Chapter 6: PLAYING DUMB
[DEO Headquarters, Training Room Three — September 2016, 7:58 AM]
The training room was designed for superhuman combat. Reinforced walls. Shock-absorbing floors. Observation windows made from something stronger than glass. I'd arrived two minutes early, dressed in borrowed DEO workout clothes, trying to project eager cooperation.
Kara arrived exactly on time. Her civilian disguise was gone—Supergirl suit, cape, boots. The uniform transformed her posture, adding a layer of authority that the glasses and cardigans concealed.
"Let's get this over with," she said by way of greeting.
"Good morning to you too."
She ignored the pleasantry. "We'll start with basics. What do you know about Earth?"
This was the tricky part. The line I had to walk—ignorant enough to be believable, competent enough to not seem like an idiot.
"I know you call it Earth," I said carefully. "I know there are humans here. Beyond that... not much."
Kara pulled out a tablet, swiped to some kind of presentation. Images filled the screen: cars, buildings, phones, everyday objects.
"This is a car. Humans use them for transportation. They run on combustible fuel and—"
"Like the vehicles on Daxam," I offered. "But smaller. Less ornate."
She paused. "You had vehicles on Daxam?"
"Hover platforms, mostly. For short distances. Long distances we used ships." I frowned, playing the role of someone dredging up hazy memories. "The physics should be similar."
"They're not." Kara's tone sharpened. "Earth vehicles stay on the ground. No hover technology. No energy shields. If you step in front of one, you'll survive—but the car won't. And the driver might not either."
"I'll avoid stepping in front of cars."
"See that you do."
The lesson continued. Phones. Computers. Television. The internet—I had to suppress a reaction to that one, memories of endless scrolling and streaming services flooding back. Social customs. Currency. Laws.
Kara explained each concept with clinical efficiency, checking off items from some mental list. I asked questions where appropriate, performed confusion where necessary, and tried very hard not to let my actual knowledge show.
Then she showed me a coffee maker.
"This produces coffee," she began. "A caffeinated beverage—"
My hand moved before my brain caught up. Reached for the familiar button, the one that started the brewing cycle, the same position as every coffee maker I'd ever used in my previous life.
Kara's eyes narrowed.
I froze mid-motion. Pulled my hand back. Tried to look confused.
"What is... that thing does?"
"You reached for it." Her voice had gone flat. Suspicious. "You knew exactly which button to press."
"I didn't—"
"You did. I watched you."
Think fast. Cover story. Something plausible.
"Muscle memory," I said slowly, as if working through the logic myself. "My... my former life had devices with similar configurations. Buttons in the same position. The hand remembered before the mind understood."
Kara studied me for a long moment. I couldn't tell if she believed the explanation. Her expression gave nothing away.
"Daxamite coffee makers," she said flatly.
"Something like that."
The door opened before she could press further. Winn Schott bounced in, arms full of tablets and cables, completely oblivious to the tension in the room.
"Hey, sorry to interrupt, but I've got those neural interface prototypes you wanted tested, and—" He spotted me and grinned. "Oh, hey! You're the new alien dude. Mon-El, right?"
"That's me."
"Cool, cool. I'm Winn. Tech guy. I make the gadgets, fix the things, occasionally save the day with superior hacking skills." He set his equipment on a nearby table, completely at ease in a way that neither Kara nor Alex had ever been around me. "So, how's cultural orientation going? Kara giving you the third degree?"
"Something like that."
"Yeah, she can be intense. Don't take it personally—she's like that with everyone at first. But once she decides you're one of the good guys?" Winn mimed an explosion with his hands. "Ride or die. Best friend you'll ever have."
Kara shot him a look that could have melted steel. "Winn."
"What? I'm being welcoming. You're always saying we need to be more welcoming to new arrivals."
"He's not a new arrival. He's a—"
"Daxamite, yeah, I read the file. Enemy planet, cultural animosity, centuries of conflict." Winn shrugged. "Also: his planet is gone and he's stuck here alone. Sounds less like an enemy combatant and more like a refugee to me."
The word hit differently than I expected. Refugee. Someone displaced, homeless, dependent on the mercy of strangers. That's what I was now, regardless of the body I wore or the memories I carried.
Kara's expression flickered. Something passed between her and Winn—a silent communication built on years of friendship.
"I need to get back to work," she said finally. "We'll continue this tomorrow."
She left without looking at me.
Winn watched her go, then turned back with an apologetic smile. "Like I said. She takes time to warm up. You want to see something cool?"
"Define cool."
"I've been working on this new tracking system—totally revolutionary, uses quantum entanglement principles to—" He caught himself, laughed. "Sorry, I forget not everyone speaks nerd. Short version: gadgets. Many gadgets. Some of them might explode."
I found myself smiling. Actually smiling, for the first time since waking up in this body. "Gadgets that might explode sound terrifying."
"In a fun way, though! A controlled fun way. Mostly controlled. Seventy percent controlled." He started gathering his equipment. "Hey, you want coffee? There's a machine in the break room that actually makes decent stuff. Unlike—" he gestured at the training room coffee maker "—this thing, which produces battery acid with caffeine."
Coffee. Real coffee. The craving I'd been suppressing all morning surged back.
"I would kill for coffee."
Winn laughed. "See? You're already getting the hang of Earth expressions. Come on."
The break room was small, institutional, filled with the kind of mismatched furniture that accumulates in government facilities over decades. Winn navigated to the coffee machine with practiced ease, filling two cups with something that actually smelled like real coffee.
I took my first sip.
The flavor exploded across my enhanced senses—bitter and rich and complex, a thousand times more intense than I remembered from my previous life. The heat was perfect. The caffeine hit my system like a gentle wave, smoothing edges I hadn't realized were jagged.
I drank half the cup in one swallow.
"Whoa." Winn's eyebrows rose. "That good?"
"You have no idea."
"Daxam didn't have coffee?"
"Daxam had... beverages. Different beverages. Nothing like this." I finished the cup, reached for the machine. "Can I have more?"
"Knock yourself out. Fair warning, though—superpowered metabolism plus excessive caffeine can get weird. Kara once drank six espressos before a fight and she literally vibrated through a wall."
I poured another cup anyway. Some risks were worth taking.
We sat at a battered table, Winn tinkering with his equipment while I savored the coffee. The silence was comfortable—companionable in a way that nothing else at the DEO had been. Winn didn't watch me with suspicion or hostility. He just... existed nearby, content to share space without demanding anything.
"Can I ask you something?" he said eventually.
"Sure."
"What's it like? Coming from another planet, I mean. Waking up somewhere completely alien, having to learn everything from scratch?"
I thought about the question. The real answer was complicated—layers of displacement, bodies within bodies, deaths and rebirths. But part of it, at least, was honest enough to share.
"Lonely," I admitted. "Everything is familiar and wrong at the same time. The air tastes different. The sounds are different. Even the light—" I gestured at the fluorescent fixtures above us "—it's not sunlight, not really, but my body doesn't care. It drinks it in anyway."
Winn nodded slowly. "That sounds rough."
"It is." I paused, weighing my next words. "But there are good things too. Coffee, apparently. And people who ask questions instead of pointing weapons."
He grinned. "Hey, I pointed a weapon at you once. For like, two seconds, when you first woke up. Does that count?"
"I'll allow it."
The door opened. Kara stood in the entrance, expression unreadable.
"Training resumes in ten minutes," she said. "Break room privileges are earned, not assumed."
"My fault," Winn said quickly. "I invited him. He seemed like he needed caffeine."
Kara's gaze shifted to me. To the coffee cup in my hands. Something in her expression changed—not softening, exactly, but... recognition. Like she remembered what it felt like to discover something good in an overwhelming situation.
"Ten minutes," she repeated, and left.
Winn whistled low. "That's practically an endorsement, coming from her."
"Is it?"
"She didn't drag you back to training immediately. She acknowledged your need for coffee. For Kara, that's like rolling out the welcome mat." He stood, gathering his equipment. "I should get back to the lab. But hey—it was nice meeting you, Mon-El. Don't let the cultural orientation stuff get you down. It gets easier."
"Thanks."
He left me alone with my coffee and my thoughts.
The break room was quiet. Sunlight filtered through a high window, warming my skin even through the glass. My cells drank it in, converting solar energy into something my body could use.
I finished my third cup of coffee and considered my situation.
Two slip-ups today. The coffee maker button. And earlier, during Winn's Star Wars joke—I'd laughed before catching myself, the reference too familiar, the humor too ingrained. Kara had noticed. She hadn't said anything, but she'd noticed.
I was being too obvious. Too comfortable. The muscle memory of my old life kept surfacing at inconvenient moments, betraying knowledge I shouldn't have.
Playing dumb was harder than I'd expected. This body was too honest. Its reactions preceded thought, driven by instincts I couldn't always control.
I needed to be more careful. Watch myself constantly. Build walls between what I knew and what I showed.
The alternative was questions I couldn't answer. Suspicions I couldn't survive.
I stood, rinsed my cup, placed it in the sink. The motion was automatic—ingrained habit from years of shared apartments and office break rooms. Human behavior. Earth behavior.
Someone watching closely might have noticed.
I needed to stop doing things automatically. Start thinking about every action before taking it. Become conscious of unconscious patterns.
It would be exhausting. Constant. Necessary.
I looked at my reflection in the dark surface of a turned-off monitor. Mon-El's face stared back—handsome in an alien way, features too symmetrical, eyes too bright. The face of a prince from a dead world.
Not my face. Not yet.
But it was becoming mine, one careful decision at a time.
The ten minutes were almost up. I headed back toward training room three, preparing myself for more questions, more tests, more performances.
Tomorrow would be easier. Or harder. I couldn't tell which.
But I was still here. Still breathing. Still learning.
That had to count for something.
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