"I was at my coffee shop, surfing the web and I spilt a latte on it."
"Really?"
"Yeah"
"Cause these look like bullet holes."
"My coffee shop is in a bad neighbourhood."
It's a half an hour before midnight, Oliver walks into one of the coffee shops located in the glades. As he enters, he scans the room. There are only a handful of people in the shop. He notices a man seated at a corner of the room with his back against the wall, eyeing the only two exit points. Oliver walks over to the counter and orders a latte. When his order is fulfilled, he takes it and walks towards the direction of the man. Just as he is about to reach the table, the man gets up and walks out the back door and Oliver casually take the table. The product is delivered.
Oliver placed his latte on the table; the product is in a bag that is left lying against the wall behind his seat. He reaches down and brings the bag to his lap. Oliver is expecting it to be a laptop from his good friend in Russia, Anatoli Knyzev. The laptop is rumored to belong to an accountant of the Triad here in Starling that has decided to defect. The laptop had to be delivered whole because the hard disc is encrypted and no one has been able to excess the data. Just before the accountant died, he said he installed a failsafe and to not to remove the hard drive from the computer or all the data will be erased.
Oliver reached into the bag and pulled out a grey laptop with a giant X embossed on the front. It looks like the same model that belonged to Warren Patell. He places the laptop on the table and reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a hard disc drive. This is no normal hard disc drive, Felicity had inserted a program to detect and shutdown any locator signals that may be embedded into the software. Oliver boots up the laptop and plugs the hard drive in. While the hard drive does it's magic, He takes out his phone and starts to scan the laptops hardware and the bag it came in for trackers. When the program stops, Oliver removes the hard disc and places it back into his pocket. Just as he is about to close the laptop, the person next to him gets up and knocks Oliver's latte over, the contents spills on the laptop.
"Oh gezz, I am so sorry, I will replace that. Not the laptop the coffee. The laptop I will pay for the repairs the best I can." The elderly woman said as she grabbed napkins from her table and his, frantically dabbing at the laptop.
Oliver gingerly her hands in his to stop her as he assured her it's all right and she doesn't have to worry about the coffee or the repairs. "Accidents happen" he said and smiled. In return, the elderly woman praised his kindness and blessed him. When the woman left, Oliver places a call to his IT expert.
"Felicity?"
"Yup. Did you get the laptop?"
"I did but I spilled a latte on it."
"…"
"Felicity?"
"Oliver I know it's April fools but this is not funny."
"I'm not trying to fool you, I will explain it to you when I get back. In the meantime, what should I do to prevent further damage? The coffee definitely spilled into the keyboards. I have wiped it the best I can."
"Nothing, just close it and come back, most probably I will just have to plug it into an external monitor."
"Okay, I will be there in 5 minutes." Oliver hangs up the phone. Just as he is about to get up, he hears car screeches coming from the street.
30 minutes later
Oliver trudges down the stairway into Verdant's secret base and walks towards Felicity's command center. She was talking with someone on the phone. When she notices Oliver walking up to her she ends the call.
"I expected you here 25 minutes ago. What happened? " Felicity asked concerned.
"Got held back. Here." Oliver said as he plumped the laptop on the table in front of Felicity. Oliver payed close attention to Felicity's reaction.
The screeching cars had belonged to the Triad; they started shooting up the place before going in to ensure that whoever had the laptop is dead. Oliver managed to get all the other patrons out but not in one piece, some of them suffered from bullet injuries. He went back in to take make sure that they can't hurt anyone anymore. The extra minutes were spent with the cops leaving a statement. During the chaos, the laptop got hit and is now riddled with bullets. Felicity brow creased as she inspected the laptop, she started to say something then stopped. She pursed her lips together and peered at him from the top of her glasses and sighed before she asked.
"I thought you said you spilled a latte on it. These look like bullet holes." Pointing at the bullet holes in the laptop.
Oliver couldn't help himself; he smiled and replied, "My coffee shop is in a bad neighbourhood."
"If it's an energy drink. Why is it in a syringe?"
"I ran out of sport bottles."
Oliver hated this part of the job, granted it's not the worst part of owning a club as a front for him to do what he needs to do, but it took focus away from his other work and leaves him a little light headed afterwards.
"Here Mr. Q. Tell me what you think." Wade the over enthusiastic bartender that Oliver just hired handed him a glass latest cocktail that he wants to put on menu. Oliver took a sip.
"Well?" Wade asked.
Oliver pursed his lips, he couldn't look more bored but the Wade doesn't seem to notice. "It's nice Wade, you can put it in the menu. That it?"
"No, there is one more… but we seem to have ran our of clean glasses, their all being washed now. Wait a minute okay? I will be right back." Wade said and left for the kitchen. A moment later, he came out with two funny looking syringes. They looked cartoony big.
"I made these for my last gig but the manager didn't want it. I like to call them medical shot that you will definitely enjoy!" Wade head bobbed up and down as he said it. "Can I serve you in these? " He asked Oliver.
"Is it safe? You don't push drugs in it or anything?" Oliver asked losing his patience.
"No way Mr. Q. I made this myself. It's made for drinks, the edges are not sharp and can't cut and it's just right size to fit for your mou-"
"Okay, sure why not. Just hurry up." Oliver cut him in mid sentence thinking this is such a bad idea.
"Cool, I will fill these babies up and be right back." Wade left for the kitchen again.
Just as Wade disappeared into the back, Felicity came walking in with Diggle.
"Wade, make three of those please." Oliver called as he motioned his teammates to come over to the bar.
"Watcha doing?" Felicity asked.
"I'm trying out some new cocktails for the club. It's the last one, try it with me?" He looked at both of them and gave his charming smile.
"Okay, what are you not telling us?" Diggle asked suspiciously. Oliver didn't reply and just waited patiently.
Wade came back to the bar. "Nice! More the merrier." He handed three of them a syringe each. "Drink up"
Both Diggle and Felicity looked at Oliver and raised an eyebrow at him in unison. Oliver took the syringe and plunge the contents into his mouth. He nodded his head and said, "Good, put in on the menu." Oliver told Wade. "Drink up" he looked at his other two-team mates. Diggle shaking his head and smirked before taking the plunge. Felicity had a harder time using it and spilled some in her blouse.
"Owh damn, here I will get you some club soda." Wade said as he handed some to Felicity to clean her blouse. "I guess it's not so easy for the ladies to use." Wade added.
"Yeah, it's kinda awkward swallowing like that, I think the shaft is too long." Felicity said as she cleaned the cleaned her blouse.
Wade's eyebrows shot up. Felicity caught herself just realizing how that sounded. "I mean… that it's hard to hold because it's too big in my hands." Felicity winced, she did it again. This time she can feel both Oliver's and Diggle's smile broadening behind her head. To their credit they didn't laugh out loud.
"Hey" Wade said in almost a whisper as he leaned towards Felicity. "You hitting on me?"
"What? No! I mean… not that your not good looking in a surfer sort of way… I'm just going to stop here and not say anything else." Felicity handed the club soda back to Wade. "Thanks"
"Sure. I think I will serve this in glasses next time." Wade started to wipe down the tables.
"Why didn't you? Serve it in glasses I mean." Felicity asked.
"I ran out of clean glasses." Just as he finished his sentence both Oliver and Diggle couldn't contain it anymore and broke out in laughter.
"What's so funny?" Wade asked her.
Felicity's whole face became three shades redder, I can't believe I walked into that. She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes at them before walking towards the basement. "It's wasn't even funny the first time round." Felicity told them before she disappeared behind the door.
Thanks for reading.