Chapter Text
All of National City was at a standstill. Everyone, everywhere watched the scene unfold on their screens, news crews covering the emerging story from over a dozen angles. No other headline mattered that morning. A pillar of smoke billowed from one of the broken windows, rising up into the sky like a beacon – a reminder to all in the vicinity of just how close this ominous event was. Images of the locked down shopping centre blanketed the city, perhaps even the whole country, if not the world.
“If you're just tuning in, we are live on the scene following reports of a deadly attack on National City's largest indoor shopping mall. I warn you that we have...distressing images of what appears to be the bodies of deceased victims lying inside the centre. At this stage, we cannot begin to estimate a possible death toll but, from the pictures you can see before you, that number may already exceed one hundred, making this one of the worst mass killings in American history.”
Maggie Sawyer listened to the TV news reporter behind her as she geared up for the operation, hearing the woman speak to camera through the noise of helicopters circling above. Everything she was saying was true, Maggie thought as she pulled on her bulletproof vest.
“Police have the building surrounded and are treating this as a potential hostage situation. No sources have yet confirmed the nature of this attack, such as whether any firearm was used, whether they suspect this is an act of terrorism, nor whether or not this may be yet another crime of alien origin. We have limited information, as it currently appears that there are no eyewitnesses who managed to escape—”
Maggie's attention was abruptly drawn away by her phone buzzing in her pocket. It didn't come as a surprise. If anything, she'd been expecting it to ring sooner, given the circumstances. She didn't even need to check who it was; Maggie already knew.
“Good timing, Danvers,” Maggie said, taking the call.
“You plan on telling me what's going on down there?” Alex's voice came through the phone, as anticipated. Maggie could gauge from background noise that Alex was on the move, no doubt headed her way from the DEO in a van full of heavily armed agents.
“I was actually hoping you'd have some answers for me. I guess that means this isn't one of your known targets,” Maggie replied, suited up and ready to go. “All we've done so far is secure the perimeter. Nobody knows what we're dealing with. Human. Alien.” She drew a deep breath, well aware Alex was not going to like what she had to say next. “That's why I've volunteered to go in.”
She could practically hear the look of alarm that crossed Alex's expression. “...What?!”
"With a SWAT team, Danvers," Maggie clarified in an effort to placate her.
"That is not an improvement," Alex tersely grumbled, vehemently disapproving. "You're a detective. You detect."
“Exactly my plan. Do you have a better idea as to how we're supposed to understand what we're dealing with than to examine the crime scene?” Maggie asked, adjusting her bodycam, making sure it was working. One member of the tech team gave her a thumbs up, confirming he had both visuals and sound. The SWAT officers beside her performed the same checks. Six of them, altogether. “Look, so far it's been quiet. No shots fired. No demands. We don't even know if there's an ongoing threat. Whoever caused this could be long gone.”
“Or you could be walking into a trap,” Alex persisted, urging Maggie to hold off. "Is Supergirl there?"
“No, she's not, and we can't wait for her to arrive every time something happens,” Maggie stated matter-of-factly. “Protecting the people of National City is as much our job as it is hers. If we're going to figure out what's happened here, I need to go in there and gather evidence. Nobody in the NCPD is better qualified than I am to identify whether an alien or alien tech might be behind this.”
She heard Alex exhale, as if reluctantly conceding that she couldn't argue with that. “Okay, fine. But stay in contact with me as much as you can. I'm five minutes away, and we're moving in to clear the site no matter what you find,” Alex instructed, her stern tone leaving no room for debate.
Maggie smirked, glad to know Alex cared. “Roger that.”
With that, Maggie ended the call and put her phone in her right pocket. She would ring Alex back once it was safe to do so but, for now, she needed both hands on her firearm and all her attention focused on the mission. As it stood, they didn't know whether they were confronting an actively hostile suspect or not. Until they confirmed otherwise, they were assuming the former.
“Alright. We're going in. Move up,” the senior officer commanded. Maggie followed the order, putting on her helmet and drawing her service weapon, the last in line behind the other members of the team. Her role in accompanying this unit may have been purely to investigate and determine what type of threat they were up against, but she had to be ready for combat all the same.
“It looks like the police are about to head inside,” the reporter behind her said, an audible buzz coming from the crowd of onlookers, watching them approach the sealed off area. “We'll continue bringing you uninterrupted, live images while they carry out this operation.”
Maggie's lip quirked cynically when she heard that, wondering how much the vultures behind the news networks would have secretly loved the ratings pop they'd get if they happened to capture footage of them all getting slaughtered by the unknown perpetrator.
The unit swiftly made their way past the police blockade and towards the front doors of the mall, taking up positions behind the safety of the outer walls. The power to the building had gone out. There were no lights. Even though it was mid-morning, it was dark inside the eerily quiet complex. Maggie leaned out far enough to peer around the corner, surveying the scene inside as best she could.
Bodies lay motionless on the ground, strewn everywhere. That initial discovery was what had started this whole stand-off. From what Maggie could tell, there was no blood. That wasn't necessarily a good sign; if anything, it meant they could be dealing with a chemical weapon.
“Masks on,” the commanding officer ordered, sharing that suspicion. Everyone complied. “NCPD! Lower your weapons and keep your hands in the air! Surrender now or we will use lethal force!” he called out to whoever may or may not be inside.
No response. After a moment, the leading officer nodded, signalling for them to head in.
Some of them switched on their flashlights as they went in, guns raised, checking for any signs of movement, scanning the area. The stores. The walkways. The floors above. But there was nothing. Only a disturbingly vast sea of lifeless bodies.
They had to physically step over the victims as they made their way towards the centre of the ground floor lobby. There were so many of them, and some were so close together that it was hard to know where to put their feet without tripping over the dead.
Maggie tried not to let herself comprehend the sheer scale of the loss of life around her, compartmentalising her shock and horror behind the calm, rational veneer of the cop, detaching her personal feelings from the experience, almost as if she'd let another person pilot her body, sparing her this gruesome sight. However, she didn't fail to count the bodies she glimpsed in all directions as she moved further inside. Unless she'd miscalculated, there were already a hundred and seventy, just within view of this one, small area.
Part of her wondered if they'd tried to run for the entrance and failed. That would certainly explain why so many of them were in the same place. The thought of the terror they must have felt in their last few moments made Maggie nauseous. Whoever did this, they had to pay.
“Area clear,” a different member of the SWAT team announced.
“Stay on your guard,” the commanding officer warned, keeping watch. “Detective?”
“On it.” Maggie went to work, putting away her weapon and pulling on a pair of latex gloves, examining the nearest body. White male. Thirties. Maggie knelt down, touching his chin to shift his head, searching for any telltale signs that would denote the cause of death. The quicker she did that, the better, as it would indicate precisely what kind of weaponry or toxins or natural offensive capabilities their perpetrator possessed, and what her fellow officers would have to contend with if they hoped to bring the attacker to justice.
Her brow twitched. Wait a second. That wasn't right. His skin was warm. And he was...breathing.
“This person's still alive,” Maggie stated, glancing up.
She was met with half a dozen puzzled stares. “You can't be serious.”
"No, there's no mistake." Maggie looked down again, moving to the next body, only inches away. She felt for a pulse and found one beating steadily away beneath her fingertips. “This one too." She lowered her mask, bewildered. "I think they might all be alive.”
“If they're not dead, then what the hell happened to them?” a female officer pondered aloud.
“One of you stay with Detective Sawyer. Keep an eye on her while she figures out the answer to that question. We still have to secure the building,” the senior officer instructed. Nobody else could come inside to remove the victims or conduct further investigations until they knew it was safe. Whatever had affected these people, they didn't want anyone else to suffer the same fate.
“I'll stay,” the same woman from before volunteered.
“Affirmative.” The leader nodded, accepting that. “Alright. Everyone else, move up.”
Sensing she wasn't in any imminent danger, Maggie removed her helmet, finding it obtrusive. The next thing she did was withdraw her phone, contacting Alex without further delay. “Who are you calling?” the young SWAT officer asked.
“Friend in the feds,” Maggie answered, keeping her phone between her shoulder and her ear, freeing up both of her hands to enable her to examine the victim properly. The officer seemed to accept that as a reasonable decision without issue.
“That was fast, Sawyer,” Alex responded, picking up after only two rings.
“Yeah, well, I think I could use the input of a biology geek; you're going to want to see this,” said Maggie, retrieving a small flashlight, using it to look into the eyes of her casualties, searching for any signs that might betray the cause of their unconsciousness. “Turns out we're not dealing with a killer. Not yet, anyway. Our victims aren't dead.”
“None of them?” Alex asked, appropriately confused.
“I haven't checked everyone yet, but that's starting to look like a safe assumption,” Maggie commented. “But that's the thing; they're not only not dead, they're unharmed – I can't find any signs of injury, poisoning, trauma, suffocation. Nothing at all.”
“So why aren't any of them moving?” Alex finished on her behalf, following Maggie's train of thought. Given her background in medicine and biology prior to joining the DEO, Alex had to be intrigued by the scientific mystery behind it all.
“Right,” Maggie affirmed. That was precisely the question she hoped Alex could answer.
“We're nearly there. ETA, one minute. If we can take at least one person back to the DEO, we should be able to figure out what's affecting them. If it's some sort of chemical agent, maybe I can even whip up an antidote to wake them up,” said Alex, thinking out loud.
Maggie smirked. “You know, Danvers, as much as I don't like feds, you and your fancy tech sure co—“ Maggie's remark was cut short by sudden shouts from the floor above, immediately followed by gunfire. Muzzle flashes cast shadows on the walls.
“What the hell was that?” Alex asked, hearing some fraction of the sound. Maggie didn't have time to respond, instantly standing up and drawing her gun, letting her phone clatter to the floor beside her. “Sawyer?”
The gunfire fell silent. The officer with her visibly tensed up, on her guard. “Stay behind me, detective.”
Maggie swallowed, not sure if the eerie absence of noise meant the SWAT team had brought down the hostile, or if it meant the exact opposite. She didn't have to wait long, though. Within seconds, a strange, grey figure emerged from the hall, too large to be a person.
“NCPD!” Maggie called out, announcing her presence on instinct. “Put your hands in the air and lie down on the ground!” The hulking creature turned towards her. A flicker of recognition passed across Maggie's eyes. “It's some kind of machine!” she said, needing to make sure that both Alex and the police listening in on her bodycam feed got that information. It was all she could do for them now.
“Sawyer?!” Alex spoke again, far more urgently.
The android marched towards them, extending an arm as it descended the frozen escalator. Maggie and the SWAT officer opened fire, unable to presume there wasn't a weapon contained in that limb. Bullets bounced off its metal exterior harmlessly.
All of a sudden, Maggie heard a strange buzzing in her ears – a ringing. She squinted her eyes and gritted her teeth in pain, trying to stay focused as a fog fell over her mind. She had no idea what was happening, but the officer beside her was affected by it too. Maggie watched her drop her weapon and crumple to her knees, clutching at her head and screaming in agony before falling unconscious.
Maggie's leg buckled, her limbs wobbly. She fired off one last shot before her fingers fumbled the gun, a tide of dizziness sweeping over her. She groaned and grunted, willing herself not to surrender to whatever was happening, but to no avail. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. She went limp and hit the ground. The android was the last thing she saw before everything went white.
“Maggie? Maggie!” Alex called for her when all the noise from the other end abruptly ceased, panic setting in as her worst fears flooded to the surface of her mind. Alex shut off her phone, readying her assault rifle. “We have to go in now!” she commanded.
It was only about ten more seconds until their truck reached the perimeter set up by the police. The DEO agents sprang out of the vehicle in haste, advancing one after the other, never breaking their line. Alex was second in the formation.
“FBI! Move!” Alex ordered bystanders and cops alike, desperate to get in there, fast.
Before she could, something emerged from the shopping mall. A machine. A nine-foot tall android. Alex knelt behind a police cruiser, training her weapon on the target, along with every officer and agent in the vicinity. Civilians gathered behind her screamed. Some began to flee. Others foolishly didn't, not realising what was going on, unable to see, oblivious to the danger they were in.
This was bad, Alex thought. Whatever this thing was, it had already taken out an entire shopping mall full of people. Hundreds. Maybe well over a thousand. There was nothing to say it couldn't do exactly the same to this crowd, or the entire city, if it got the chance.
As if in answer to that, the machine raised its arms towards them, its face blank and expressionless.
Out of nowhere, a streak of blue shot past, the gust of air ruffling Alex's hair. Kara collided with the machine at full force, knocking it back, away from the crowd. Whatever she'd done, it must have been too late. Some of the police officers at the front of the barricade inexplicably began to writhe and yell out, stumbling over their own legs in blinding anguish. Even the agent who had been a few feet ahead of Alex in their line was stricken with the same affliction. She could only watch on in alarm, unsure what was happening.
But Kara was in there. And Maggie. Whatever that thing was, Alex wasn't going to let either them face it alone. Just as she made that decision, the DEO agent in front of her passed out cold. Despite the danger, Alex raised her rifle and went in, passing by officers who cradled their heads in pain before succumbing to the machine's undetectable weapon, dropping to the ground around her like flies.
Whatever had hurt them, Alex didn't seem to be affected by it, although she had no earthly idea why. She didn't have time to question it.
“Why would you do this to these people?!” Alex heard Kara bellow at the machine, or whoever was behind its actions, just as she entered the shopping mall. The next thing Alex saw was Kara tossing the android through a store window and dashing after it to deliver a punch, intent on kicking the crap out of the damn robot for all the destruction it had wrought on so many innocents.
Alex planned on joining her sister to provide backup, though it definitely didn't look like Kara needed it. But then Alex saw something that froze her in her tracks. Her blood curdled and turned to frost in her veins. Among the unmoving bodies lay a familiar face.
“Maggie!” Alex raced to her side, her mind awash in a maelstrom of terror. “No. No, no, no.”
Alex dropped her gun, curling one arm beneath Maggie's back, resting her in her lap. She pushed back her hair and felt for a pulse. Maggie's heartbeat confirmed she was alive. But, like all of the others, she was completely unresponsive. Whatever had taken them had taken her too.
“Come on, Sawyer; I know you're in there,” Alex frantically urged, desperation creeping into her voice. She couldn't lose her. She couldn't. Alex let her fingers cup Maggie's cheek, praying for any sign that she might regain consciousness. “Please wake up, Maggie. Come on.”
Nothing. No response. Not even reflexive muscle twitches.
The android may not have killed her, but Maggie was dead to the world.
Kara struck the android one last time, sending it flying back across the lobby. Alex glanced up to see what looked like exposed circuitry sparking through its broken chestplate. Whatever Kara had done, she had succeeded in severely damaging it. That seemed to prompt the machine to realise it was outmatched.
"Odds of survival, critically low. Self-preservation protocols engaged," it spoke to itself.
“You're not getting away!” Kara avowed, flying towards the android when she saw it begin to fire up the small jets in its legs, refusing to let this mechanical monster escape. However, this time, when she touched it, the android emitted a vicious electric charge. "Agh!" Kara's whole body stiffened, her muscles contracting against her will, temporarily immobilising her.
“Kara!” Alex called out, too far away to intervene as the potent shock rendered Kara momentarily defenceless.
That brief advantage was all the machine needed to seize upon, taking the opportunity to knock Kara backwards. With her on the ground, it activated twin rockets in its legs, having delayed her long enough that it could make its retreat. It shot directly upwards through the roof of the mall, disappearing into the sky. Kara grimaced and pulled herself to her feet, using her X-Ray vision to peer up through the broken ceiling, but it was a futile effort. She had already lost sight of which way it had gone. She'd missed her chance to give chase.
Seeing Kara get up after that shock told Alex that she was okay. Physically, at least. She didn't need aid. Maggie, on the other hand, had not been nearly so lucky. Dear God. What the hell had happened to her? What had this machine done to leave her like this?
The whole world around her was at once muted and a deafening cacophony of white noise. Alex hardly heard the chaotic commotion of the police outside, racing to tend to their fallen comrades. They might as well have been a thousand miles away, or submerged beneath a sea. And yet, at the same time, her ears were hyper-alert, attuned to the faint sound of Maggie's breath, to her own pulse, and the crumbling specks of dust from the roof. It was like a part of her soul had been savagely ripped out and torn to shreds before her eyes, leaving her diminished.
But Alex couldn't feel a thing. She was numb. Or perhaps she was so deeply devastated that she couldn't even begin to process her grief. Alex couldn't tell. Frankly, she didn't care to contemplate the answer. Did it really matter? Did anything?
“Alex, I am so sorry I'm late,” said Kara as she rushed to her side, the quiver in her voice betraying exactly how sincere that regret was. She felt horrible for it, blaming herself for not being there five minutes faster. “I tried to get here as soon as I could, but Snapper cornered me. He...He...He wouldn't let me go. He saw me sneaking off and thought it meant I didn't care about what was happening. I...I practically begged him to turn his back for a second, but he just...he just...wouldn't. Not until James distracted him.”
“It's okay,” Alex quietly assured her, trying to contain the emotion that sat like a jagged rock in her throat. As easy as it would have been to lose her cool and lash out, this wasn't Kara's fault. She would never dream of letting her think that it was.
The android had done this. Nobody else.
Kara's eyes followed Alex's gaze, a grim expression coming over her as she took in the sight of Maggie lying limp in her sister's arms, practically lifeless. “There has to be some way to wake her up, right?” Kara asked. “I mean...whatever's wrong, we can figure it out.”
Alex swallowed heavily, blinking back unshed tears in her eyes. “...I don't know.”
“We will,” Kara swore to her, resting her hand on Alex's shoulder. “I promise.”
Unfortunately, such optimism was the furthest thing from Alex's mind. Bile burned in her throat. Her ribs felt like they were compressing, closing in around her heart like a trash compactor, crushing it. Much as she wished she could pretend she had it in her to switch off those emotions, Alex didn't. Not when it came to Maggie. She was her one, true weakness. This proved that beyond refute.
They may have agreed to just be friends a few weeks earlier, but Alex was still in love with her. Madly. Passionately. Stupidly in love with Maggie Sawyer. She'd never stopped, even though Alex had tried to. Those feelings didn't just...go away because they weren't returned.
The worst part of it all was that Alex didn't know the first thing about what had happened to her. She didn't know how long Maggie could survive in this state, or if there was any way to revive her. But Alex refused to accept defeat; she refused to accept that it wasn't within her power to bring Maggie back.
It had to be. The alternative was...
No. There was no alternative.
That prompted Alex to regain some semblance of composure, falling back on her training to maintain her wherewithal. “We have to take her back to the DEO. We can...We can run some scans and...that will hopefully get us closer to reversing this,” said Alex, forcing herself to be strong, for Maggie's sake. “If anyone would want to help us figure out what happened to these people, it's her.”
Kara nodded, matching Alex in putting on a brave face, even though it obviously pained her to see how much Maggie's suffering was hurting her, leaving her sister teetering precariously on the brink of despair. “Yeah. You're right. She would.”
* * *
Three hours. That was how long Maggie had been in this state. No signs of improvement.
Alex had been working non-stop to identify the reason behind Maggie's unchanging condition. And, at long last, she and Winn had cracked that aspect of the case, progress which had allowed Alex a moment alone to breathe and reflect. This was the first time since the incident that she'd been able to stand over Maggie's unconscious body without a medical test being the reason for it, finally getting the chance to let it all sink in. Only now she wished she hadn't, because God did it ever make the inner turmoil she'd been bottling up so much worse.
Maggie's chest rose and fell, her breathing even, the monitors reading her pulse as stable and steady. Her badge and her police jacket hung from the corner of a chair beside her bed. It broke Alex's heart to think she might never wear them again. If she had just stayed behind the barricade like Alex had told her, she would have been fine. But, then, that wasn't in Maggie's nature, was it?
"You noble idiot. You always have to be a god damn hero, don't you?" Alex whispered as she dared to take Maggie's hand in both of hers, thumbs gently caressing her palm, her fingers, her knuckles, waiting for a hint of movement that never came.
Nothing. Only perpetual stillness.
It wasn't right, Alex thought, seeing her like this. Maggie was so...charismatic and vibrant. Simply being around her made Alex feel alive – she made every faint sensation stronger, every emotion more intense. And yet there Maggie lay on a bed in the DEO med lab, an empty shell.
Whatever this android had done, it needed to be undone.
Nothing could ever excuse a world in which Maggie was reduced to...this.
“I'm going to get you back,” Alex vowed to her, squeezing her hand to seal her oath, even though she knew there was no chance Maggie could hear her. It didn't change how fiercely Alex meant it. Even if it took a lifetime, she would never give up. “I promise.”
“So, Mr. Schott, I hear you and Alex may have solved the mystery behind this unprovoked attack,” said J'onn, joining them in the med lab, accompanied by Kara, both keen to learn what they'd uncovered so far. "What have you got for us?"
“Err, solved is a strong word,” Winn rather awkwardly acknowledged, seated at the desk he'd commandeered in the lab in order to help carry out this research. He and Alex had been tireless in their efforts to try to make sense of what had happened as rapidly as possible, using both Maggie and the DEO agent who had been rendered unconscious at the barricade as their subjects. “But, like I said, we did have a bit of a breakthrough just now. It's enough that we can answer some key questions.”
“Let's hear it,” J'onn encouraged, folding his arms across his chest.
Winn glanced back at Alex, as if wondering whether she wanted to begin, but she didn't have it in her. Holding in the extent of her concern for Maggie for as long as she had was taking its toll on her. Physically. Mentally. She was fairly certain the only reason she hadn't started to fray under pressure was because Maggie's life depended on her. She couldn't afford to crumble.
“...Okay, so, this is a hell of a lot weirder than we first thought,” Winn began. Alex was peripherally aware of his voice, only a couple of yards away, but she damn near lacked the will to listen. Everything was dulled. Her fingers gently brushed the hair back from Maggie's forehead. There wasn't so much as a crease or crinkle when Alex touched her skin. Maggie was totally unresponsive. “The scans have revealed that what we're dealing with is...well, it's a digital virus,” Winn informed J'onn and Kara, summarising their findings.
“Digital?” Kara echoed, completely baffled. “That can't be possible; it's infecting people, not robots.”
“I know,” Winn calmly insisted, realising exactly how crazy this sounded. “Except that's what our android did; it created a virus and figured out a rather ingenious way to spread its software to humans, essentially turning them into...living computers.”
“Alex?” J'onn prompted her for more details, unsure whether Winn had merely chosen a poor analogy.
“He's right,” Alex confirmed, though her gaze never shifted from Maggie. She was the one who had done the scans, after all. She'd been the first one to decipher the results. “The reason everyone passed out? Nanomachines,” she explained. That was the 'invisible weapon' the android had used. “They target the brain and seek out specific neural connections. Once they're implanted, their program takes hold.”
“Exactly. Think of it like plugging a flash drive full of malware into your laptop.” Winn nodded, backing her up. “It doesn't make a difference that humans are organic, because it's the tech that's infected. And this tech is...really freaking advanced, you guys; it's able to merge with the human brain in a way I've never seen before. It's seamlessly integrated. So it's definitely not from Earth.”
“An alien android attacks National City with nanomachines and leaves two thousand people in a coma. To what end?” J'onn asked, intrigued, and seeking a path towards the solution that would cure the afflicted. "What function does this serve?"
“Right, see, that's why I said 'solved' was a strong word,” Winn uneasily remarked, gesturing with his index finger as he spoke. “I can't tell you the purpose, but all we know is—“
“It's a network,” Alex cut him off, getting to the meat of the issue as quickly as possible. The longer they spent talking, the more time Maggie had to remain trapped in this comatose state. “Every single victim has been connected to every other one in this...cloud, I guess. The nanomachines are allowing their brains to communicate remotely, like a bunch of Wi-Fi hotspots.”
Kara squinted. “This is starting to sound like something out of The Matrix.”
“Maybe.” Alex shrugged. It wasn't as though that was much of an exaggeration at this point.
“We know this because we've been able to see that the nanomachines are...transmitting data to the hospitals where the other victims are,” Winn explained. “They're giving off signals and receiving them, like they're sharing processing power.”
"Hence the comparison to the cloud," J'onn concluded, earning an affirmative gesture from Winn.
“So, let me get this straight," Kara spoke up, needing to clarify a few things. "These people don't actually have this virus you're talking about – the nanomachines do, but they're also acting sort of like a computer virus themselves,” Kara deduced, doing her best to correctly understand what was going on. “They're using people's brains as...what, like, a hardware upgrade?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Only instead of using a virus to network a bunch of computers together make a DDoS attack on a website or something, we have no idea why all these minds are being linked together,” said Winn, shrugging his shoulders. “If there is a purpose to this, we don't know it.”
“Then let's find out,” Alex darkly replied, her fingernails curling into the bed at Maggie's side.
Winn blinked, taken aback by her acerbic tone. “Well, that is the goal, but that's easier said than done,” he pointed out, almost a tad defensive. It wasn't like he wasn't searching for a cure. Hell, he was the one who had been devoutly assisting Alex this whole time.
Alex didn't respond, only watching Maggie's face. She couldn't bear to think that they might already be too late. What if there was no way out? What if Maggie was stuck like this forever, her individuality stripped away, consumed by a cluster of stolen minds?
The very idea made Alex sick to her stomach.
She didn't want to imagine a world like that – a world that had lost Maggie's light. Alex wouldn't be the same. Never hearing Maggie's voice again. Never seeing her wry smile. Despite only knowing her for a few short weeks, she'd already grown so accustomed to how it felt to be around her. Alex couldn't go back to how things were before they met. She really couldn't, because now there was no way she could ever forget the happiness that was taken from her far too soon, forced to always be conscious of exactly what was missing from her life, aware of that aching absence. That misery would follow her for the rest of her days, a guilt that gnawed away at her until she died.
Her fingers clenched into fists at her sides, so hard that her nails dug into her palms. It was all that stopped Alex from hitting something.
A hand on Alex's back spurred her out of her thoughts. “Are you okay?” asked Kara, concern in her eyes, knowing how Alex felt about Maggie, and understanding how painful it must have been to see her lying there, helpless to remedy her condition.
“...Yeah,” said Alex, even though it wasn't true. She swallowed heavily, quickly wiping her eyes. She had to keep her mind focused. It was the only way to get Maggie back. She willed her fingers to relax and stood up straight, ready to get to work. “What do we do?”
“Good question,” said J'onn, contemplating what they could do with what little insight they had. “Obviously, we need to look for the android in the real world, but we can't simply destroy it without risking being infected by the nanomachines ourselves.”
“If destroying it would even solve the problem,” Kara pointed out. “Without the android, we may never be able to know how this virus works, or how to deactivate the nanomachines, or what its purpose was in spreading them to begin with.”
“That's a factor too,” Winn agreed. “I mean, for all we know, it may be the hub of the whole network. Killing it while everyone is still connected could simply fry their brains,” Winn remarked, making a gesture around his head to illustrate his meaning. Alex glared at him coldly, which made him shrink back in his chair. “Sorry, I'm not...I'm not making light of the situation; it's a legitimate risk.”
“Can't we tap into it?” Kara spoke up, her brows knitted together in thought. Everyone looked at her. She shrugged, not sure what the big deal was. “It's a digital network, right? Can't we, I don't know, follow the transmissions from the nanomachines back to their source?”
“In theory, yes,” Winn answered. Evidently, he'd been tossing around a similar idea in his head. “The thing is, using an actual computer to do that is incredibly dangerous. Whatever connection we open up could be used to infect our systems with the same kind of virus, and then it could potentially spread across the entire internet. We'd basically be inviting this android to take over the world.”
“What about a person?” Alex interjected, her voice low and determined. “Our android can't transmit nanomachines remotely and, last time I checked, I'm not Wi-Fi enabled. If I went in, I could see what's happening without being in danger.”
“Alex, you can't be serious,” Kara cut in, refusing to let Alex potentially sacrifice her mind to the cloud like that.
“It's a hell of a risk, Alex,” J'onn observed, concurring with Kara. “You'd willingly be subjecting yourself to the same thing the android is doing to all of its victims. Call me paranoid, but I'm inclined to presume the data being transmitted through them is not benign.”
“Yeah, except I wouldn't be infected; you'd be in control of my brain, and watching it the whole time. I'd essentially be infiltrating the network, like spyware,” Alex pointed out, unafraid of their foe's sinister agenda. “Right now, there's no other way we can know what's happening to the people in there. Plus, wouldn't it be our best shot at both locating the android and disrupting the cloud from the inside?”
After a moment of reflection, J'onn turned to Winn, silently awaiting his input on that question. Alex noticed Kara's thoroughly shocked expression, clearly unable grasp what she was seeing; J'onn was actually considering saying yes to this.
“I, um...I suppose that's true,” Winn acknowledged, much to Kara's alarm. “Since we can't use a computer that has any capacity to connect to this neural network remotely without endangering all mankind, having you in there would be the closest I could get to counter-attacking with my own program. Heck, you could practically paint us a map of this entire neural network.”
“See?” Alex gestured to reiterate his response. “It would be the safest bet.”
"N-N-No. I did not say those words, nor any synonyms," Winn protested with a slight, nervous stutter, recognising that Alex was already treating her decision like it had been signed into law. "Stating the positives does not mean that I am endorsing this plan."
"Fine. But I am endorsing it," Alex countered, her determination unyielding, prepared to accept the risks. "My body, my choice."
"And that is not the meaning of that slogan!" Winn objected yet again.
“But why you?” asked Kara, no less opposed to this concept. “I know how you feel about Maggie, but—“
“This isn't because of her,” Alex assured her, realising what Kara suspected was motivating this. “...Well, I mean, it is, in a way. I'm volunteering because I know I'm objectively the best candidate if we're to have any hope of getting her and everyone else out safely. You and J'onn and even Mon-El all need to be out here in the real world to take on the android. Winn will be running the program, so he can't be on the inside. Besides, Maggie recognises me; if she's in any way communicable, I might be able to convince her to fight this thing.”
“Yeah, or not,” Kara replied, resisting this reckless idea at every turn. “When you went in to free me from the Black Mercy, I almost killed you because I couldn't even remember who you were at first. And that's assuming this virus or network or whatever you want to call it is anything like that. We have no reason to think this isn't something far worse. Breaking its control like that may be impossible.”
“What if I was in there, Kara?” Alex challenged caustically, folding her arms across her chest, shutting her down like a sniper. “Even if you knew there was a risk it wouldn't work, can you honestly tell me you wouldn't try to reach me?”
Kara's expression fell, her shoulders sinking. “...Of course I would,” she admitted, with the utmost compassion.
“Good, so why are we arguing about this?” said Alex, too focused on saving Maggie's life to acknowledge the pang of guilt she felt for being responsible for causing the sadness in Kara's eyes, aware she was only objecting to this out of love. “Send me in.”
“Hold on one second.” J'onn raised his hand, realising they had failed to establish one vital fact. “Mr. Schott, is this even possible?” he asked, regarding their resident tech expert curiously. “We do still have the technology Maxwell Lord created to send Alex into Kara's mind before. Could you adapt that VR headset to send her into a digital network in a similar way?”
Winn sighed, not entirely convinced this was a good idea. Alex fixed him with an unwavering, unblinking stare, silently informing him that he had no choice in the matter. She was doing this, whether he approved or not. “...I'll see what I can do,” he conceded.
Kara had never looked so utterly defeated without anyone having to throw a punch.
"I have a bad feeling about this," she quietly warned Alex, though she chose not to argue over it any further.
* * *
“I can't believe I'm about to hijack an alien nanomachine network,” Winn remarked under his breath. “Not that I never thought I'd do something cool like that at the DEO. I always wanted to have my own, Independence Day, 'hack the spaceship' moment, only way less stupid than that movie. But I wasn't expecting my new job to involve uploading my friend's brain into a...very evil version of the cloud.”
“Working here is full of surprises,” Alex dryly replied.
“This isn't funny,” Kara spoke up, wishing they would both take this seriously instead of treating it like a game. Alex pulled a face, not sure what she'd done to warrant the chastisement. It was one lousy comment.
“She's not wrong about that, Alex. You do realise that we're relying on the efficacy of a program that's essentially in pre-alpha, right?” said Winn as he hooked Alex up, afraid he might have missed some critical bugs in his haste. “I can't promise that nothing's going to go wrong.”
“It's okay; I trust you,” Alex assured him, lying down on the bed next to Maggie's in the lab.
Winn's lips quirked, but it wasn't a smile. “Somehow, I get the feeling you'd say that even if you didn't,” he mumbled, attaching the last of the sensors and wires necessary to safely monitor Alex's condition. Alex didn't dispute that, because Winn was right. Nothing was going to stop her from going in there and doing whatever she could to get Maggie out alive.
“Let's hope her faith is well-placed,” J'onn commented, making it perfectly clear that Winn would have a hell of a lot to answer for if his program backfired and harmed Alex in any way.
“Yeah. Let's,” Winn humourlessly concurred.
“Alex, please...” Kara stood by her bedside, touching her arm. “You don't have to do this.”
“I'm going to be fine, Kara,” Alex promised, reaching up to cup her cheek. "I appreciate that you're scared for me, but don't let it cloud your judgement; nothing in there can hurt me, and you'll be watching over me the whole time. I can even talk to you.”
“Well, you'll be talking to me, mostly,” Winn acknowledged, taking his seat at the nearby desk, opening up a laptop. The computer wasn't connected to anything, except Alex's headset. Even if the virus did somehow spread to the computer through the network – which shouldn't have been possible with Alex being nanomachine-free – it would be contained, since it couldn't link to any other devices. “I've set up the program to try and make things...perceptible to you, but I can't promise my interface won't be overridden once you're in the neural network.”
“If anything starts to look abnormal, we pull her out,” J'onn firmly instructed, not willing to make any compromises. Preserving Alex's safety was first and foremost in his mind, always. “If you even so much as sense you're under threat—“
“I'll tell you,” Alex finished on his behalf. They'd only gone over this twelve times while Winn was writing the program. “I promise I won't take any unnecessary risks, okay? I mean, I like my brain; if anyone has a vested interest in making sure nothing tampers with it in there, it's me.”
J'onn uttered a quiet 'hmmph' in response before approaching Winn. “Are we ready?”
“In about ten more seconds. I'm just running diagnostics,” said Winn, making sure everything was operating the way it was intended to so far, getting more feedback now that Alex was actually hooked up to Maxwell Lord's modified device.
“Okay, then.” Alex sighed, shifting back against the bed, bracing herself for whatever she was about to encounter. She glanced up at Kara one last time. “Remember that this isn't just about me. If you notice anything useful as a result of me being connected to the network—“
“We'll act on it,” Kara confirmed, more eager than ever to find the location of this android and disable its network now that Alex was about to be plugged into it. The sooner they stopped the android, the sooner Alex would be out of harm's way.
Following that assurance, Alex adjusted the VR headset, releasing a deep breath. "Okay. Send me in."
“Alright, here we go,” Winn spoke up. “Activating the program in three, two, one...”
The DEO lab disappeared in an instant. There was a buzz and a flash and a static spark that shot across her skin, like an old TV being switched on. Alex blinked at the abrupt transition from the real world into the neural network. She gathered her bearings, finding herself standing in a featureless, infinite white room, only it wasn't really a room, and she didn't entirely feel like she was standing.
Was that Winn's program taking effect, giving her visual feedback? Or was this what everyone saw when they were inside the mind-cloud? Was Maggie walking around in here, just like Alex was? Or was her consciousness nothing but dormant data?
Alex drew breath as she took it all in. It was bizarre, unlike anything her senses had ever encountered before. She could actually see the program taking digital information and trying to convert it into something she could perceive. She noticed glitches in the space around her, objects popping in and out of existence, switching back into code before her very eyes.
She raised her hand in front of her face. It didn't feel like it was there. Watching her arm flicker in and out of the blank void where it should have been didn't help matters. Her body wasn't real in this place, of course. This was just a simulated interface.
“I can see what you mean about it being in pre-alpha,” Alex remarked under her breath, attributing these errors to the limited time Winn had to write this program. It was obviously either unfinished, or not fully compatible with the tech behind the mind-cloud.
“Är du okej, Alex? Vad ser du?” A voice crackled in her ear.
“...What?” Alex squinted in confusion. It sounded like Winn, but...not Winn.
All of a sudden, her surroundings flashed. Something bumped into Alex, making her stumble back a step. She glanced up to see the vague, digital outline of a person in front of her – a woman.
“Ursäkta!” said the stranger. Alex narrowed her gaze as she watched her code flash into the image of a three-dimensional person and back again before moving away, continuing on past her, like nothing was out of the ordinary.
It was then that Alex perceived that she was in among dozens of such...people? She was standing in the middle of a street, or something that was attempting to be an approximation of a street. She arched a puzzled eyebrow, watching Winn's program attempt to render the code.
The people around her went about their business quite happily, oblivious to the seams and errors in their virtual space. The only problem was that Alex had no way of telling whether they were real, or whether they were as artificial as the world around them. Were these the same people who had been infected with the virus? Was this where the neural network had taken them? Or was Alex alone in there? Was she the sole human consciousness wandering amid a sea of hollow constructs?
“Kan jag hjälpa dig?” The sound of a voice made Alex turn around, realising a man was standing next to her in the street. His vague semblance of a form peered at Alex curiously when she didn't respond with anything but a stunned stare. “Något fel?”
“W-What?” Alex stammered, feeling more than a little lost. This place was so alien. She could barely comprehend where she was and what was happening. It was enough to give anyone a moment of anxiety. “I don't...I'm sorry, what do you want from me?”
“Förstår du inte? Talar du engelska?” the man asked her, eyeing her suspiciously.
Alex glimpsed the man go from code to a clear, visual representation, and back again. He was a police officer. Alex wasn’t entirely sure, but he looked like one of the ones she’d seen outside the mall, and he did not appear to trust her at all, finding her behaviour odd. She didn't need to speak his language to get the gist of what he was thinking. If she hung around, she got the sense she'd only get in trouble.
“I'm...I think I'm lost. Excuse me. I have to go,” Alex muttered, brushing past the cop, hoping to put some distance between him and herself. Fortunately, he didn't appear to follow her. That was good. She couldn't afford to get sidetracked. “Winn, what the hell is happening?” Alex asked, holding a finger to her ear. That time, she actually felt it, illusion or no. “I think I'm in the network, and...I might have found some of the victims, but I can't understand a word anybody says to me.”
“Sorry, sorry. That was my fault,” Winn's voice came into her ear, the sudden loudness startling her a little. “I just realised I accidentally had your audio set to Swedish. My bad.”
Alex stopped in her tracks and stared up at the digital code where the sky should have been. “...You had it set to Swedish?” she echoed, wondering how Winn had even managed to screw that up.
“Not anymore,” Winn mumbled, sounding suitably embarrassed.
“How is that even possible?” Alex asked. “That's not how the program works.”
“Yes, it is,” Winn curtly replied. “Which one of us is the biologist and which one of us is the computer guy? Mhmm. Yeah. That's what I thought. I know how my own program works a whole lot better than you do." Alex huffed, but didn't complain. "You're walking around in a sea of data right now, not actual images and sounds. I had to retool a translation program to simulate speech for you.”
“But why Swedish?” Alex pressed, unable to let that go.
“Focus on the mission, Alex," J'onn's voice came over the mic. “I don't want you in there longer than you need to be.”
“I'm not distracted; I just want to know this program is working with me and not against me,” Alex replied, continuing her path through the digital world, hoping she could rely on Winn's creation to keep her safe enough to enable her to rescue Maggie.
“So, like I tried to ask you before, what do you see?” Winn reiterated, this time in English.
“It's kind of hard to put into words,” said Alex, although she was starting to get used to the way things looked in the mind-cloud. “Not to jump to conclusions, but...I think the neural network the victims have been hooked into is some kind of...virtual reality?”
“You think?” Winn echoed.
“Well, I can't be sure; I'm pretty confident I'm not seeing exactly what they are,” Alex acknowledged, reaching out to brush her hand against the nearest wall, which was nothing more than code. When she touched it, her fingers just went through it. “Your program is trying to render it, but it can't quite pull it off. I'm mostly only seeing code where objects or people are supposed to be.”
“That doesn't surprise me. I didn’t have much to work with. It should automatically adapt to the data it receives from the neural network over time, but I'll see if I can make some adjustments on the fly to speed things up,” Winn replied.
“Isn't that dangerous? I mean, Alex is in there,” Kara's voice came from the background, not speaking directly into the mic. Alex could barely hear her, and probably would have failed to do so if she hadn't already been concentrating on listening to Winn.
“It's an interface, Kara; I'm not rewriting her brain,” Winn pointed out. “I'm not rewriting your brain, Alex, just so you know,” he added, realising she'd most likely heard him say the first part completely out of context.
“Yeah, good,” Alex muttered, letting her attention drift from their conversation. Instead, she took to examining her environment in greater detail. “...Wait a second, I've been here before,” she said aloud, suddenly recognising why this faulty mock-up of a street struck her as familiar, despite its flaws. “Call me crazy, but I'm about ninety percent certain that this is National City.”
“That would make sense,” said Kara, that time intentionally speaking into the mic. “If it's anything like the Black Mercy, then what you're seeing is created by the memories of the people connected to the neural network. You're basically living inside a shared virtual construct.”
A moment of silence followed that observation.
“What? I'm from Krypton. I can be smart about technology,” Kara insisted, audibly pouting.
“Kara, you can't program a clock radio,” Alex remarked. She heard Winn snort. “But I think you hit the nail on the head about this. Whatever the purpose of this neural network is, it's trying to pass itself off as reality. The best way to do that would be to base it on people's thoughts.”
“So I guess I wasn't wrong about The Matrix comparison,” Kara remarked.
“Nope,” Alex agreed. “It’s the same principle; it’s an awful lot easier to trap people if you can manage to make them think they aren't trapped.”
“Yeah, well, just do your best to make sure you don't get fooled by this illusion too,” Kara warned, growing a little more comfortable now that it seemed like Alex wasn’t in any imminent peril inside the mind-cloud, but still wary.
“I...don't think that's likely, at this rate,” Alex commented, squinting as the wall beside her glitched into a blocky, flawed, angular image. That time, when she rested her fingers against it, it was tactile. She automatically chalked that up to Winn making corrections to his program.
Another thought occurred to Alex. If this fake National City was based on the memories of the people inside it, then it made sense to assume Maggie would most likely be living her life as she would have done on any average day, believing this world to be real. Upon that epiphany, Alex didn't hesitate, bolting down the street, brushing past people on her way to where she knew Maggie would be.
“Alex? What's going on? Why are you running?” asked Winn, following her actions through his screen.
“Because I think I know where to find Maggie,” Alex replied.
“Be careful, Alex,” J'onn warned, concerned that she appeared to have thrown all caution and discretion to the wind on a whim. “I know you want to find her, but you need to remember why you're in there. Stay focused on your priorities.”
“She is my priority!” Alex said bluntly, not resting until she knew Maggie was okay.
“Alex—“
The scene around her glitched. In an instant, Alex wasn't on the street anymore. She was in the bar, which was exactly where she'd been heading a moment ago. She blinked, taken aback. Not only had she just spontaneously arrived there without knowing how she did it, but...well, unlike the street she'd been in before, this was a near perfect recreation. It looked so real. Unsettlingly so.
“Holy crap, Alex. What did you do?” asked Winn. Alex wished she knew, but she was equally clueless. “Unless my tracker is broken, you just jumped from one part of the network to another.”
“...Yeah, that happened,” Alex confirmed, more than a little apprehensive about that. She paused. “Wait, what do you mean I jumped from one part of the network to another? What does that mean? Are we talking about a...physical location, here?”
“Uh...” Winn hesitated.
Alex frowned, growing impatient. "Where's my brain, Winn?"
“This is going to sound kind of freaky, but...Put it this way, if Kara's theory holds true, and the people infected with the nanomachines are creating this reality with their minds, then that means each person is essentially a cloud server,” he explained.
“Okay.” Alex nodded, following his analogy.
“...According to this, you're uh...The host you're bouncing signals off of right now is...” Winn awkwardly trailed off, but it wouldn't have mattered if he'd said anything. Alex's focus had been soundly whisked away before Winn could finish his thought.
“Maggie...” Alex whispered. There she was, bent over the pool table, clad in a leather jacket.
She heard Winn clear his throat over the mic. “Yes, that's...that's correct.”
That thought sent a shiver down Alex's spine, even though she knew this wasn't her physical body. All the other patrons flickered out of existence momentarily. They weren't real, she deduced; they were just illusions, not inhabited by the minds of any actual people. Alex instinctively understood that must have been because this was how Maggie remembered the bar.
Alex noticed the imaginary patrons pop back into place. Maggie glitched too. For a moment, her outline was digital – a figment represented by lines of code. But Alex's own mind must have filled in the blanks, because any such defects vanished. And Maggie was perfect.
The next thing she knew, Maggie lifted her gaze, spotting Alex across the floor, near the door. Alex's breath caught when they locked eyes. She saw Maggie smile, just as she had so many times before when they met like this at the bar.
“Hey there, stranger,” Maggie greeted her, sauntering up to Alex with her pool cue still in hand, wearing a self-assured smirk. It felt so vivid, Alex thought. If this what everyone else saw, it was no wonder they were convinced this was all real. “I've been waiting on you.”
“You’re...you’re you, right?” Alex spoke, not sure what to make of this. 'Odd' didn't begin to describe it.
“I tend to be,” Maggie wryly replied as she stood before Alex, seeming to assume she was making some kind of joke. “I hear that’s normal.”
For as much as this looked and sounded like Maggie, Alex didn’t know if she could trust this to be anything more than a simulation. What if the program was merely using Maggie’s image in order to deceive her? Anything was possible, as far as Alex knew.
“...Tell me something I don’t know about you,” Alex cautiously instructed, thinking that was a good test. “Something only you’d know.”
Even though she plainly didn’t understand what kind of game Alex was playing, Maggie elected to humour her request. “I don’t like horses, because about half my childhood seemed to involve them trying to kill me,” was what she went with.
Her answer took Alex aback, making her utter a small chuckle of astonishment. “What, really?”
“Yeah. One fell on me and nearly crushed me against my grandmother’s truck when I was three. One kicked me in the face and broke my nose when I was six. When I tried to learn to ride one, I got thrown off because it saw a snake and panicked. So, if you've ever noticed a faded scar on my body, chances are it came from Mister Ed,” Maggie recounted, eliciting an amused snort from Alex. Maggie tilted her head in thought. “I didn’t tell you any of that before, did I?“ she asked, unable to recall if it had come up in the past.
“No, you definitely did not,” Alex confirmed, her lips curling into a half-giddy grin.
“Good. If I haven’t run out of stories, that means you can’t get bored of me yet,” Maggie replied, a twinkle of mischief glinting in her gaze.
For the first time since Maggie got hurt earlier that day, Alex truly smiled, unable to contain the relief that swept across her features. In some form or another, this was definitely Maggie. She hadn't been...erased, or lost. She was right there. And, in that moment, Alex didn't know whether she wanted to slap her over the head for scaring her like this or wrap her up in a hug.
She went with the latter, throwing her arms around Maggie, squeezing her tight as her eyes brimmed with tears of joy.
Maggie laughed, resting her pool cue against the counter to return Alex's embrace. "Glad to see you too."
"You have no idea," said Alex, shaking her head. It occurred to her just how tangible this all felt. Every detail was correct. The texture of Maggie's jacket. The sweltering humidity of body heat filling the bar. It would have astounded her if she didn't have more pressing matters on her mind. Alex had found Maggie. Her consciousness was intact. And now she had to help her escape.
That thought made Alex's heart pulse quicken with urgency, never forgetting that Maggie's life was potentially hanging in the balance. She had to act fast. If there was any way at all to get her out of the cloud, Alex wouldn’t dream of delaying it.
“Maggie, listen to me,” Alex began, drawing back and gently but firmly taking hold of her arms. Honestly, she hadn't planned this far ahead. How was she supposed to prove to Maggie that this wasn't reality? “I...I don't know how to say this without you thinking I'm crazy, but—“
“Then let me start by saying something even crazier,” said Maggie, her eyes shimmering beneath the lights. Except she didn't say anything at all. Instead, she leaned in and kissed Alex without so much as a split-second of doubt or hesitation. Her eyes widened at the unexpected brush of lips against her own, a startled shockwave shooting through her, rendering Alex too stunned to even think of resisting.
“O-Oh, uh...O-Okay,” Alex heard Winn's voice nervously stutter in her ear. The knowledge that she was being watched hardly made Alex anymore comfortable with what was happening, even if her sexuality was no longer a secret. "...Go Alex."
"Shh! Don't...Don't look at your screen," Kara chastised, audibly batting Winn's hands away from his laptop.
She couldn't do anything. Hell, Alex could scarcely comprehend that this wasn't a dream, much less react. Her heart was thundering so hard that it felt like it was going to explode out of her chest. All her nerves were alight, leaving her momentarily paralysed, unable to move or think or speak as Maggie kissed her with a warmth and tenderness unlike anything Alex had ever known before.
Maggie affectionately ran her fingers through Alex's hair as she broke the contact, boundless adoration glowing in her gaze. Alex was only about thirty percent sure she was still breathing, and so dazed that she was fairly convinced the sole reason she hadn't passed out was because this wasn't her physical body. Meanwhile, Maggie was acting as if that kiss was the most normal thing in the world.
“I was wrong, Alex,” Maggie continued on. “I've thought about it and...you were right. I haven't been...as present as I should have been.”
“I, uh...You...I...What?” was all Alex managed to stammer out, frozen like a deer in headlights.
“But it's not for the reasons you think,” Maggie assured her. “I've...been in my head lately, and...yeah, I guess I have kind of been evasive, but not because I don't take our relationship seriously. Actually, it's because I've been asking myself if it's time to show you how seriously I do.”
The word 'relationship' fell upon Alex's supremely stupefied skull like an anvil. It was also then that she suddenly became highly conscious of the distinct lack of noise from Kara, Winn or J'onn. They were doubtlessly just as flabbergasted by this as she was.
With that, Maggie took a step back, uttering an apprehensive chuckle. She glanced around the bar, regarding it with a slight shake of her head. “I know that maybe this isn't the most romantic place to do this, but what the heck? I know what I want, no matter where I say it. And, if anything, I think this feels like the most appropriate spot to make it official,” Maggie remarked.
Alex could only gawk at her vacantly, robbed of her wits. This was the real Maggie, wasn't it? It had to be, surely. Yet Maggie would never behave like this towards her. She wasn't interested in Alex as anything but a friend. So was this some elaborate ruse?
“These past three years have been...the happiest of my life,” Maggie confessed. Alex's brow twitched in confusion. Three years? How was that possible? “I'm not going to be that idiot who lets the best thing that ever happened to me get away because I'm too scared of commitment.”
“Maggie, what are you—?” Before Alex could finish that question, Maggie got down on one knee and withdrew a small, black velvet box from her back pocket. Alex's mind went as blank as if it had been wiped entirely. This couldn't be happening. Except it was.
“Alex Danvers,” Maggie began, popping open the box to reveal a diamond engagement ring, “Will you marry me?”
The stunned silence that came over her comms perfectly encapsulated Alex's thoughts in that moment.