"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?"
"I have to confess I'm a fairly strong telepath for a Genomorph, but there are G-gnomes who are both stronger and more skilled," he answered as he stared at the boy with some pity in his face. "Why do you ask?"
"Can you find and modify mental commands?" she asked, her mind working hard to think about the opportunity.
Didn't The Light like to use double agents to infiltrate the Justice League? She was already taking one of their facilities so, maybe she should take one of their plans too.
"That depends on how strong of a command it was and how deep it's been buried," Dubbilex said with a thoughtful voice. "I certainly couldn't disable a command created by someone like the Martian Manhunter but, if you can bring the subject to us and know what to look for, the G-gnomes are used to working with each other and there's enough of them to overcome just about anything."
"How… interesting," she suddenly couldn't contain herself and started snickering and then she laughed. "Muahahaha… wait where are you going?"
Dubbilex had retreated from her side and taken quite a few hurried steps away from her; at her question, he stopped and righted himself, but his red eyes avoided her own. "Apologies, Desmond used to laugh like that and it brought to mind some unpleasant memories."
"Ah, right," damn, she really had to stop with the maniacal laugh, it was cathartic, but she didn't want to give her cousin the wrong impression. "Anyway, that's for later. Can we unfreeze him right away?"
"I can get one of the scientists over if you need?"
"No, let me check their information first."
It seems Cadmus did indeed have the facilities necessary to unfreeze Roy, but it wasn't like Kara could just take him out of the pod. The entire process would take at least a day and his recovery a few days more to be safe.
With a sigh, Kara decided she would be flying with not one but two pods towards the fortress. Her takeover of Cadmus was far too risky and she wanted to leave as few vulnerable targets on the facilities as she could manage.
"Dubbilex, get their pods ready for transport, please, I'm gonna have to make some calls."
"Very well. I'll have a G-Troll bring the batteries over and move the pods."
Nodding to the male, Kara went back towards Match's pod, sitting down on an empty spot where another pod should be, dialing his number on her Kryptonian tablet. She smiled as his phone started to ring.
She really did love Krypton technology, no way would a human cell phone work this deep underground.
"Hello Kara, did you need anything?" Her cousin asked with a tired voice, Kara didn't know if she had ever seen or heard him when he wasn't tired. The League really was overworked. "I'm just getting home from League work if you could wait a little."
"Hi, Kal-El, we need to talk," She said with a serious voice. "When were you going to tell me there was another Kryptonian alive?"
"Kara I… it's complicated," He gave a huge sigh and Kara could feel the amount of frustration and exhaustion He was feeling even from across the phone. "He was made, Kara, made by my enemy to replace me… I just didn't want to get you involved and at risk."
"Kal you have Krypton's cultural data, you know being 'made' isn't exactly odd for a Kryptonian," letting her body slip towards the floor Kara rested her back against the support.
"He's dangerous Kara."
"He's a kid Kal, he needs help," Kara hit her head against the support in frustration. "I have seen what you have done for this planet, what you stand for, you're better than this."
"I-I know, I'll talk to him alright?" another sigh, another long pause. "Look, can we talk about this in person? You're still coming to the family dinner on the weekend right?"
"Only if I can take him too," when there wasn't a response Kara cursed in her mind. "Kal I won't say you're his father, but he is a member of the house of El, he's family."
"Alright, I guess I can introduce you two then."
"Kal, I already met the boy."
"WHAT?"
"I just said he was family, did you think I was just gonna leave him alone on that mountain?" Kara almost screamed back and had to take a second to calm herself, to remember her cousin was a failed being just like everyone else. She took another glance at the second clone inside his pod. "Look, don't think about him like he's your son, he isn't, just think of him as any other kid who suffered because evil people messed up his life, right now, he just needs help Kal."
"You're right," Kal-El eventually said as she heard him throw himself on the sofa. "You're right, is he still on the mountain?"
"Yes, I offered for him to stay with me but he needed some time to think."
"I'll talk with him tomorrow then. I really need to rest right now."
"That's all I ask," she told him and smiled, she'd still have to get back at him for his fuck up so he wouldn't think she'd just let it pass but, at least it wouldn't need to be anything drastic. "I'll see you on the weekend then."
"Alright, yeah," yet another frustrated sigh as Kara heard something breaking in his hand, then he relaxed. "And, Kara, thanks for calling me out on it."
"My pleasure, his name is Kon-El by the way, can't believe none of you guys even thought to give him one."
She turned off the phone and went back to looking at Match's pod. She had gotten her cousin to at least talk with Kon, but she didn't think he needed to face a second clone right now, one who was dying too.
Kara didn't have Batman's phone and a quick search on the internet with her device didn't uncover Bruce Wayne's personal cell phone, but she did find the Wayne manor landline on some private database.
She was still angry at the Justice League but, now that she thought about it, she couldn't justify keeping Roy hidden away from his adopted family. With some luck, Batman would manage to see the advantage of keeping the boy hidden and convince Green Arrow, she'd hate to see her newly formed plan be ruined because of her ethical standards.
By Rao, being a supervillain must be so much easier.
"You've reached Wayne Manor, how may I help you?"
"Hi Alfred, This is Kal-El's cousin, Kara, can I talk with Batman?"
There was a beat of silence over the phone and then Alfred took a deep breath. "Master Bruce will not be happy with this."
"Alfred, put Bruce on the line, please."
"Very well, it will be just a moment," Kara heard him walking for a minute or two before talking with someone. "Master Bruce, Superman's cousin wishes to speak with you."
"Clark wasn't supposed to share my identity," he said in a harsh, angry voice.
"My cousin didn't tell me you were Batman." She huffed.
"How did you find out?"
"I'm a Kryptonian under a yellow sun, how do you think?"
"Hmm, what did you need?"
"I was just curious, you guys had a Kryptonian, two green lanterns and the world's best detectives, how did you miss a second Superman clone and a frozen kid when you searched Cadmus?" she said in a conversational tone, "Particularly when it was the second time you guys dealt with a Cadmus problem?"
There was a long silence filled with barely contained tension before Batman spoke a single word. "Explain."
Kara was certain her device was secure from anyone trying to hear their conversation, both because her technology was so advanced and because nobody knew they had to counter it yet so, she did.
"I'll be there in twenty minutes," was the only thing the Bat said before turning off the phone, but Kara's enhanced hearing managed to hear a lot more.
The slight tremble in his voice, the shaking of his hand on the phone, the beating of his heart, the harshness of his voice, Batman was absolutely furious, almost beyond reason.
Without even touching the ground around her, Kara floated up and back to her feet, from the side, a huge G-troll came around the corner carrying a portable battery.
"Can I get a G-Gnome to help me bring Batman inside and make it seem like everything was in order?" Kara asked Dubbilex.
"Does he approve of our actions?"
"I doubt it, but he isn't saying anything yet and, after the way he dropped the ball here, do you think he has the right to say anything?"