* * *
“What does it look like?”
“Um,” Mister Terrific said, looking down at the inside of the device on the table. “It looks like a psycho built this.”
“What do you mean?” Felicity asked through the comms.
“Oh, sorry, hold on a moment.” He pulled out his T-Spheres, tossing them up. They hovered above him, one scanning the device, the other filming. “You should have live feeds now.”
“Ah, got them.”
Mister Terrific waited for her to study her screens.
“Wait…” Her voice drew out the word. “Is that a Hamilton 308 bomb timer device?”
“It is.”
“And an acid battery relay?”
“Yep.”
“And a cell phone detonator?”
“Yep.”
“Wow, an old flip-style burner phone,” Felicity muttered. “Way to go hipster retro style there.”
Mister Terrific waited for her to get to the rest.
“What is that plate thing there?” she asked.
“That is a pressure switch, circa World War Two.”
“German?”
He shook his head before remembering she couldn’t see the motion, since the T-Sphere was focused on the device and not on him.
“British. From a limpet bomb, I believe,” he said. “I mean I know it is, ’cause I wrote a paper on them in World History in the eleventh grade.”
“Those old bombs they used to magnetically adhere to the undersides of boats?”
“The same.”
“Whoa,” Felicity said. “And I thought the flip phone was retro.”
“He wired all of them together,” Curtis responded. “Like I said, psycho.”
“So if one goes they all go?”
“Looks like…” Something nagged at him.
“What’s wrong?” Felicity asked. “I can hear something is wrong.”
“Where is the clock?”
“Don’t you see it?”
“No, there is no clock.” His face itched under his mask. “You don’t put this much work into something like this unless there’s a countdown. That’s one of the things psychos want most, to have everyone watching closely as they get blown up.”
“I’ve read Faust’s file. He does things for show. He will have a clock.”
“There’s not one here. I’m looking at digital interfacing with analog hooked up to mechanical, and none of it has a timer.”
One of the klieg lights overhead blinked out.
Mister Terrific looked around. Green Arrow, White Canary, and Wild Dog still fought Faust’s thugs. Darkness ate the section of the hold where the light had shone down.
A red dot appeared on the front of the device.
“I think we may have found our timer.”
Another klieg went out.
16
“What happened to the lights?”
White Canary turned, hip tossing a thug to the ground. He bounced hard off the steel and tumbled away. The move put her close enough to Wild Dog to ask the question.
“Don’t know,” he grunted, kicking out at a henchman he’d just knocked down to all fours. His boot clipped the bad guy on the jaw, the impact shuddering up Wild Dog’s shin to his knee. “But I don’t like it.” He put his hands to his mouth and called out to Mister Terrific. “Hey, Hoss! How’s it coming?”
Mister Terrific waved his hand but kept his head down, looking inside the device Faust had left behind on the table.
Wild Dog turned back to her. “He’s got it though.”
White Canary grabbed his jersey, pulling him sideways as she pivoted and lashed out with a kick that took the legs out from under an assailant who had tried to drive a long-bladed knife into Wild Dog’s back. The henchman slammed face-first to the steel floor. The knife spun away toward the dark spot in the cargo hold.
“I’m sure he does,” she said with a crooked grin.
Wild Dog shouldered her to the side, stepping in front of the guy trying to zap her with a wide Taser. Rene clamped his hand on the henchman’s wrist and jerked the hand holding the weapon, shoving the crackling electrodes up under the man’s beard. His fingers squeezed the other man’s hand, depressing the trigger and sending electricity up into the bad guy’s jaw. The man’s boots jittered on the floor as his body locked in a convulsion.
He was out before Wild Dog let off the button.
Another light went out overhead.
“Still don’t like it,” Rene said.
* * *
Spartan gave the man a short chop, driving the grip of his pistol between the guy’s shoulder blades. The blow wasn’t hard enough to do any real damage, but it was enough to send him tumbling down the metal stairs Spartan had just climbed.
Diggle watched him bang his way down and sprawl at the bottom, and used the moments to catch his breath. Running up stairs like that was hard. His thighs burned and his lungs felt shallow from it, as if they couldn’t take in enough air. A band of tightness ran across his chest.
Shaking it off, he kept climbing, chasing after Faust.
Pulling himself up over the last step he found himself on a deck. Ahead he could see Faust undoing the rigging on a motorized lifeboat. He raised his gun and fast walked across the open space.
“Freeze!”
Faust stopped, hands remaining on the block-and-tackle pulley system used for lowering the boat. He looked over at Spartan, hair falling across his face.
“But, I’m almost finished,” he said. “A task only half started is a task undone.” He began working on the release of the boat, even though he kept watching the oncoming enemy.
“I will shoot you.” Spartan’s hand was tight on the pistol.
“I believe you,” Faust said. “I truly do, but I have this thing in my head, it’s a timekeeper, a tick and a tock and clickety clack that never stops, never stops, never stops, it just keeps going a click and a tick a second. Even when I sleep it’s there.”
“I don’t care.” The muscles of his shoulders started to burn, deep in the fibers of them, the same hot sensation that came after a long workout.
The boat dropped half an inch.
“Oh, you should,” Faust said. “Because of it I know we don’t have much time left, and I’d much rather be shot than stay for the inferno this boat is about to become.”
“That’s not going to happen.” The first micro-tremor ran down his tricep like a trickle of hot pain. He tightened his grip on the pistol.
“It will,” Faust replied. “It is inevitable. You don’t have anyone who can decipher the ignition I built for this occasion.” He stepped into the boat, one foot in it, the other on the deck.
The gun in Spartan’s hand rocked left then right as the micro-tremor slid down into his forearm. The carpal tunnel swelled shut and his fingers went nerveless and wooden.
He pulled the trigger.
Faust dropped into the boat, disappearing from sight.
Spartan lowered the gun, holding it close to his body to steady his convulsing arm.
Faust sat up. He reached above him, grabbing the end of the release rope on the block-and-tackle pulley. He grinned widely and waved as he yanked the release. The boat fell away.
Sprinting as best he could, Spartan reached the rail as the lifeboat splashed to the water below. Faust hit the ignition switch for the outboard motor and it fired to life with a throaty chugging. In seconds the lifeboat pulled away from the ship and disappeared in the dark.
Spartan holstered his pistol and turned.
Black Canary ran up from the stairs.
“He got away,” Diggle said.
* * *
Three klieg lights burned overhead.
Green Arrow hit the comms. “The lights are tied into the bombs?”
“We think they are the countdown,” Felicity’s voice said.
White Canary and Wild Dog stood a few feet away. Henchmen lay around them moaning. He moved over to them.
“You t
wo need to get out of here,” he ordered. “In case the bomb doesn’t get disarmed.”
“What about them?” White Canary motioned to the floor full of downed henchmen.
“Corral them up to the deck and off the boat. They can carry their own.”
“Man,” Wild Dog said. “First we kick their asses, now we save their asses.”
“Wild Dog—” Green Arrow growled, the warning deep in his voice.
Rene threw his hands up. “I know, we’re heroes. I get it.”
“Come on, hero.” White Canary jerked her head to the side. “Let’s get these doggies rollin’.” They began pulling henchmen up to their feet, pushing them to the door of the cargo hold. Green Arrow watched them for a second, then turned toward Mister Terrific.
* * *
Mister Terrific didn’t look, even though he felt Green Arrow walk up like a high-pressure front. The man projected intensity twenty-four seven, but when he was in costume the intensity became nearly overwhelming, as if the hooded figure could bend the universe through sheer force of will.
Which was ridiculous. Physics didn’t work that way.
But if it did…
“Where are we at?” Green Arrow asked.
“Um, nowhere,” Curtis replied. “I mean, we’re on a boat with a lot of explosives, but—”
“Not talking to you.”
“Oh.”
Felicity’s voice came over their comms. “At present speed, you hit the cape in four minutes and thirty-seven seconds.”
“How much explosive is this?”
No one said anything.
Mister Terrific twitched. “Oh, you mean me?” he said. “Right.” He scanned the stacks, tallying mentally. “Assuming standard weight and consistency of—”
“How much?” Green Arrow growled.
“Looks like approximately six tons.”
“Overwatch?”
“One sec,” Felicity said. Time stretched as she calculated. “That much explosive will turn the ship into shrapnel. Anything past two minutes from now and there will be injuries. Probably twenty-five percent at that point. Every second after, multiply by ten percent ’til you reach one hundred.”
Green Arrow stood for a second, weighing the information.
“I can keep working,” Mister Terrific said. “I’ll get this.”
Green Arrow pointed to the center of the device. “Is that the pressure switch from a limpet bomb?”
“How did—”
“Yes.” Felicity cut off Mister Terrific’s question.
“That will detonate?”
“Yes.”
He motioned Mister Terrific toward the open cargo hold door. The room was clear save for them. “Let’s go.” He touched the comms, sending his voice out to the entire team. “Everybody off the boat and get as far from it as you can. Go now—we’ll catch up.”
Another klieg light snuffed out as they ran across the room.
* * *
They cleared the last doorway, moving out onto the empty deck. Green Arrow kept moving, talking over the comms.
“Sound off.”
Wild Dog’s voice came over the comms. “We’re gone. All cleared except you two. We left a boat for you.”
“Ninety seconds to the threshold,” Felicity’s voice said.
Green Arrow reached the controls to the cargo bay and pushed the big green button there. A deep rumble started up as the wide metal bay doors began to slide open.
“What are you doing?” Mister Terrific asked.
“Making a path of least resistance.”
“Ah, so the force of the explosion will go up instead of out.” Mister Terrific shook his head. “There’s too much material down there. The ship is still going to be wrecked.”
The cargo bay doors stopped moving, open all the way.
“Thirty seconds,” Felicity said, voice tight with worry.
Green Arrow unslung his bow, drawing out an arrow. “How deep do we need to be in the water to survive?”
Mister Terrific’s mind worked, calculating a hundred factors—exponential force, shear point for the ship’s steel hull, system momentum change, the insulation of water, the release of force going upward now against the buoyancy of the ship, and more.
“Thirty seven and a half feet minimum.”
Green Arrow nodded.
He notched the arrow and aimed down in the cargo hold, using the glow of the last klieg light to see his target.
He inhaled.
“Wait,” Mister Terrific said. “You aren’t—”
Exhaled.
The arrow flew.
Pivoting, the two vigilantes ran toward the rail and leapt, both of them flinging themselves out into the open air. They arced, falling, one with the grace of an Olympian, the other with the grace of a savage, splitting the water at the same time. Both kept their bodies streamlined, shooting into the murky depths.
Their momentum had just slowed when the thunder rumbled under the water and light flooded down on them, even through the dark water, as the ship exploded and sent down a fiery rain of burning metal.
JULY 2017
1
She fiddled with the chopsticks in her hand, moving them between her fingers, rubbing them together, clicking the tips of them against her napkin.
Doing everything but eating the sushi on the plate in front of her.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked. They were in the Bunker, and the rest of the team was off and away, leaving just the two of them working late.
She jumped at his question. “What? Oh, nothing.”
His eyebrows lowered. “Felicity.”
She glanced up, and then back down at her plate. “I’m always uncomfortable with chopsticks. I mean, I know how to use them.” Her mouth quirked and her eyes went sideways as a thought occurred to her. “Actually, I know how to use them to take someone out if we were attacked.”
“I know.” He almost smiled. “I taught you that.”
“Did you know that in Japan they don’t use chopsticks to eat sushi?”
“I did know that.”
“They don’t use them to take people out, either.”
Now he did smile. “That’s not true. Where do you think I learned how to do it?”
She looked at him with narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure you’re actually joking.”
“I am,” he said. “I learned the chopstick technique in Russia.”
“Let me get this straight, Oliver Queen.” She leaned forward, lowering her voice. “You’re telling me the criminal underworld in Russia eats sushi?”
He leaned forward, lowering his voice to match hers.
“They love it. Sushi and vodka.”
She sat back and made a face. “Ugh, now you’ve ruined it for me.”
He laughed loudly and smiled widely, enjoying the banter. It had been far too long since he and Felicity had dinner alone. Most meals were captured things, food eaten between other activities, not something to be enjoyed.
This, tonight, felt strange in its normality.
“Would you like to order something else?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, but I will not be having any vodka.” She placed her chopsticks on the napkin. “And I am eating this the traditional way.” She picked up a piece of sushi between her fingers, and popped it into her mouth.
“Why, Miss Smoak, I think you have that technique down.”
“Thank you very much, Mr. Queen.”
“Please, no need to be so formal. Call me Mayor Queen.”
The laugh burst out of her, taking her whole face.
“You truly are stunning,” he said.
The seriousness of his tone stopped her short. The mood between them shifted, going from light and cheer-filled to something, not exactly darker, but weighted with potential. Her hands touched her dress, fluttering under the intensity of his gaze.
“It’s new.”
“Not the dress,” he said flatly. “It is lovely, but I meant what I said. Yo
u are stunning.”
Her cheeks grew warm but she held his gaze, unable to turn from it, unwilling to break that connection.
“You clean up pretty good yourself.”
The Bunker fell away, leaving nothing but the two of them and their history together. The tangled and complicated story of them that tied the two together and kept them apart, things that had been done, things that had been said, things that had been forgiven, and things that didn’t need to be. Tonight they were something neither of them had experienced before.
They say the words “once in a lifetime” so easily, he thought.
“Oliver,” she murmured, her voice filled with affection.
“Felicity.”
The sharp chime of his phone split the moment like an ax through bone. The magic siphoned away as he reached for it, leaving them both awkward and emotionally raw. Unable to resist, he read the text.
She watched his face and recognized the look on it.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, I have to go.” He drew away, the moment completely gone. “It’s William.”
* * *
She met him at the door with her things bundled in her arms.
“I mean it this time, Mr. Queen. I am done. Don’t even try to talk me out of it. It won’t work this time.”
Behind her the apartment was a wreck. His eyes picked out the path of violence. It started on the couch and moved around the living room, into the kitchen, down the hall where he couldn’t see it anymore. Pictures on the wall were askew, things knocked off tables and shelves. A shoe lay on the floor by the table, a book near the kitchen counter. The rug had been kicked up and now lay in a bundle instead of being flat on the floor.
“Is William okay?”
The three words came out as a threat.
Shondra took a step back.
“He’s fine, physically,” she said. “But he still needs a lot of help.”
Relief flooded him, washing through his chest like cold water. He didn’t even realize how much tension had built inside him, like pressure in a glass bubble. So much that the thing containing it had begun to crack and splinter.
“I’ll find him help.” The door still open, he motioned toward the hall. “You may go.”
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