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Chapter 19: Adult Supervision

“Kara, what’s a chordate again?”

There was no response so Bailey looked to the foot of her bed, where Kara sat cross-legged. She wasn’t looking at her textbook; her head was tilted and her eyes weren’t looking at anything, as if she were listening to something only she could hear. Bailey realized with a start that was probably exactly what was happening.

Kara’s breath caught and her eyes widened. She lowered her glasses and looked around. “Good — your mom’s downstairs in the kitchen.”

“You heard something, didn’t you?” asked Bailey quietly.

Kara nodded and pulled out her phone. Her thumb blurred momentarily over the keyboard, and the phone made a “text sent” noise. Half a minute later it rang. “Emily?” answered Kara. She lowered her voice. “There’s a guy in Colorado holding some kids in a school hostage.” Bailey gasped. “Yes… I know… I will, I totally will, I promise!” She listened some more. “I’ll come straight home after… OK… bye.” She hung up.

“Does Supergirl need to go?” asked Bailey.

“Yes.” Kara packed her backpack at super-speed. She shouldered it, and Bailey escorted her guest downstairs to the door.

“Mrs. Harker,” called Kara. “Emily called and I have to go now.”

The Harkers were well off and had a large home, so it took Mrs. Harker a few moments to come from the kitchen. Kara fidgeted nervously the whole time. “I’m sorry, Kara. Didn’t you just get here?”

Kara nodded. “I’m sorry too. I wish I could stay.”

“Do you want me to drive you home?”

Kara shook her head quickly. “No thank you, Mrs. Harker. I have time to walk and you’re busy.” She moved towards the door.

“Do you want a cookie? If you can wait a minute I have a batch coming out of the oven. They’re oatmeal chocolate chip.”

Kara shook her head again. “They smell delicious, Mrs. Harker, but I really need to go.” She looked desperately at Bailey.

Bailey took the hint and opened the door. “Call you later?”

“Sure, Bailey. Bye!” Kara scooted out the door and headed down the walk at a trot.

Mrs. Harker looked after her, puzzled. “She seemed in an awful hurry to leave.” She eyed Bailey suspiciously. “Is everything OK between you two?”

Bailey rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom. She just had to go.” She reached out and closed the door. A second later there was a whooshing noise from outside. A few seconds after that there was a faint sonic boom.

Mrs. Harker shook her head. “There goes another jet from Dover. We never used to get sonic booms around here.”



Kopp Middle School in Fort Collins, Colorado, was a circus.

Naturally there was a swarm of emergency vehicles, but beyond that the media had all the surrounding streets choked off. Captain Colleen Mason knew they had a right to be there but still, part of her resented having to devote any attention or resources to managing their presence when she wanted to be totally focused on the situation inside.

The gunman must have had access to the school calendar, because he’d started his attack right after the beginning of an all-school assembly. Almost all the children and teachers were in the auditorium, held hostage. He was armed with an assault weapon.

Unfortunately the auditorium had only high windows, and there were no tall buildings in the area from which they could see in, or from which a sniper could take a shot.

For someone who had planned so carefully the gunman was making all sorts of bizarre demands; one of them was that the President of the United States resign immediately. They’d tried to talk him down over the phone but negotiations had gone nowhere.

Captain Mason wasn’t planning the strategy — that was up to the command team — but she needed to execute the plans they came up with. At the moment she was trying to figure out how to position a SWAT team without the lunatic inside finding out. Not that she had any idea how a SWAT team could move in without resulting in a bloodbath.

“Excuse me?” she heard a young girl ask as she felt a tug on her sleeve.

Had another one of the kids managed to get out somehow? A few had been cutting the assembly and managed to escape once the fireworks started. She turned around and looked down, then blinked.

The kid was dressed like the flying girl who’d been on the news recently, but her costume was obviously homemade. Mason frowned. “What are you doing here? Are you one of the kids who made it out? You should be over there with the medical team.” She pointed.

“No ma’am,” said the girl. “I just got here. I wanted to ask if there’s anything I can do to help?”

“Just got here?” asked Mason. “Are you not a Kopp student?”

“No ma’am, like I said—”

The officer grew angry. “Look kid, I don’t know where your parents are, but this is a very dangerous situation. How did you get through—”

She cut herself off when the girl floated up into the air.

“Oh.”



Supergirl squinted. “Oh… I think so. He has some flat things he’s wearing under his coat, and I see wires like you said to look for.”

“A suicide bomb. Great,” sighed Richard Halstead. He was with the FBI’s Denver office, an antiterrorism specialist who’d flown in by helicopter. He was leading the command team.

He’d been surprised when one of the local police had led Supergirl over to them. Word from Washington was that a policy was forthcoming on how to deal with her, but it wasn’t available yet. All they’d said was, “if encountered, observe closely; learn all you can; do not provoke.”

The first thing he’d observed was that she was exactly what she appeared to be: a little girl. Analyzing people was an important part of Richard’s job. Though she was trying to be polite and formal, it seemed clear she was a normal kid, except for her abilities.

He’d thought she was too young to help, but quickly changed his mind when she started reporting on how the gunman was positioned, what his weapon was like, and the vital fact that he was wearing enough explosive to kill everyone in the auditorium if it detonated.

“He’s yelling at them again,” offered Supergirl. She winced; the gunman was using words inappropriate for kids. She’d relayed the content of his rants to Richard’s team and they’d quickly reached the conclusion that he was paranoid and delusional.

Richard rubbed his temples. “Can you sketch out how the wires are connected to the bomb?” He handed Supergirl a pencil and a pad of paper.

“I have to go look from the other side,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She vanished with a slight whoosh.

The team had grown somewhat used to her moving around at super-speed, but it was still disconcerting. It seemed an obvious violation of the laws of physics. Then again, so was pretty much everything else she did.

Supergirl reappeared as suddenly as she’d vanished. “It looks like this.” She handed the sketch pad to Richard.

Despite the subject matter and super-speed the drawing looked exactly like what any child her age might produce, down to the carefully neat labels. Supergirl has good penmanship. The idea of a child being a superhero kept throwing him off balance.

“Hmm.” He traced his finger over the diagram. “He’s not making this easy. There’s a dead-man switch.”

“What’s that?” asked Supergirl.

“That means, if he turns it on then lets go of it, the bomb goes off. Is he holding this switch?”

Supergirl peered at the school. “No, he has a big gun in one hand and he’s pointing at the kids with the other one while he yells.” She bit her lip. “They’re pretty scared.”

“I’ll bet,” murmured Richard. He frowned in thought. “Do you have heat vision?”

Supergirl nodded. “Yes.”

“Can you burn out wires from a distance?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I never tried.” She brightened. “I did light a candle once; that’s pretty small. Is that good enough?”

Richard suppressed a smile. “I think maybe so. Janet, can you get her something to practice on?”

Janet Kosich rummaged in their equipment box for a while, then held up a piece of wire. “Does this look like what you saw?”

Supergirl nodded again.

“OK, let me stand about forty feet away, and you see if you can cut the wire. I’m going to hold a rag in front of it to represent his coat, and a piece of paper behind it to represent his shirt. See if you can cut the wire without burning the paper; that way, he won’t feel it.”

Janet walked off a ways, and held up a sandwich: the rag in front, the paper behind, and the wire between them. “Go ahead.”

Supergirl squinted in careful concentration. Everyone jumped slightly when twin laser-like beams shot from her eyes.

Richard stared. Jesus. It was beginning to sink in just how powerful this girl was. Given his profession, he couldn’t help thinking of ways that power could be abused. He thought he ought to be deeply concerned about such power in the hands of a child. Strangely, he found he wasn’t.

Janet saw the wire smoke and fall in two. She yelped when the paper caught fire as well, then dropped it on the ground and stamped it out with her boot.

Supergirl’s ears turned red.

“OK,” said Richard, shaking himself out of his contemplation. “Let’s try that again.”



“Do you remember everything?” asked Richard.

“Yes,” said Supergirl. “Burn out the bomb wire you showed me first. Make sure I don’t aim anywhere near the explosive. After the wire’s cut, melt the barrel of his gun. Then I can bring him out to you,” she recited.

“That’s exactly right,” approved Richard. He felt like he was coaching his ten year old son on how to throw a football; it was surreal.

They were going to send Supergirl in through a service corridor, then into the backstage area of the auditorium. That would give her the best shot at disarming the gunman unobserved. Richard wasn’t thrilled about relying on a child, especially since she seemed apprehensive, but paradoxically this approach had the best chance of success. Anything else was likely to cause severe loss of life.

Suddenly Supergirl’s gaze jerked towards the school. “He just shot one of the teachers!” she cried.

“What’s the teacher’s condition?” asked Richard urgently.

“I think she’s still alive, but she’s bleeding a lot! The kids are crying.” She sounded close to crying herself.

Richard looked around at his team. “We need to move now. Now that he’s shot someone chances are it won’t be long before he does it again.” He turned to Supergirl and said reassuringly, “You’ll do great, so don’t worry, OK? Let’s go!”

She nodded uncertainly and vanished. Richard crossed his fingers.



Kara floated silently into the right wing of the auditorium stage, much as she’d snuck out of the house the night she’d learned she could fly. She was still hidden from the audience but had a clear line of sight to the gunman. He stood at the front of the stage, screaming at the frightened children and staff. She hoped he couldn’t see her hovering in the darkness.

She zoomed in on the wiring; it looked the same as it had from farther away. Mr. Halstead had told her several times that if anything looked different she was to come back so they could reevaluate the proper way to disable it. She spared a glance for the wounded teacher, who appeared still to be alive.

She tried to calm her jittery nerves. She’d been surprised when Mr. Halstead asked her to do this. This wasn’t like her previous rescues, which had been straightforward. Here, if she made a small mistake it could be catastrophic. She tried hard not to think of just how catastrophic. Horrible visions were lurking at the edges of her imagination, like monsters under her bed.

Mr. Halstead had told her she was ready. She sure hoped he was right.

She shifted into super-speed so she could react properly if the gunman started to move; she’d found it also gave her the best control over her heat vision. As an added benefit she didn’t have to listen to him rant anymore. He was frozen with his mouth open and a stupid expression on his face, and she would have giggled if she weren’t so worried.

She wasted no time and started to burn through the wire Mr. Halstead had identified. At super-speed it seemed to take forever.



Tricia Murchison had wanted to be in the front row for the special assembly this afternoon and had had several hours to regret it deeply. She was a dozen feet away from the madman who was holding them all hostage.

She thought she was reasonably brave, but she’d cried when looking down the barrel of the man’s assault rifle. Plus, she was close enough to smell him and he definitely needed a bath. Now he was screaming at them again, and Tricia cowered in her seat.

Suddenly, a red laser beam struck the side of the man’s coat; it seemed to be coming from offstage. A thin wisp of smoke rose. After a few seconds the beam jumped from his coat to the barrel of his gun.

He seemed completely unaware of it. Even though he was waving the gun around the beam tracked it unerringly.

Suddenly the man dropped the gun with a yelp, shaking his hand in pain. He pulled what looked like a button out of his pocket, and Tricia cringed as he pushed it furiously several times. Nothing happened, though.

A movement in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Like everyone else in the auditorium but the gunman, her head turned and her breath caught as she saw the girl in blue and red floating in from the wings. She wore the famous S shield: Supergirl.



Kara went over the instructions twice; she’d completed them all. She then floated out onto the stage.

At that point the gunman, realizing his bomb wasn’t going to go off, pulled a small handgun from his pocket. Kara hadn’t spotted it earlier amongst the clutter of the bomb mechanism. He aimed it at a child in the front row, who sobbed in terror.

“No!” cried Kara loudly, and the gunman finally noticed her. He swung around and gaped for a moment, then started firing his pistol at her. Kara shrieked and cringed reflexively as she felt the first bullet strike her chest, then the second her forehead.

Her panic started to subside; then she heard the whine of the first two bullets as they ricocheted. They’d bounced off her and shot across the auditorium. Children and teachers alike screamed and ducked for cover.

Kara finally thought to shift back into super-speed to give herself time to think. She now remembered that Superman didn’t let bullets bounce off him, because they could hit bystanders; he caught them instead. At that moment she saw the glow of hot gases shining from the rear of the gun, and another bullet left its muzzle.

She didn’t have much time: even with her at super-speed the bullet traveled relatively fast. It appeared to be moving at a bit under a normal walking pace.

She forced herself to stay in front of it. Her instincts made her want to shy away as it headed straight for her, but she couldn’t let any more stray bullets fly. She didn’t even know yet if anyone had been hit by the first two.

She kept her eyes on the bullet and held her hand up in a catcher’s position. She wanted nothing more than to duck but steeled herself not to. The bullet slapped into her hand, squishing like Silly Putty, then started to rebound. She instinctively closed her fingers around it, then pulled her hand back and looked in her palm. The bullet had flattened and felt quite hot but her hand was unharmed.

Now she had time to act. She ran up to the gunman and used her heat vision on the weapon, shifting back into normal time as she did so. Before he could take another shot he screamed and dropped it, shaking his hand.

Mr. Halstead had said to bring him out, but she was very worried about the hostages. So she blurred to the wings and back to grab some rope she’d seen and tied the man up instead. She was glad she remembered her knots from the Girl Scouts.

The man was silent as he sat trussed on the stage, his eyes filled with a seething, cold hatred.

She turned to look out over the auditorium; only then did she notice that nearly a thousand people were staring at her.

“Is everyone all right?” asked Kara, unconsciously echoing the movie she’d seen. “Is anyone else hurt?”

It looked like the two errant bullets hadn’t struck anyone, but hands waved frantically around the injured teacher. Kara blurred over and heard the woman’s rapid, weak heartbeat; she was very pale and her blouse was soaked in blood. Kara didn’t think she could lift the woman in her arms without injuring her further.

She had no idea what to do and was starting to panic again. She wished Emily was there to give advice, then remembered that advice was available.

“I need to go ask the doctors what to do. I’ll be right back,” she said, and blurred out of the auditorium. The crowd started to murmur; everyone was still too much in shock to react to their rescue.

Seconds later Kara returned with a backboard, which she laid down next to the injured woman. She blurred over to the main doors and ripped off the chains that held them closed. The sound of police entering the building and running down the halls became audible. Many people started to weep in relief.

Meanwhile, two teachers with first aid training had gently transferred their injured colleague onto the backboard and strapped her down. Kara lifted it carefully, keeping it level, and flew out through an emergency door that another teacher held open, just as a SWAT team burst through the auditorium doors.

Seconds later she was at the medical area, where doctors started working on the woman immediately.

Kara turned away, her eyes wet, and headed back to the command post on foot. Policemen, firemen, and EMTs watched her silently as she passed.



Richard was feeling pretty good about his decision to use Supergirl when Janet tugged on his sleeve. He turned to see the hero of the day with tears on her cheeks.

His smile faded. “What’s wrong?” he asked gently.

“I messed up,” said Supergirl, crestfallen.

The superhero facade was gone; Richard could see only an upset child. “What? How?”

“I didn’t notice he had another gun when I looked before, and he almost shot a kid in the front row! It’s only ’cause I yelled at him that he shot me instead. And then the bullets bounced off me and could’ve hit people, ’cause I never had someone shoot at me before and I was scared. And maybe this teacher is going to die because I didn’t get here fast enough!” She looked at him beseechingly. “Is she going to die?”

Richard and Janet exchanged concerned glances. He knelt down and put his hands on Supergirl’s shoulders, looking her in the eye. “I don’t know,” he admitted softly. “We’ll never know if things could have gone better, but I do know this: if you hadn’t been here a lot of those kids,” and he nodded towards the children who were starting to stream out of the school, “would be dead or badly hurt. So don’t beat yourself up, OK? You did great.” Cheers and shouts of joy went up from the crowd behind the police barriers as they saw the children were unharmed.

Supergirl nodded slowly. She looked over to the medical area, then back. “Can I wait a little to see if she’s going to be OK?”

Richard smiled. “If you don’t have anywhere you need to be, I don’t see why not.”



Emily gently stroked her foster daughter’s hair; Kara had finally fallen asleep. Though by any measure the rescue had been a success, it had been so harrowing the girl was still anxious hours later. She hadn’t even come home until the doctors on the scene had assured her that the teacher who’d been shot was going to live.

Emily thought that lingering in Fort Collins had been unwise, but she’d held her tongue. After an hour of listening to Kara, Emily had called Penny for help. Penny had talked with her young patient for forty-five minutes in the privacy of Emily’s bedroom while Emily and Caitlin had waited on the sofa, too worried to do anything else.

Finally they’d emerged, Kara sporting a fragile smile. Emily had held her arms open and Kara had run into them, staying there for a while. Emily had finally put her to bed, and was seriously thinking of keeping her home from school tomorrow and taking a sick day to look after her.

As she’d held her foster daughter, Emily had seesawed between guilt at allowing Kara to get into this situation, and guilt at entertaining the idea of letting hundreds of children die just to spare her distress.

She closed the door to the bedroom behind her; Penny was waiting on the sofa. Emily plopped down with a sigh.

“She’ll be all right,” said Penny. “She may be a superhero but she’s also a kid, and she’s just been through a tough experience under enormous pressure even for an adult. I didn’t detect any signs of real trauma — she’s just stressed. I think going to school and being with her friends is exactly what she needs. I think she needs to lay off rescues for a few days.” Emily nodded.

Penny’s brow furrowed. “I am worried, though. Putting an eleven year old under this kind of pressure on a regular basis is not healthy.”