Chapter 80 - Shopping with Alura

About 30 minutes after leaving L-Corp, Lena and Alura arrive at a nice fancy, and of course, very expensive, tailored suit shop. Lena has shopped in this store a few times to get herself some of her signature 3-piece suits, which have obviously cost her a pretty penny, but it's not like she can't afford it. Right now, however, Lena is very, very, excited to dress her daughter up in a little suit, which Lena does realise is something that mothers typically love to do with their children, in regards to clothes in general.

"Ah, hello Miss Luthor." A man says, as Lena and Alura enter the store, hand in hand. "How may I help you today?"

"Hello, Stephen." Lena smiles, "I'm actually here today for my daughter. I would like to buy her her own 3-piece suit. Do you have something that would fit her?"

Stephen grows a big smirk on his face as he looks at Alura.

"I believe we have a few options, although I'll have to take her measurements so it fits nicely." Stephen says. "That should be fine." Lena smiles back.

Stephen then steps closer to Alura, and then gets down on one knee and holds out his hand.

"Hello, fine lady, I'm Stephen, it is nice to mee you." Stephen says.

"He...ello." Alura replies, clearly nervously.

Lena strokes the top of Alura's head, giving her daughter some reassurance, to hopefully make her feel more comfortable. Stephen for his part takes his hand away, understanding the girl is probably too shy to shake it.

"And what is your name?" Stephen asks, with a smile.

"A...alura." Alura says, shyly.

"Oh, what a pretty name, for a pretty girl." Stephen smiles.

Alura grows a small smile on her face upon hearing that.

"There's a smile." Stephen smirks, "Now, what type of suit would you like?"

Alura bites her lip for a moment, and then looks up at Lena briefly, before then returning to look at Stephen.

"One like momma." Alura says, with a nod of her head.

Stephen chuckles upon hearing that.

"Very well. I believe we can make that work." Stephen smiles still, and then stands up.

"I was thinking, if you have it, a maroon one, like one of mine?" Lena suggests.

"Ah, yes. I remember." Stephen says, nodding his head. "We don't have any suits that would fit her in that color right now, but I can take Alura's measurements and have one made for her. If that would be acceptable?"

"Yes, that sounds good." Lena smiles, "What do you think Alura?"

"Yes." Alura replies, nodding her head eagerly.

Lena and Stephen chuckle upon hearing that response from the young girl.

"Alright then. Can I ask you, Alura, to come step over here so I can do your measurements?" Stephen asks, with a smile, pointing to an area in the corner of the store which has a raised platform and three mirrors in front of it.

Alura looks up at Lena. Lena nods her head, letting Alura know it's okay. "Okay." Alura says back, with a small smile on her face.

Stephen, Lena and Alura then walk over to the directed area, and Alura stands up on the raised platform. "Okay, dear. What I have to do is I need to take your measurements, of different parts of your body. As I need to know what size your suit needs to be, as you don't want one that's too tight or baggy now, do you?" Stephen says with a smile.

"No." Alura replies in a small voice, still unsure about Stephen, as he is a new stranger to Alura.

Lena then steps in front of Alura, so the girl can see her, with a reassuring look on her face.

"It's okay darling. Stephen here helped measure me, for a few of my suits, which I purchased here. He's going to measure you the exact same way he measured me." Lena explains.

Alura looks up at Lena and smiles widely at her momma, nodding her head.

"Okay." Alura says.

"Alright then, let's get started." Stephen smiles.

**************************

Meanwhile, at the DEO, J'onn and Alex have been running about trying to sort everything out, as somehow, an alien technology in a DEO vault has gone missing, and there are very few people who have access to that vault, two of them being J'onn and Alex. So, Alex and J'onn are just trying to get to the bottom of, not only how the technology could suddenly go missing, but if someone stole it, and if it was stolen, then who did it, and how did they manage to get into the vault in the first place?

At first J'onn and Alex didn't immediately jump to the conclusions that the technology was stolen, for a few reasons. Firstly, Alex and J'onn both know how secure the vault is, and it has been tested by various people to make sure it's secure, so it would be very unlikely that someone could somehow break into a supposed impenetrable vault. Then secondly, Alex and J'onn just thought that there surely must have been some sort of clerical error, and someone accidentally moved the technology, out of the few people who had clearance, or the security level of the tech was reduced for some reason, and therefore moved out of the vault and to another facility. This could have been the case because after all, while J'onn may be the head of the DEO, the DEO is a very large organisation, so he doesn't know everything that is going on, and nor would he be able to, unless he literally never slept, and the day was 50 hours long. Therefore, due to all this, as soon as Alex arrived at the DEO, the two didn't straight away jump to the conclusion that the technology was stolen, and instead focused on looking into whether there was a clerical error or a simple mistake.

J'onn and Alex spent about an hour and a half, along with the help of a few other trusted DEO agents, including Winn, looking into all of the DEO logs. However, the results of all this wasn't helpful at all, as while they found a few things in regards to DEO personal not correctly filling in forms when checking in and out certain equipment, there was nothing that suggested that the alien technology had been moved. Therefore, because of this, Alex and J'onn had to jump to the assumption that they didn't want to have to jump to, that the device was stolen.

Once Alex and J'onn had make the assumption that the alien technology must have been stolen, they first knew they needed to look into everyone who had access to the vault, and try and figure out if the alien technology was stolen by a member of the DEO. Alex and J'onn really didn't want this to be the case, as while a member of the DEO stealing the tech would have been better for security reasons, as it would mean that some outside individual didn't break into the DEO; for J'onn and Alex's own personal reasons, they didn't want it to be the case. Alex and/or J'onn literally have vetted every single person that currently works at the DEO, so if they were to find out that someone they vetted, and trusted, were to have betrayed them, they would feel responsible for this, as Alex and J'onn would both feel like they should have done a better job at vetting the DEO individual.

Alex and J'onn went through and talked to every individual who had access to the vault, which wasn't many people at all. They carried this process out by interviewing each person, one at a time, asking them various questions. Meanwhile, while they carried out these interviews, Alex and J'onn asked Winn to go through and see if he could find if anyone's access codes or card had been used to gain access to the vault. Winn just told them that he'd do it, but it would take time.