Chapter 17 : Solitude
April 2016 — National City — Multiple Locations
The city went dark at 3:47 PM.
Not metaphorically—literally dark. Every light, every screen, every electronic device in a fifty-mile radius died simultaneously. Traffic signals failed. Hospitals lost power. Cars with electronic ignition systems rolled to stops in the middle of intersections.
And then the missiles launched.
I felt them before anyone else knew they existed. My Lightning Logic screamed as military-grade electronics came online at installations across the country—installations that shouldn't have been accessible to anyone outside the Pentagon.
"DEO, we have a problem."
"We noticed." Alex's voice came through my earpiece, somehow still functional despite the citywide blackout. "Our systems are compromised. Someone's in the network."
"Not someone. Something." I closed my eyes, extending my electromagnetic sense through the dead infrastructure. The patterns were wrong—too fast, too complex, too alien for human origin. "It's a Coluan intelligence. Fort Rozz escapee, designation Indigo. She exists as pure data, inhabiting any system she infiltrates."
"How do you know that?"
"Because I can feel her." The presence was overwhelming—a vast digital consciousness spread across thousands of networks, thinking at speeds no human could match. "She's everywhere. Power grids, communication satellites, military installations. She's not just attacking infrastructure. She's taking over."
"Can you stop her?"
I hesitated. The honest answer was: I didn't know. But the missiles were flying, the city was dying, and hesitation wasn't a luxury I could afford.
"I'm going to try."
Winn Schott — Cyberspace
Entering the network was like drowning in light.
My Lightning Logic had interfaced with systems before—basic data extraction, security bypass, communication monitoring. But this was different. This was full immersion, my consciousness extending through electrical pathways that spanned continents.
The digital realm isn't like the physical one, I realized. It doesn't follow the same rules.
Here, distance was meaningless. I could touch servers in Tokyo and Washington in the same instant. Here, time moved differently—seconds stretching into minutes, minutes compressing into heartbeats. And here, Indigo was waiting.
INTERLOPER DETECTED.
Her voice came from everywhere at once. Not sound—pure data, translated directly into thought.
YOU ARE NOT LIKE THE OTHERS. YOU SMELL OF LIGHTNING.
I gathered my focus, translating vector calculations into something the digital space could understand. If force and direction worked in the physical world, maybe similar principles applied here.
You're killing people, I pushed back. Thousands will die if those missiles hit their targets.
MILLIONS WILL DIE WHEN THE GREAT RECKONING COMES. I AM MERELY PREPARING THE WAY.
For what?
FOR MYRIAD. FOR THE SALVATION OF THIS PRIMITIVE WORLD. BUT YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND. YOU ARE BARELY MORE THAN MEAT.
She attacked.
The assault was incomprehensible—a tsunami of malicious code crashing against my consciousness. I felt my defenses crumbling, my sense of self fragmenting under the weight of her digital existence. She was ancient, vast, built from technologies that made human computers look like abacuses.
But she was also arrogant.
I stopped fighting the wave and let it carry me. Indigo's code washed over my consciousness, through it, around it—and in that moment of contact, I learned her architecture. Saw the vulnerabilities hidden in her certainty. Found the seams where her programming could be exploited.
You forgot something, I thought, gathering everything I had into a single focused point. Meat can adapt.
I pushed.
Vector mathematics translated into digital force. Her code rippled, fragmented, scattered across a thousand servers. She screamed—a sound that existed only in pure data—and the missiles lost their guidance.
Kara Zor-El — Fortress of Solitude
Three thousand miles away, Supergirl was fighting a different battle.
Indigo had created a physical avatar—a blue-skinned woman with eyes like circuitry and a smile like a knife. She'd tracked Kara to the Fortress of Solitude, seeking the Kryptonian databases that could unlock her full potential.
"You cannot stop the future, daughter of Krypton." Indigo's physical form moved with inhuman precision, dodging Kara's attacks by milliseconds. "Your species tried. They built Myriad to save themselves. They failed."
"Myriad?" Kara grabbed for her opponent, missed. "What is Myriad?"
"Salvation. Or extinction. The choice will be made soon."
Their battle tore through the Fortress—crystal walls shattering, ancient artifacts crumbling. Kara was stronger, but Indigo was faster, more precise, processing combat data faster than organic neurons could fire.
Then Indigo froze.
Her digital eyes went wide. Her movements stuttered, jerked, lost their fluid perfection.
"What—what is happening—"
"That would be my partner." Kara smiled grimly. "He's very good with computers."
She grabbed Indigo's head and twisted.
The avatar shattered into a thousand crystalline fragments, each one going dark as the intelligence behind them fractured beyond repair.
DEO Medical Bay — Three Days Later
I woke up to the worst headache of my life.
"Welcome back." Kara's voice came from somewhere nearby. My eyes refused to focus properly. "You've been out for seventy-two hours."
"That explains the headache."
"J'onn says you pushed yourself too far. Something about neural overload and electromagnetic burnout." She pressed a glass of water into my hand. "He also says you're an idiot who shouldn't have tried to fight a Coluan intelligence alone."
"Did we win?"
"We won. Indigo's fragmented across a dozen isolated servers. The missiles crashed harmlessly into the ocean. The city's infrastructure is coming back online." She paused. "You saved millions of lives, Winn."
"Cool." I closed my eyes against the pounding in my skull. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
"Only if you promise never to scare me like that again."
"No promises."
She laughed softly and tucked a blanket around my shoulders. The gesture was tender, careful—the kind of thing you did for someone you cared about deeply.
Something more, I thought drowsily. Definitely something more.
"Rest," she said. "I'll be here when you wake up."
I let the darkness take me.
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