Harlow wanted to believe that she was hallucinating. It was the only answer she could come up with, and it was the only one that made sense. 

But no matter how many times she blinked, no matter how many seconds it took to look at the person before her, even thinking back on the events that lead to this moment. The result was the same: It was Dr. Gizzard. 

She was standing now, looking awkwardly around the room, just as she was. But everything else was the same. Except for lack of the shiny bullet wound that should be a permanent feature of her body. Harlow was standing now as well, and she was having more than a little difficulty trying to understand what was happening. 

At first, it looked like Dr. Gizzard was wondering the same thing. But after a while of them standing and looking at each other, she looked over at her monitor and began working again. Harlow scoffed. 

“You’re really gonna ignore this?! Like, what I’m doing here and what you’re doing here??” She exclaimed. She thought about being quiet about it. Hell, she even considered that there was the good doctor was bringing in more security so that she could be arrested. But at this point, none of that other stuff mattered right now. She was accused of murder, her whole life put into disarray…she had to talk to people she’d never wanted to speak to again in her life! And this friggin’ S.O.B was still alive!! Hiding in a lab within a super secret base, because of course she knew all the hidden entrances and exits!! 

Harlow took a deep breath, flexing her fingers slowly and trying to practice her breathing exercises again. “Y-you’re not dead! What the hell?!” It was all she could say, but it summed up everything pretty well. 

Dr. Gizzard was now fidgeting over several objects on her desk. She’d pick up a paper, look at it, then put it somewhere else. Then she’d do the same to a beaker or a sample. She reached for the monitor but was stopped midway.

“Ah, the good doctor lives…” Black Star hummed, her voice echoing in the taller parts of the room. She floated down slowly, pushing Dr. Gizzard away from her desk. “Now why stop this beautiful reunion?” She landed in front of Harlow, arm outstretched in front of her. Harlow could see Gizzard looking more and more nervous. 

“Ah, uhm…Polaris, you’re here too, I ack-!” Black Star pouted, forcing the doctor into the air. 

“Black Star, now, Dr. Gizzard. Things changed, you know that.” She looked over her shoulder to Harlow. “Well, this is interesting..” 

“Interesting?! I’ve been framed for nothing!! I’ve lost my whole career!!” Harlow cried. She wanted to rip her hair out. To throw things, to yell, really anything. More than all that though, she wanted to drag Dr. Gizzard out into the main lobby and shake her around. Make sure the entire citadel could see that she was not a murderer.

Black Star clicked her tongue. She looked back to the visibly nervous Dr. Gizzard. She was actually shaking from her nervousness. Harlow’s eyebrow raised, but she couldn’t figure out why. Maybe because they’re here at all?

“Alright, doc, out with it.” Black Star demanded. “Why’s it that everyone believes that you’re dead? And how come you’re not?” Dr. Gizzard stammered wildly before answering. 

“I-i haven- i have no idea what you’re t-talking about-“ she finally said. It wasn’t a very good answer. Harlow walked closer to the doctor. Black Star walked behind her but stopped to look over the desk. “H-honest! I’m doing s-some research for the d-director…” Harlow frowned. 

“Do you really think we believe that? Dr, I saw you almost a week ago now. Bleeding. You were shot. You don’t remember any of that?” She shook her head. Harlow sighed and turned around to Black Star. 

“Maybe she actually doesn’t remember?” she offered. She was shot, so it’s possibly she’d blacked out the entire memory. 

“Doubtful. But, even if she had. Did she forget what she was working on? And what’s it gotta do with all this?” Black gestured around with her free hand. “I’m sure this little project is way older than her little wound.”

Harlow heard Gizzard gulp, and then try to move one way or another out of Black Star’s grasp. It was no use. She finally stopped struggling and glared directly at Black Star. Harlow looked back at the desk.

“Anything interesting over there?” She asked. Black Star shrugged.

“This always was more your interest than mine, Harley. So, I’ll leave the questions to you.” Harlow shook her head. 

“Care to fill us in, Rachel?” She said. Gizzard looked down to the floor, which was a good foot below her. She looked like she was considering what to say next, which was never a good idea in Harlow’s book. “How about this? I’ll tell you what we know, then you fill in the gaps?”

She was met with silence, but continued anyway. “Hmmm…so you’ve been working in this lab for…well, if our theory is correct, several months. Beauregard’s in on this, and I can only think that there must be others right?” Harlow started, trying to talk as calm and slow as possible. She walked closer to Gizzard, trying to get a good read on her face. “Does any of that sound familiar to you?” Again, she was met with nothing. It sounded like she was muttering something but it was pretty hard to make out. 

“What were you working on, Rachel? And why were you working with the Director Chow?” She saw the slightest flinch in Gizzard’s head. Harlow tilted her head, trying to look Gizzard in the eyes.  “This is his idea, isn’t it? The rest of you are just working for him?” She posed it as a question. As an out. Maybe if they blamed the higher up, they’d get a lesser sentence?

She heard Black Star scoff behind her. “Knowing this place, every single one of them in complacent. they all had a hand dealt in, and they all wanna piece of the pot.” Harlow shot a glare at her, then turned back around. 

“What’s the project, Rachel? Why do you need all of these bodies?” She dropped the slow, calming tone she was trying to use to lure out some answers. It wasn’t going to work, the woman had like, 2 PHDs. She just needed to taker her seriously and be as direct as possible. “And how did you survive? Or are you going to try and lie again?” Gizzard opened her mouth to say something, but closed it just as quickly. She did that a couple more times until Harlow groaned, spinning around and walking back over to the desk. 

“Cass, I’m not- I’m not doing this.” She clenched her fist placing both hands on the table. “She’s not gonna just give it all up so easily, when has a villain ever done that?!” Black Star looked up from the desk. She had compiled some papers together but the desk was still pretty messy. “How about you?”

“Given all I’ve seen so far, I can try…” She looked over to Gizzard, and dragged her over to her, so they could see eye to eye. “Hey Rach, let’s talk.” Gizzard looked very concerned. Maybe the reason she wasn’t talking before was because she and Harlow actually had history together. They were friends, Harlow even considered her a teacher. The work she did to understand meta human physiology was astounding. It was hard to believe she’d use any of that to hurt people. 

“P-Black Star, I have nothing to say to you.” She said, failing to hide the nervousness rising in her throat again. Black Star hummed, her eyes glowing brighter. 

“Aw, c’mon Doc, that’s not very friendly”, she heard Gizzard scoff under her breath, “We’re just trying to get a few answers…” Harlow wanted to ignore the tone in her voice, but she decided to just keep it in the back of her mind. Regardless of the mess of emotions she was feeling, Gizzard was still a person too. And no matter how she avoided death the first time, she would like it if she she didn’t need to try again. 

“Careful, Cass…” Harlow warned, now looking directly at the computer monitors. They  blank screens save for a few things that were saved to each desktop. For the one of the left, it had two icons; files and photos. The other monitor had excel sheets and like, two or three different documents saved directly to the desktop. Harlow figured she’d start with ‘files’. 

“What? I’m not gonna hurt her, just keep this same exact distance until i find her answers lacking.” Her eyes narrowed. “Then i choose to add a little pressure.” Harlow turned around fully, and watched Black Star and Gizzard for a moment. She wondered if maybe she should intervene and do the questioning. But, she kinda wanted to look through the computers for anything. And, Black Star was better than her and interrogations and if it came down to it, confrontation. Harlow could admit that fully. 

So she placed a hand on both monitors, eye glowing a steady blue. It would be faster than manually looking it up anyways. And while she looked through the files she found a couple of things that were interesting to her. She found the names of all the missing people, and the last known dates they went missing. Which, yeah, that was weird. Then, by each person’s name and secret identity was another date. Most had either a week or two after, while some names had as much as a month later. What could that mean?

“Just leave me alone! Why can’t you bother someone else already, I’m already so behind on my work!!” She heard Gizzard cry out beside her. Interrupting her train of thought as she scrolled through more files that discussed the very specific traits found in some super beings powers. Not really sure why she said that, but she figured that was a natural reaction, so she kept looking. 

She found almost all of the research that Gizzard had gathered while researching superheroes or people with powers in general. This wasn’t interesting, Harlow had even helped conduct some of these observations, but she still kept them in mind. But what was interesting, was another file with a list of names titled “Superhero Day”. Hadn’t superhero day already passed? Or was it coming up soon. She couldn’t remember. But the files had the same list of names as the others, marked with either “ready” or “needs more test”. Harlow knew she was probably going to need a copy of these. Or maybe the whole computer. 

“Rachel, you’re getting on my nerves. just tell me what any of this has to do with Harlow? Why frame her? Surely you have that answer right?” Harlow heard Black ask. Harlow looked at them for a moment, but seeing nothing amiss, went back to what she was doing. 

“There is no reason! She was just in the way!! Mr. Crow does not need any more distractions!! Please let me go back to work!” Gizzard replied. Harlow could have sworn she heard her struggling again. It sounded different, with a lot more gasps and short breaths. She turned around fully. And she saw Black Star trying to squash Dr. Gizzard, like play-dough. 

“Cassiopeia!” She cried out, snapping the other from her task. Black Star dropped Gizzard to the floor, wheezing and gasping for air. “What the hell are you doing?!” Black Star looked momentarily shocked, both hands in the air as if to protest. 

“Come on, Harlow. How else was i supposed to get those answers? Plus, she didn’t even explain what all of these guys were doing here.” Harlow scoffed, walking over to Dr. Gizzard to see if she was okay. “Oh, please. She’s fine, I barely did anything to her.” Harlow shot her the fiercest glare she could manage before fully giving her attention. To Dr. Gizzard. Which wasn’t the greatest idea. 

Because while she was dealing with her, about 20-25 drones entered the room.