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IRON SCREW SOLID: SUPERGIRL
A Tactical Espionage Romance
A Hideo Kojima Fanfic
[LOADING...]
Please do not turn off your console. Please do not turn off your heart.
ACT I: THE SUBMARINE
Somewhere in the Arctic Ocean. 0300 hours. A very cold and very classified depth.
The submarine USS Lollipop hung motionless in the black water, its engines silent, its crew silent, its entire operation extremely, tragically serious.
In the control room, the lights were dimmed to a faint blue. Screens glowed on every wall. Bright green lines crawled across monitors, tracking temperatures, satellite feeds, thermal readings, and a very large glowing dot labeled AGENT: DANVERS.
Colonel Alex Danvers stood at the center of it all, with her arms folded and her jaw set, wearing a gray uniform and the expression of a woman who had not slept since 2016.
"Listen up," she said.
The room fell silent.
There were five of them. There was Winn Schott, the tech specialist, hunched over a console with a headset on and a bag of cheese puffs open at his elbow. There was Brainiac-5, the intelligence analyst, standing very straight, with a clipboard and a face that revealed nothing. There was James Olsen, the weapons officer, leaning against the wall with a coffee. There was a young woman called Nia, who was the sonar operator and, by common consent, the only person on board who still smiled.
And there was, at the communications console, with a headset on and her hair pinned up and her hands folded very neatly in front of her, Lena Luthor.
"Our mission," said Alex, "is called Operation: Iron Screw."
A dramatic chord thrummed from nowhere.
"Eight hours ago," she continued, "a terrorist organization known as OUTER HELL seized the Arctic research station at Shadow Moss Island. They have in their possession a weapon of unprecedented destruction."
She pressed a button.
A hologram flickered to life above the table. It was a vast, gleaming, bristling monstrosity of steel and cable, towering forty feet high, with a pair of enormous arms and a single glowing red eye. A bright red label read: IRON SCREW.
"The Iron Screw," said Alex, in a hushed voice, "is a bipedal, nuclear-armed, mobile launch platform, capable of delivering a warhead anywhere in the world within eleven minutes."
"Iron Screw?!" said Winn.
"That's the name."
"Who names these things?"
"Terrorists," said Alex, flatly, "have a flair for the dramatic."
"It's a screw," said James, in a thoughtful voice.
"It's an iron screw."
"I'm just saying, if I'd built a nuclear robot, I'd have called it something cool. Like, 'Thunderclap.' Or, I don't know, 'Fang.'"
"Iron Screw," said Brainy, gravely, "has a certain menace."
"It sounds like a hardware store."
"Silence," said Alex.
"We have one chance," she said.
"Our best agent will infiltrate the base, neutralize the guards, locate the control room, and disable the weapon before it launches. She'll go in alone. She'll go in unarmed. She will go in, as always, using only her wits, her training, and a single non-lethal tranquilizer pistol."
"And a cardboard box," said Nia.
"And a box."
"A very good box."
"That's classified."
"Her codename," said Alex, "is SOLID SUPERGIRL."
Another chord.
"She is the finest operative the organization has ever produced. She has infiltrated nineteen enemy bases. She has defused eleven bombs. She has been shot, stabbed, drowned, poisoned, frozen, burned, and, once, bitten by a bear. She has never failed a mission."
"What's her kill count?" said James.
"Zero."
"That seems unlikely."
"She's very good at tranquilizers."
"And," said Alex, with a sigh, "she'll be guided, for the duration of the operation, by our new communications specialist."
All eyes turned.
Lena, at the console, straightened.
"That's me," she said, in a very calm, very clear, very dry voice.
"Specialist Luthor has just transferred from the Intelligence Division," said Alex. "She has a perfect record, an IQ of one-seventy, and, I'm told, a very soothing voice. She'll be handling the Codec."
"The Codec," said Winn, reverently.
"The Codec."
"Codec, Codec, Codec," said James, under his breath, in a tone of deep and unholy joy.
"Is there a problem?" said Lena.
"No," said Alex.
"Good."
"Just, ah. One thing."
"Yes?"
"She's a bit of a talker."
"I'm sure I can manage."
"She's very friendly."
"I'm a professional."
"You've never met her."
"I've read her file."
"Hm," said Alex, in a voice of deep, dire foreboding.
She pressed a button.
"Agent," she said. "Radio check."
----
ACT II: THE INFILTRATION
Shadow Moss Island. A frozen wasteland of black rock and blowing snow. A temperature of minus forty. A wind that could peel the paint off a battleship.
Agent Kara Danvers crouched in the snow.
She was dressed in a sleek black stealth suit, with a gray scarf and a pair of tinted goggles, and her hair pulled back in a neat blonde braid. She had a pistol on her hip, a knife on her thigh, and a small, square, battered cardboard box tucked under one arm. She was looking out over the wire, at the vast gray bulk of the enemy base, with a calm, practiced, deadly look.
She was, by every measure, the most dangerous woman in the world.
A faint beep sounded in her ear.
[CODEC: 140.85]
LENA: Agent Danvers? Can you hear me?
Kara froze.
She had heard a great many voices in her career. She had heard the screams of the dying, and the commands of generals, and the cold, clipped speech of a hundred handlers. She had heard it all. She had never, in all her years of service, heard anything like this.
It was low, and warm, and a little husky. It had a faint, careful, almost formal cadence, as though every word were carefully weighed. It was like velvet, drawn across a very fine blade.
She swallowed.
KARA: Loud and clear.
LENA: Good. I'm Specialist Luthor. I'll be your support for tonight.
KARA: ...Hi.
LENA: Hello.
KARA: You have a really nice voice.
There was a pause.
LENA: I'm sorry?
KARA: Your voice. It's very nice. It's, uh. It's like, if honey was a sound.
A longer pause.
LENA: Agent Danvers.
KARA: Yes?
LENA: This is a classified operation.
KARA: I know.
LENA: We're in a combat zone.
KARA: I know.
LENA: I'd like you to focus on the mission.
KARA: Yes, ma'am.
LENA: Please don't call me ma'am.
KARA: Lena, then.
LENA: Specialist Luthor.
KARA: Lena Luthor, said Kara, in a dreamy voice, rolling it on her tongue. It's a great name.
LENA: Danvers.
KARA: Okay.
LENA: The perimeter fence is electrified. There are two guards at the northeast gate, on a six-minute patrol. There's a gap in the camera coverage at the loading dock. You'll want to approach from the west.
KARA: Got it.
LENA: And Danvers?
KARA: Yes?
LENA: Keep your voice down.
KARA: Why?
LENA: You're on a radio.
KARA: I thought you'd like it better when I whisper, said Kara, in a low, husky purr.
There was a short, strangled noise on the other end of the line.
LENA: ...The west.
KARA: Yes, ma'am.
On the USS Lollipop, in the dim blue glow of the control room, five people were looking at the speaker.
"Did she just," said Winn.
"She did," said James.
"On an open channel?"
"Open channel."
"They all heard that."
"Everyone on the sub heard that," said Brainy, gravely, looking at his clipboard. "The Codec is broadcast on all decks. The cook heard it. The engineer heard it. I believe the cat heard it."
"We have a cat?" said Nia.
"We have a very intelligent cat."
At the communications console, Lena Luthor sat perfectly, rigidly still, with her hands flat on the desk and her face turning a very slow and very bright shade of crimson.
"Specialist Luthor?" said Alex, from the doorway.
"Yes, Colonel."
"Everything all right?"
"Everything is fine," said Lena, in a very high, very tight voice.
"You're blushing."
"It's warm in here."
"We're at a depth of nine hundred feet."
"It's a, a thermal anomaly."
"I see." Alex took a very long sip of coffee. "Carry on."
[SNEAKING MODE ENGAGED]
Danvers moved across the snow, low and fast, her black form almost invisible against the ice.
A guard stood at the west gate. He was tall, and broad, and bundled in a heavy gray coat. A rifle hung from his shoulder. He was stamping his feet, and blowing on his hands, and looking, with intense and mounting misery, at his watch.
LENA: Danvers. Guard at twelve o'clock. Do you see him?
KARA: I see him.
LENA: He's due to be relieved in four minutes. Wait for the gap.
KARA: Wait.
LENA: Patience is a virtue.
KARA: You're a virtue.
LENA: Danvers.
KARA: Sorry. It just came out.
LENA: Do you have the box?
KARA: I have the box.
LENA: Deploy it.
KARA: Yes, ma'am.
LENA: Lena.
KARA: Lena, said Kara, with a smile in her voice, and pulled the cardboard box over her head.
It was a very ordinary box. It was brown, and rectangular, and faintly dusty, with a stenciled label on the side that read THIS SIDE UP. She crouched. She shuffled forward, an inch at a time, on her hands and knees, with the box swaying slowly across the snow.
The guard looked up.
He frowned.
There was a strange new box in the middle of the path.
[!]
He took a step toward it. He looked at it for a long moment. His brow furrowed. His mouth opened, and his hand drifted toward his radio.
Then he shook his head.
"Huh," he said.
He turned and walked away.
LENA: It worked.
KARA: It always works.
LENA: That's, that is remarkable. That's an absurd amount of luck.
KARA: It's not luck.
LENA: What is it?
KARA: It's professionalism.
LENA: It's a cardboard box.
KARA: It's my cardboard box, said Kara, haughtily. I've been using it for six years.
On the sub, Winn had put his head down on the console and was shaking silently.
"It's a classic," he wheezed.
"It is," said James.
"The box."
"The Codec."
"The 'Huh.'"
"I think," said Brainy, with the utmost solemnity, "that this is the greatest operation in the history of the Agency."
[SOLID SUPERGIRL: STATUS UPDATE]
She crept across the loading dock. She slipped through a ventilation shaft. She dropped, silent as a cat, into a long gray corridor, lined with pipes. A guard walked past. She hid behind a barrel. A second guard approached, whistling. She tranquilized him from forty feet with a perfect, silent dart.
She was, in every respect, a professional.
She was also, with every step, falling a little more in love.
KARA: Lena?
LENA: Yes?
KARA: Can I ask you something?
LENA: If it's relevant.
KARA: What do you look like?
There was a very long silence.
LENA: I beg your pardon?
KARA: I'm just wondering. I've never met you. I only know your voice. And I'm trying to picture it.
LENA: That is, that is not...
KARA: Dark hair?
LENA: Danvers.
KARA: Green eyes?
LENA: Agent.
KARA: I bet you're beautiful.
LENA: You're in an enemy facility.
KARA: I know.
LENA: There is a guard behind you.
KARA: I know.
LENA: He's about to see you.
KARA: Mm-hm.
LENA: Danvers, he's drawing a weapon.
KARA: Mm.
She turned, without hurry, and fired a dart, without looking, over her shoulder.
The guard folded gently to the floor.
KARA: Sorry, what was that?
LENA: ...Nothing.
KARA: You were saying I was beautiful.
LENA: I did not say that.
KARA: You were thinking it.
LENA: I was not.
KARA: Your voice went up.
LENA: My voice did not go up.
KARA: It went up a whole octave.
LENA: Move on to the second floor, said Lena, in a strangled whisper.
In the control room, Alex had put her face in her hands.
"Is this," she said, through her fingers, "the official mission recording?"
"It's live, ma'am," said Winn.
"Is it being archived?"
"Mandatory protocol."
"Who has access?"
"The entire Agency."
"Oh, god," said Alex.
-----
ACT III: THE BOSSES
Deep inside the enemy base, on the third level, in a vast, dark, echoing chamber lined with screens, a figure sat in a throne of black steel.
It was a woman.
She was tall, and thin, and pale, in a long white coat and a gas mask shaped like a skull. Her hands were long and delicate. She wore on her head a crown of wires and electrodes. She was laughing, softly, in a low and eerie voice, and in front of her, on the floor, lay a pile of unconscious guards, and, in the middle of them, a very small and very battered cardboard box.
KARA: Lena. I've got a problem.
LENA: What kind of problem?
KARA: There's a lady with a gas mask.
LENA: Describe her.
KARA: She's creepy.
LENA: That's, that's not a description.
KARA: She has a skull on her face.
LENA: That's the Mantis Madame.
KARA: The what?
LENA: A, a psychic. She's one of OUTER HELL's elite. She reads minds. She can read, ah, she can read memory cards.
KARA: What?
LENA: I don't, it's a bit of a, in her case, said Lena, faintly, she has an unusual sort of ability.
"Welcome," said the Mantis Madame.
She rose from her throne.
She did it slowly, in a shimmer of white, and a rustle of wires. She was very tall. She had a voice like rustling paper, thin and strange, and when she turned her blank white mask toward Kara, the whole room seemed to go cold.
"I have been waiting for you, Agent Danvers," she said. "I can see into your mind."
"That's rude," said Kara.
"I know what you are thinking."
"Do you?"
"I know every secret you have ever kept."
"Okay."
"I know," said the Mantis Madame, in a soft and terrible voice, "that you are thinking of a woman."
Kara went rigid.
"A woman with dark hair."
"Excuse me."
"And green eyes."
"That's, I'm not,"
"I can see her face." The Madame lifted a long, pale hand, and wiggled her fingers, as though stroking invisible threads. "I see her in a dim blue room, with a headset. I see her looking at her hands. I see her, ah, blushing."
LENA: Danvers. Don't listen to her.
"She is called," said the Madame, "Lena."
LENA: Danvers!
"She has a nice voice," said the Madame, in a pleasant tone. "You like her voice."
KARA: Shut up.
"You think it is like honey."
KARA: I said shut up.
"You have a contact in your phone," said the Mantis Madame, softly, "saved under the name, 'Lena Luthor (Beautiful Voice).'"
There was a short, ringing silence.
LENA: You have a what?
KARA: It's a, I, it's a security measure.
LENA: You have a contact?
KARA: I didn't have your number! I got it from the file!
LENA: With a label?
KARA: It's for ease of reference!
"She is also," said the Mantis Madame, with sadistic relish, "thinking of you."
LENA: I am not.
"She has written your name," the Madame went on, "four times, in the margin of her notebook."
LENA: That is a lie.
"With a small heart."
LENA: It's a lie.
"Two hearts."
LENA: I'm going to hang up, said Lena, in a voice of pure and exquisite agony.
"I think," said the Madame, "that I shall enjoy this."
The fight began.
It was, by any standard, a spectacular boss battle. The Mantis Madame levitated six feet off the ground, in a swirl of white, and hurled flaming skulls across the room. She summoned a legion of ghostly shadows. She made the lights flicker, and the floor tilt, and the screens on the walls erupt into static. She tried to take control of Kara's mind.
It failed.
Kara dodged. She rolled. She ducked behind a pillar, and fired a tranquilizer dart at the Madame's forehead. It bounced off. She fired another. It bounced off, again. She was, for the first time in her career, completely outmatched.
KARA: Lena, I can't hit her.
LENA: She's shielded.
KARA: What do I do?
LENA: There's a, there's a trick.
KARA: A trick?
LENA: In my notes. About the Madame. It's a, it's very unorthodox.
KARA: Tell me.
LENA: You have to, Lena paused. A faint rustle of pages. You have to unplug your earpiece, and plug it into the other ear.
KARA: What?
LENA: It breaks the psychic link.
KARA: That's insane.
LENA: It's in the manual.
KARA: It's a, that's, that's not a thing.
LENA: Danvers, do you want to win?
KARA: ...Yes.
LENA: Then do it.
Kara reached up.
She pulled the earpiece out of her left ear. She swapped it, with a deft, practiced motion, to her right. There was a high, strange, ringing silence. Across the room, the Mantis Madame staggered backward, with her hands clutching her head, and gave a thin, wailing shriek.
"What have you DONE?"
Kara fired.
The dart took her in the throat.
She swayed. She fell to her knees. Her skull-mask clattered to the floor. She looked up, pale and astonished, at the blonde woman standing over her.
"How," she whispered, "did you know?"
LENA: It's in the manual, said Lena.
"I," said the Madame. "I would like," She gave a long, rattling sigh. "To say, for the record. That she,"
She toppled forward, and began to snore.
Kara looked down at her, with a puzzled frown.
KARA: What was she going to say?
LENA: I have no idea.
KARA: I think it was a compliment.
LENA: I think, said Lena, that it was a poem.
[SAVE POINT REACHED]
A small, glowing blue terminal stood in the corner of the room, humming gently. A warm and gentle electronic tune played from a hidden speaker. A message flashed across the screen.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO SAVE YOUR PROGRESS?
KARA: Lena?
LENA: Yes?
KARA: Do I have to save?
LENA: It's, yes. It's standard procedure.
KARA: Can I save you?
LENA: Danvers.
KARA: I just think I'd like to keep you.
LENA: ...Press the button.
She pressed it.
GAME SAVED.
LENA: Thank you.
KARA: Lena?
LENA: Yes?
KARA: I'm not sure I'm coming back.
There was a very long silence.
LENA: What do you mean?
KARA: The mission, it's. It's a hard one. And I might not, I don't know if I'll make it through. A faint pause. And I wanted to say, if I don't, that I'm glad it was you.
LENA: Kara.
KARA: Yeah?
LENA: You will come back.
KARA: How do you know?
LENA: Because, said Lena, and her voice cracked, I'll be here. Waiting.
Kara closed her eyes.
KARA: Okay, she whispered.
-----
[Please insert DISC2]
----
ACT IV: THE FIN
On the roof of the enemy base, in the howling dark, in a blizzard of drifting snow, a lone figure crouched behind a pile of crates.
It was a very old man.
He wore a long gray beard, and a long gray cloak, and a pair of ancient, yellowed goggles. He was lying on his stomach, with a vintage sniper rifle clutched in his gnarled hands, and a thermos of something steaming at his elbow. He did not move. He did not blink. He had been in that exact position for eleven days.
LENA: Danvers. That is The Fin.
KARA: The what?
LENA: He's, he's a legendary sniper. A hundred years old. He once waited nine days for a target to blink.
KARA: Nine days?
LENA: It's a, he's very patient.
KARA: I don't have nine days.
LENA: No.
KARA: I have, Kara glanced at her watch, an hour and a half.
LENA: Then we'll need a plan.
They stayed that way for forty minutes.
It was a battle of wills. The Fin did not shoot. Kara did not move. They lay on the cold stone, a hundred yards apart, in perfect silence, each waiting for the other to blink. Snow fell. The wind howled. A single, small, patient icicle formed on the end of Kara's nose.
KARA: Lena?
LENA: Yes?
KARA: I'm cold.
LENA: I know.
KARA: Tell me something.
LENA: What?
KARA: Anything. Tell me about, tell me about you.
LENA: That's, that's not tactically relevant.
KARA: Please.
A long silence.
LENA: ...I like tea.
KARA: What kind?
LENA: Earl Grey. With honey.
KARA: Honey.
LENA: I read, a lot. I have a cat.
KARA: Really?
LENA: His name is Mr. Whiskers.
KARA: That's a, said Kara, with a soft little laugh, that's a very good name.
LENA: I was nine.
KARA: It's perfect.
LENA: I'm afraid of heights.
KARA: Are you?
LENA: A little.
KARA: I'll hold your hand.
LENA: You can't, you're at the North Pole.
KARA: I'll hold it when I get back.
There was a very quiet pause.
LENA: Okay, said Lena.
On the roof, a hundred yards away, in the dark, a very old man in a gray beard, who had been listening on a stolen frequency for forty minutes, was weeping silently into his thermos.
"Beautiful," he whispered, and slumped over.
He was asleep.
Kara stood up, and brushed the snow from her knees.
KARA: Huh.
LENA: What happened?
KARA: He fell asleep.
LENA: He, what?
KARA: I think he cried himself to sleep.
LENA: That's, that is the first time in the history of the Agency that The Fin has been defeated without a shot.
KARA: I'm very good at my job.
LENA: You are, said Lena, with a faint, helpless laugh, remarkably good.
-----
ACT V: THE IRON SCREW
At last, in the vast, echoing heart of the base, in a chamber the size of a cathedral, beneath a dome of black steel, it stood.
It was enormous.
It towered above her, forty feet high, a monstrous, gleaming, bristling thing of chrome and cable, with a pair of massive arms and a glowing red eye. Steam hissed from its joints. Lights blinked on its chest. A great thrumming noise filled the room, like the beating of an iron heart.
The Iron Screw.
In front of it, on a raised dais, in a crimson coat, with a leering grin and a pair of blond curls, stood a man.
"Welcome, Agent Danvers," said Lex Luthor.
LENA: Oh, no.
KARA: Lena?
LENA: That's, that is my brother.
KARA: Your what?
LENA: Lex. He's the leader of OUTER HELL.
KARA: Your brother is the terrorist?
LENA: It's in the briefing.
KARA: It is not in the briefing.
LENA: Page forty-seven.
KARA: I don't read page forty-seven!
"Surprised?" said Lex, with a delighted laugh. "You should be. I'm Liquid Lex. The twin brother of Solid Lex. And the half-brother of Lena. And the clone of Lena's father. And the great-uncle of, well, it gets complicated."
KARA: Is that a thing?
LENA: Every Lex says that.
"I have," said Lex, grandly, "only one purpose in life. To bring the world to its knees."
KARA: With a screw?
"An iron screw."
KARA: Why a screw?
"Because," said Lex, "it is the humblest of all fasteners. And yet it holds the world together." He spread his arms. "And, when it comes undone, it all falls apart."
KARA: That's actually kind of good.
"Thank you."
LENA: Don't encourage him!
The battle began.
It was long. It was loud. It was extremely cinematic. Lex swept his arm, and the Iron Screw lurched into motion, with a groan of shrieking metal. A massive steel fist smashed down, a foot from Kara's head. She rolled, and sprang, and ran along the machine's arm. A hail of missiles shot out of its shoulders. She leaped, and twisted, and plucked a grenade from the air, and flung it back.
It was a ballet of destruction.
She ran. She vaulted. She swung from a cable. She tranquilized the Iron Screw's left knee, and its right elbow, and, after a moment's thought, its eye. It staggered. It roared. It swatted at her, like a man killing a fly.
KARA: Lena, it won't go down!
LENA: It's reinforced.
KARA: I can't hit the core!
LENA: There's a, in the schematics, there's a weak point.
KARA: Where?
LENA: Just a second.
KARA: Lena!
LENA: I'm looking!
KARA: It's about to step on me!
LENA: There's a, a screw!
KARA: A what?
LENA: In the center of its chest. A giant screw. It holds the whole machine together.
KARA: A screw?
LENA: Yes.
KARA: It's made of screws?
LENA: It's called the Iron Screw.
KARA: I thought that was a metaphor!
LENA: It's a literal screw!
KARA: How do I turn it?
LENA: Counterclockwise.
KARA: Righty-tighty, said Kara, lefty-loosey.
LENA: Correct.
She jumped.
She leaped from the Iron Screw's knee to its hip, and from its hip to its shoulder, and climbed, hand over hand, up its great chrome chest, as it shook and thrashed and roared beneath her. A huge steel hand swept past, and she ducked. A rain of sparks fell. In the middle of the machine's breast, glinting in the harsh red light, was a massive, ridged, shining screw, as big as a dinner plate.
She gripped it with both hands.
She heaved.
It did not move.
KARA: It's stuck!
LENA: Danvers!
KARA: It's really stuck!
LENA: You can do it!
KARA: I can't!
LENA: Kara.
KARA: What?
LENA: I believe in you.
She stopped.
In the middle of the roaring, shuddering, thundering chaos, with the monstrous machine heaving beneath her and the world coming apart at the seams, a single, soft, steady voice came through the earpiece, warm and low and utterly certain.
LENA: I believe in you, said Lena. You're the best agent I've ever worked with. You're the bravest, and the kindest, and the most remarkable person I've ever met. A faint pause. And when this is over, I'd, I'd like to hear you say my name in person.
Kara closed her eyes.
Her hands tightened on the screw.
And something, deep inside her, in a place beyond muscle and bone, caught fire.
She heaved.
There was a groan. A shriek. A long, grinding, metallic scream.
The screw turned.
[CUTSCENE: 14 MINUTES]
The screw spun.
It spun, and spun, and spun, in a slow, glorious, shuddering spiral. It came out of the Iron Screw's chest with a great, rending, triumphant clunk, trailing a long thread of steel. The machine froze. Its eye flickered. Its arms hung limp. A deep, hollow, dying moan rolled out of its chest, and echoed through the chamber, like the last sigh of a whale.
Then it collapsed.
It fell to its knees in a thundering crash. Dust billowed. The ground shook. A long, bright arc of sparks shot up to the ceiling, and rained down in a glittering shower. The red light in its eye went out.
Kara dropped to the floor, and rolled, and stood, with the enormous, dripping screw clutched in her hands.
She looked at Lex.
He was kneeling on the dais, with his coat in tatters, staring at the ruins of his machine. His face was twisted. His hands were shaking.
"Impossible," he whispered.
"It's," said Kara. "It was a screw."
"You, you undid my,"
"Counterclockwise."
"I," said Lex, and a single, tragic tear ran down his cheek. "I never,"
"Next time," said Kara, "maybe use a rivet."
She fired a tranquilizer dart into his shoulder.
He fell on his face.
There was a long silence.
Then a small, quiet, far-off voice, from a thousand feet below the surface of the sea, from a submarine in the dark, said, in a trembling whisper:
LENA: Kara?
KARA: Yeah.
LENA: Did you do it?
KARA: I did it.
LENA: Is it, is it over?
KARA: It's over.
A very long silence.
Then a choked, joyful, ragged sound crackled through the earpiece, half a laugh and half a sob.
LENA: You, said Lena, you incredible, wonderful, impossible,
KARA: Lena?
LENA: Yes?
KARA: Can I ask you something?
LENA: Anything.
Kara took a deep breath.
----
ACT VI: THE QUESTION
She stood in the ruined chamber, among the wreckage, with a giant screw in her hands and a smile on her face. She was bruised, and bleeding, and absolutely exhausted. She had never, in all her life, been so nervous.
KARA: If I come back, said Kara, would you, I mean, if you wanted to, we could go out sometime.
LENA: Out?
KARA: Like on a date.
LENA: A date?
KARA: For a movie. Or dinner. Or whatever. A faint, breathless laugh. I'm kind of bad at this. I usually just kind of talk about tranquilizer darts.
LENA: Oh.
KARA: If you don't want to, that's, that's totally fine.
LENA: I, ah, said Lena, in a very small, very fast voice. I, yes.
KARA: Yes?
LENA: Yes. I'd like that.
KARA: You would?
LENA: I'd like that very much.
Kara sagged.
She sank down onto the steps of the dais, and let out a long, shaky, delighted breath. She put her hand over her heart. She was grinning so widely that it hurt. She felt, quite suddenly, as though she might float away.
KARA: Okay, she whispered.
LENA: Okay.
KARA: We're, this is happening.
LENA: It's happening.
KARA: I'm going to take you to the, to the, the best movie.
LENA: I'll look forward to it.
KARA: With popcorn.
LENA: Obviously.
KARA: And potstickers.
LENA: At the cinema?
KARA: I'll smuggle them.
LENA: I'd expect nothing less, said Lena, and laughed.
On the USS Lollipop, in the dim blue glow of the control room, it was very, very quiet.
Five people were staring at the speaker.
A long, awed, dreamy silence filled the air.
Then Winn, slowly, with great reverence, took off his headset.
"That," he said, "was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard."
"I'm crying," said James.
"I'm not," said Brainy, who was.
"It's open channel," said Nia, in a thin little voice. "She, she said yes. In front of everyone."
Alex Danvers, at the back of the room, had her hand pressed hard over her mouth.
She was shaking.
She was sniffling.
She was, for the first time in eleven years, looking at her sister's voice with something very much like pride.
"Colonel?" said Winn.
"Yes."
"Are you all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You're crying."
"It's the, it's a," Alex took a long breath. "It's the thermal anomaly."
At the communications console, with her headset still on and her eyes very bright, Lena Luthor turned.
She looked at the five faces. She looked at the speaker. She looked, for a long moment, at the glowing dot on the map labeled AGENT: DANVERS.
Then, very slowly, she began to smile.
"Everybody heard that," she said.
"Everybody heard that," Brainy agreed.
"Even the cat."
"Especially the cat."
Lena put her hands over her face.
She was laughing.
She was laughing so hard that her shoulders shook. She was laughing, and blushing, and crying, all at once, with her forehead against the cool edge of the console.
"I'm never going to live this down," she gasped.
"No," said Alex, gently.
"Never."
"Not ever."
"But," said Lena, lifting her face, with a radiant, tear-streaked, unguarded grin, "it was worth it."
---
EPILOGUE: THE CODEC
Two days later. The deck of the USS Lollipop, in the pale pink light of an Arctic dawn.
The ice stretched out in every direction, glittering and silent. The sky was a vast, soft, pearly gray, shot through with threads of gold. A thin breeze moved over the water, carrying a faint scent of salt and snow.
A helicopter was settling onto the pad.
Lena Luthor stood at the rail, in her gray uniform, with her arms wrapped around herself and her heart beating in her throat. She had not slept. She had changed her clothes three times. She had put on, and taken off, and put on again, a single, small, nervous dab of lipstick.
She was shaking.
The helicopter touched down.
The door opened.
A figure stepped out.
She was tall, and blonde, and bruised, in a torn black stealth suit and a gray scarf. Her braid had come undone. Her face was streaked with soot. She had a bandage on her cheek and a cut on her lip and a long, shallow gash across one arm. She was carrying a very large, very heavy, very tarnished iron screw, wrapped in a towel.
She was the most beautiful thing Lena had ever seen.
She stopped, ten feet away, and stood perfectly still.
For a very long moment, neither of them spoke.
The wind blew.
The sun rose.
"Hi," said Kara, softly.
"Hello," said Lena.
It was strange.
She had heard that voice so many times, in the dark, through a speaker, in her ear. She had known it better than her own. She had memorized its every inflection, every breath, every shy little catch. But she had never, in all that time, heard it come out of a mouth.
It was a good mouth.
It was a very good mouth.
"You look," said Kara, and swallowed. "You're, I mean. You look, you look exactly like I thought you would."
"Do I?"
"Dark hair. Green eyes."
"I'm glad you're not disappointed."
"I'm not," said Kara, in a voice that cracked. "I'm so, I'm so, you're," She stopped. She laughed, shakily. "I had a whole speech."
"Did you?"
"I was going to be so smooth."
"You've never been smooth."
"I know."
"You called me honey."
"It's a sound.*"
"Come here," said Lena.
Kara crossed the deck in three strides.
She stopped in front of her, a foot away, in the cold gold light. Lena looked up at her. She was so close that she could see the faint freckles on her nose, and the rim of silver around her blue eyes, and the single, bright, wavering tear clinging to her lashes.
She reached out, and took her hand.
It was warm. It was rough, and scarred, and shaking, a little. It fit, she thought, with a faint, wondering ache, perfectly.
"I said," whispered Lena, "that I'd like to hear you say my name."
"Lena," said Kara.
It was soft. It was low. It was the most beautiful sound in the world.
"Again."
"Lena."
"Once more."
"Lena Luthor," said Kara, with a smile that split her face in two, "will you go out with me?"
"Yes," said Lena.
She said it in her own voice.
Kara kissed her.
They watched the movie on a Friday night, in a half-empty theater, in the back row.
It was a terrible movie.
It was about a lot of explosions, and a robot, and a hero who made a long, gravelly speech about the meaning of honor. Neither of them watched a minute of it. They sat in the dark, with a bucket of popcorn between them, and a plastic bag of smuggled potstickers, and their fingers laced together on the armrest. Lena leaned her head on Kara's shoulder. Kara pressed a kiss to the top of her hair.
Halfway through, a small, quiet voice whispered in Lena's ear:
"Hey."
"Mm?"
"Your voice is better in person."
Lena smiled.
"Is it?"
"It's the best thing I've ever heard."
"You're ridiculous."
"I'm in love."
"That's the same thing."
They stayed that way until the credits rolled.
[MISSION COMPLETE]
Time: 03:42:11 Alerts: 0 Kills: 0 Cardboard Boxes Used: 1 Hearts Won: 1
RANK: FOX
[CREDITS]
Directed by Hideo Kojima.
Written by Hideo Kojima.
Produced by Hideo Kojima.
Voice of Kara Danvers: Kara Danvers.
Voice of Lena Luthor: Lena Luthor.
Voice of the Cat: the Cat.
A very long, extremely serious cinematic sequence follows, in which a man in a trench coat explains the nature of war for forty-five minutes, while a blonde woman in a cardboard box waves at the camera.
[PRESS ANY BUTTON TO CONTINUE]
(Please press the button marked "Lena." She is, as always, waiting.)
A Hideo Kojima Fanfic
[NOW PLAYING: "Invisible" by Duran Duran]
Over the end credits, the USS Lollipop's radio crackles to life on its own. Nobody touched it. Alex stares at the speaker, then at Winn, who raises both hands. Brainy notes that the song is "statistically inevitable." Nia is already dancing. James quietly takes a screenshot for the memes.
On the deck, Kara, still half-buried in her cardboard box, looks at Lena. Lena looks back. Neither of them is invisible to the other, and neither has been for a long time. Lena gets in the box.
Alex pretends she doesn't hear it. She hums along anyway.
終わり