Chapter 11 - You're Worse Than Nicotine

                                    

                                          
***KARA***
                          
Conner nods mutely along with me when I make the pronouncement to the others about our shared condition.
                          
"You said it was an in vitro thing?" Clark asks.
                          
"Yeah," I say, "so you shouldn't have it yourself. I guess Conner wasn't natural-born like you. Although I would've seen it if your mom were pregnant again, I think..."
                          
Barry twitches, then looks over his shoulder. "Anyone else feel like we shouldn't be hanging around here?" he asks.
                          
Clark looks up, as does Diana. "I hear sirens," says the latter. Only now do I sense them too.
                          
"We need a place to hide," Clark says. "Come on, we can go out the back."
                          
Barry defers to him and Diana with a flourish. "Lead the way, SuperWonder."
                          
We run through the hallway into the depths of the theater itself. Curiously, nobody's come out of any of their movies - I guess the sounds of Big Hero 6, Mockingjay, Interstellar, etc. effectively drowned out the sounds of our fight. In the case of the last one, that doesn't surprise me. I haven't seen that one yet, but I heard from Winn that that movie's got some...unique sound design. Or are there even any movies playing? The digital signs above the doors say there are, and I hear the sounds of the movies through the doors...but I can't stop to linger on any of them. Spoilers, you know. If Cat had given me the job of resident movie reviewer at Catco, maybe things would be different, but as it stands right now, I'm lucky to see one movie every two or three months. Usually with Alex, sometimes with Barry. Believe it or not, the ones I see with Alex are the ones that are more "date night" - that is, rom-coms, which we mostly watch to make fun of. It's easy to make fun of them when you've had precious little proper relationship experience, and especially when you know they get it wrong with the romance anyway. With Barry, however, I always pick movies that speak to me much better. Movies that also speak to him, so we mutually enjoy each other's company that much more.
                          
"Kara?" Conner beckons me over to the emergency exit door at the end of the hall, where the others are waiting for me.
                          
I realize I've stopped in front of a Chappie poster. "Crap," I mutter to myself, racing to catch up with everyone else.
                          
"Could you do the honors, Kara?" Clark asks, gesturing to the metal strips on the door that mark the locations of the alarm wiring.
                          
I nod, getting the idea right away. The others stand back while I blow freezing cold air onto the handle until I hear the metal crackling as it ices over. Then I blast it with heat vision. The alarm goes off for two seconds, making me and Clark wince horribly that whole time. Conner, too, because he's just removed the earbuds.
                          
"You all right?" I ask him as he presses the iPod and earbuds back into my hand.
                          
"Better," he says. "Is that normal? Needing more music after a fight?"
                          
"I've never noticed it myself," I say.
                          
Outside the emergency door, we wind up on a narrow, noisy metal staircase on the edge of the building. The theater itself is built on top of a multistory parking garage - a setup that, to me, raises red flags only because I've always been wired to expect the ground under my feet to lose stability. California may not be quite as seismically active as Krypton, but it's pretty damn close. I once had the misfortune of experiencing an earthquake in National City after temporarily burning my powers out in a really major fight, which led to me breaking my arm for the first (and hopefully last) time.
                          
I don't like running down this thing to the ground, but we all get down in one piece, and for that, I'm grateful.
                          
"Where's the hiding place, then?" Barry asks Clark when we're on the ground again. From the other side of the building, we hear tires screech as cops arrive, and I think there'll soon be some on this side as well.