Contributions to society extended cut edition

chapter 2: slaughterhouse

Date: March 2 2019 8am

The next time Kara woke up, she was naked and strapped to an operating table, an IV drip in her arm and a red sunlamp over her head. In the IV bag was clear substance, little gold liquid floating inside of it. She woke up violently but, because of the Red UV sunlamp, found herself powerless to do more than squirm. None of her powers worked and she was as weak as a normal human, meaning that the straps holding her to the table were working. Even though she was weak, tired and woozy, however, she continued to thrash.
“I don’t see why you insist upon wasting your time and energy. You’re only going to make yourself upset, trying to do that. But you won’t get out. I can assure you of that,” an eerily pleasant voice behind Kara suddenly began to speak. She tilted her head back as much as she could and was horrified to find herself looking into the dark and sadistically delighted eyes of Lex Luthor.
“Impossible!” she breathed, so stunned by Lex’s appearance that she forgot that she was totally naked.
“Ah-ah,” Lex waggled a finger in mock chastisement. “Not impossible,” he said. “Just improbable. But as low as the odds were, I still had a chance, and I know how to make the best of my chances,” the smile he gave her was chilling.
“How?” the fear in her voice was palpable as, just for a second, she lost all pretense of trying to act brave.
“How?” he asked back, showing off more of his teeth as his smile widened sickeningly. “Why, Ms. Danvers, I am so glad you asked!” then, he proceeded to explain, gloating over her as his sick and twisted plan unfolded before her eyes.
Lex had been coming and going from his jail cell for months now, him having since bribed the guards into letting him leave every once in a while. During one of his many outings, he ran into an old friend and associate of his, Ivan Thorul. Ivan, like Lex, had been a vehemently anti-alien man. He still held those same hateful views, but he had been relatively inactive and underground ever since Lex was imprisoned. Now that Lex was free again, though, it didn’t take much to persuade him to hop back onto the old bandwagon of attempting to wipe out every little last alien species from the planet until only a pure human race remained.
During his time in jail, Lex had come up with an ingenious new plan that was far more subtle than anything he had previously concocted. All he needed to set that plan in motion was a human who was safely on the outside of things. That human was, of course, Ivan. Stupid, devoted, determined, and perfectly obedient, Ivan. So while Lex still spent most of his time locked away, Ivan never rested, constantly out and busy, doing the Luthor’s dirty work. He bought up an abandoned factory and fixed up the machines until everything was up and running again. This time, though, what used to be an old slaughterhouse for common farm animals was remodeled into a Humane laboratory that could contain and clone Kryptonians. As soon as that lab was done, Lex then commanded Ivan to go and find Supergirl and gain her trust in any way he knew how. He had chosen the lie that he was a mutual friend of Supergirl’s’ dear, beloved sister: Alex. The rest was history.
“And that’s how he knew so much about the DEO!” Kara breathed in horror and disbelief.
“Correct,” Lex said smugly. “He is quite the actor! I can’t believe he even managed to get you to meet him up at a bar!” the mad scientist added with a cackle. “I thought for sure that a girl like you would’ve had the brains to avoid a first meeting like that, but I suppose that being an invulnerable, perfect little Kryptonian has given you a god-complex, a false sense of security. I like that,” he paused to smile serenely at Kara.
“How deliciously ironic it is,” he mused. “I was always told that my pride was what caused my fall. Had I not overshot and overstepped my boundaries, I would’ve been happy. But now look! Supergirl! The hero of the world, second only to Superman, has made the very same fatal flaw that once ensnared me. You and I have the same foolish pride. The only difference is that your mistake will be much more permanent than mine…”
“You’re crazy!” Kara tried to bluff bravely. “Someone will know that I am gone and they will come looking for me and-”
“Ha! Oh, Kara, my dear, no one will come looking for you! Ivan has taken care of that,” Lex turned his head to the right and Ivan himself stepped out of the shadows, grinning twistedly up at Kara. Kara felt an unspeakable fury start to burn in her chest the moment she looked into those warm brown eyes once again only to see a bragging sort of triumph within them. That sick, little-
“You see, Kara, it was simple!” Ivan began, voice suddenly cruel and demeaning. “That little bar I invited you to was no normal bar. Didn’t you ever stop to ask even once why it was so quiet and clean? No normal bar is quite that empty! Especially not at night!”
“What are you talking about?” Kara snarled as it suddenly occurred to her that he was right. She had considered that bar to be quaint, charmed by its small and quiet group. She hadn’t even thought that such a small number of people should’ve been a red flag.
“That is because, my dear, stupid Kryptonian, that was an anti-alien bar. Don’t you ever even do your research? Or is your god-complex so big that you think you can just waltz in to any old place and think that you are safe?”
“Anti-alien bar?” Kara echoed, anger turning into horror and revulsion. Ivan only nodded back at her, grinning gleefully.
“Yeah! Everyone there despises aliens with a passion! It’s why they wouldn’t address you, or I. They knew who you were too. Oh! Perhaps they didn’t quite make the connection that you were Supergirl, but they knew you were an alien.”
“But how?” Kara could only shake her head.
“It’s because I told them, duh!” Ivan cried in disdain. “I am Lex Luthor’s right-hand man! Of course I would know where to find an anti-alien hub. That bar is one of them. Now, it’s unofficial, of course, but that means nothing. That is a spot notorious for anti-alien folks to meet up and discuss. I am amazed you didn’t realize that sooner! But no matter. It made my job easier. All I had to do was let the bartender know who you were, what you looked like and when you’d come. Then, once you arrived, every drank you had that night was laced with Red Kryptonite.”
“Red Kryptonite!” Kara echoed in horror as she remembered how weak she had felt after her third beer. It hadn’t been a normal drunken stupor, it had been the Red Kryptonite, weakening her system.
“Yup!” Ivan smiled. “Once you were full of the stuff, it was easy for me to cart you away. And remember, since the entire bar despised you. Or rather, what you were, I had no trouble in receiving help. I had one of the patrons take your phone and drive it off to an abandoned gas station halfway into the next state while the others helped me load you up, up and away! Good luck hoping that someone will be able to find you now, sweetheart! We intend upon keeping you here for a while. Lex, after all, still has quite a few plans for you.”
“Yes,” Lex agreed with his assistant. Then he looked smugly back down at Kara once again.
“You see, Ms. Danvers,” he began. “I am a changed man. Really I am! I have come to see aliens in a new way and I have come to realize that they still have quite a lot that they can offer me, and the rest of humanity. For although aliens are only second class citizens they can still-”
“Shut up!” Kara snarled, starting to thrash again as Lex dared to insult her like that, but he only put a finger to his lips before continuing calmly, ignoring Kara’s rude interruption of his speech.
“That they can still make great contributions to society!” there was bravado in his voice as he said this, and it threw Kara off guard.
“Contributions to society?” she demanded. “What do you mean?” she was certain that he did mean this in a way half as benevolent as he was pretending, but she could not figure out what he meant by this.
“You and your talents have inspired me,” Lex replied calmly. “And now I intend upon using that inspiration, those noble traits of yours, and amplifying it a billion-fold!” he grinned mysteriously.
“So what are you going to do now?” Kara continued to demand bravely, finally starting to catch onto his evil little scheme. “Are you going to try and clone me and hope that you’ll somehow get away with building a Kryptonian army?” she continued to struggle against her restraints.
“Close, Kara, close,” Lex replied gently. But his voice hardened as he gestured for Ivan to approach her.
“But not close enough...” and before Kara knew what was happening, something else was being injected into her arm. More Red Kryptonite. It was then that she realized that the stuff in the IV bag was Gold Kryptonite, a permanent power-remover. Kara’s panic and efforts to escape redoubled.
“Now, now, Kara, you surely don’t want to spend the rest of your life squealing like a Animal, do you? After all, your legacy isn’t over! I am going to make you a star as Meat to Be Eaten, and you are still going to make many more wonderful contributions to society ‘Aliens To Be Served As Food as Contribution To Society’, just as you always have before. The people of Earth will love you for it!!” Lex taunted her merrily, but Kara was thrashing around so violently that she didn’t hear him at all. Ivan, however, did, and he laughed sadistically.
“Are we ready, boss?” he asked. Lex nodded once and Ivan gleefully scurried over to a large switch on one of the far walls of the lab. He yanked the switch down hard and, suddenly, the entire laboratory came to life. But while the ex-slaughterhouse took its first breath, Kara Zor El took her last breath.