile silence.

"People no one would miss."

Maggie finishes for him.

"Yeah… Everyone except this one. Tech boy thinks there's a reason K-52-L doesn't have an actual name. Adds less to the paper trail."

Davidson nods, scuffing the edge of his ankle with his foot, refusing to make eye contact as he clicks through the tablet Winn left behind.

"It supports Vasquez's theory…"

He murmurs, quietly voicing what Maggie was thinking.

And the implication that Superman had been right about him not being the only one around, that the human race boosted an alien back into space for trying to find some of the last few remaining members of his species, makes her feel sick to her stomach.

Because they'd disregarded everything he'd had to say, even after all those lives he'd saved.

All in the name of maintaining the 'human first' peace.

Except that peace was a lie.

Because he'd been right.

"We'll know more when the DEO gets here," she says at last.

"They'll be here within the hour."

Winn comments warily, stepping back into the room after a lengthy conversation on the other end of the phone.

"They're sending in the DEO's Nelia-squad."

The precarious peace the team had been balancing on almost snaps.

"You know Lane isn't going to like that."

Nelia Squad is a legend of it's own making. They were also unabashedly pro-alien. A ranger squad of four extremely talented individuals that had continuously and consistently racked up successful mission count that had yet to be beaten within the last four years of their creation. Their ranks consisted of leader, renowned alien expert and former Air Force Pilot, J'onn J'onzz; another academy-trained graduate, James Olsen, famously known for his tendency to be on front lines, after a rather successful deviation into journalist; former marine, cousin of Samuel Lane, and DEO protege, Lucy Lane; and of course their second in command, Maggie's wife, Alexandra Danvers.

"Lane's going to have to accept it, it isn't going to change the fact they're coming," Vasquez says, walking in behind Winn, "Any changes?"

Davidson looks up from the tablet.

"No movement."

He says.

They all are silent for a moment

"But… the stress responses in the beginning were off the charts. Tachycardia. Tachypnea. The kryptonite seemed to work as a reverse antagonist bringing everything vastly up, then down into what would be considered 'human' range, considering her baseline is a little more than ten percent above that."

"And her temperature?"

Vasquez questions detachedly, but it's a very pointed line of questioning, one that's hard to miss. Even Winn straightens up at it.

"Her temperature's been lowering ever since from 104.6 to 99.5 as of now."

Davidson replies carefully, looking away from the tablet, deliberately eyeing Vasquez.

"It sounds like someone medically inclined, should do a work up, just, you know, to make sure the valuable asset doesn't become incapacitated and the DEO has something to work with."

And oh. Oh….

They're going against a direct order.

Lane's direct order. It's risky.

"And if someone trained in interrogation were to facilitate..."

The redhead looks pointedly Vasquez, then Winn, then Maggie.

"I'm going to take a leak."

And he disappears from the room.

.. .. .. . .. . . . .

K-52-L doesn't even look at them when they enter the second time, unmoving from her position at the wall, staring past them with bloodshot eyes. There were bruises, dark blackish green smudges around her eyes, the only evidence of the kryptonite, and they stick out in stark contrast to the chalky, dry paleness of her face, or what was visible of it, anyway.

"Hey. I'm sorry we had to leave you like that."

Nothing. Not even a blink.

Her gaze isn't necessarily empty, just unfocused. So unfocused that Maggie wonders if the girl is even listening.

"You with me?"

Stillness. Silence.

"C'mon kid…"

She mutters pressing her hand against the plexi -plated glass window.

And she's briefly reminded of the war stories Davidson use to talk about. The ones with those girls and boys who were silent, nonverbal, traumatized, because Al Qaeda, ISIS, CADMUS, or whatever asshole decided the run things amock when they were in charge.

Nothing.

"You've been here for a long time haven't you?"

And that, at least, grants a sheen of emotion across those glassy cobalt eyes.

"We saw the green drug coming from your cuffs," Maggie says, going into your veins, is what she doesn't say, "I want you to know, we didn't mean to do that, and if it hurt you, if it's still hurting you, we're sorry."

The room is quiet, so quiet Maggie can't even hear Vasquez breathing behind her, as the blonde continues to stare past them.

"We were able to verify some of what you told us." she continues, deciding to push on with a fabrication of what isn't entirely the truth, "Do you... know who Superman is?"

And that, as she suspected, gets a concrete reaction out of the blonde, her brows drawing together, her breathing suddenly becoming very deliberate. But still she gets no direct answer.

Maggie holds back a bit, not wanting to trigger the kryptonite response.

"We have more friends, more good guys, who are coming to try and help everyone out, but we have to know something really important, okay?"

Silence, but her hands are moving, not the familiar 'I don't know' gesture, but the gestures she'd started doing earlier, running her thumbs against her knuckles.

"Don't worry, we're not mad. We're not going to hurt you. We just need to know okay?"

Maggie asks steadily, struggling to keep her voice even, trying to exude an aura of calmness even when she can't slow her beating heart.

Vasquez moves up slightly behind her.

"You're not human are you?"

K-52-L shudders and the metal groans, but her head doesn't move, neither do her hands, instead only metal sounds, creaking like a broken door.

….

…

...

Silence.

… …. …. ...

"Sawyer, Vasquez get back here. Nelia Squad's on it's way down."

Maggie wants to groan, wants to mutter, to make any noise that will swallow the dread swelling in her gut because she's got nothing. Nothing except a mystery woman who obviously wasn't supposed to be here but wasn't giving up shit on why she was here. Nothing but little tells, like a clench of the jaw, a narrowing of her eyes, and the nervous fidget thing the blonde kept doing with her hands, but even that is circumstantial.

The detective grinds her teeth together, forcing herself not to clench her fists in frustration, a sign that would surely only be taken as aggression by the woman on the other side of the glass.

"We have to go," Maggie says, waiting for a response as if the dirty blonde hadn't stopped responding minutes ago.

She and Vasquez approach the entrance of the small room just as Nelia Squad enters.

The first person to come into view is James, his jaw grit with determination, smile warm, but distracted as he flips through the electro-pad. Behind him, Lucy follows with the same tunnel vision immediately moving towards Winn to survey the contents of the laptop.

And after her... Alex.

"Hey." Maggie greets, as her wife slides over, positioning herself next to the smaller woman, setting her gear pack on the floor.

Though everyone knows they're married, standard protocol dictates they keep everything professional, it stiffens the amount of personal interactions they can have while on call. Not for lack of trying.

"Hey," Alex murmurs back giving her a crinkly-eyed smile, but there's an aura of nervousness and stress in her movements. Something Maggie's unused to seeing in their few times together in the field.

J'onn J'onzz, despite being the leader, is the last to enter, calmer, slower with his movements. That and his greying hair are the only signs he is nearing retirement, because he still stands tall and authoritative with all the grace and power of the pilot he once was. His eyes are sad as he nods at Maggie, painted with a look that has seen too many of these horrors before, but before she responds, he's moving to talk to Sam, face so red with anger it's about to explode.

Maggie's fairly sure, he will be able to at least identify the species, confirm what they all guessed as fact, but that left a whole other can of worms if it was actual truth. Mounds of churning guilt and societal outrage and bureaucratic paperwork if it ever got out.

She doesn't really know what to think about that.

"Danvers, with me." J'onn calls across the room, wizened and strong. "Sawyer, Vasquez you too. I want to see what we're dealing with."

… …. ….

The walk down the hallway lengthens every time. Dark, desolate, and awfully depressing. But necessary. Vasquez leads the way, skimming vitals once more, as Maggie closely follows, leading Alex and J'onn past holding cell after holding cell.

And when Maggie finally brings them to the girl, encased in all the plexi-plated glass, she hears Alex gasp.

"Oh my God…"

Alex murmurs shakily, stiffening, stepping forward with wide eyes as she presses her hands against the glass.

"Kara?"

Notes:
The prompt was, what if Jeremiah had given Kara up when CADMUS came for her all those years ago?