"What have you got, Felicity?" John's voice came over the line, halfway through the first ring.
Felicity decided not to comment on the quickness of his phone answering. She was nervous as well, and out of practice for it. The fact that she could actually follow what was happening at Nanda Parbat in real-time helped, but did little to calm her racing heart. "So far so good," she answered John. "Tech is working well. The 3D mapping is better than I thought. Thank Lyla for me for that satellite, by the way."
"She was happy to help."
"As long as it kept you in Starling, right?" Felicity teased.
"We all have our trade-offs," John deadpanned.
Her lips twisted into a slight smirk. "Well, anyway. There's maybe thirty total League assassins in the fortress. Comms are still iffy," Felicity continued, running a diagnostic on the comm OS. "I haven't been able to get a clear signal. Which reminds me… I think Laurel might have decked Oliver."
"You don't say," John said, coughing.
"I swear to God, if that's part of your training protocol, you and I are going to have a serious discussion."
John offered no response.
Felicity rolled her eyes as she watched Oliver, Laurel, and Thea thread their way through the levels of Nanda Parbat. When Thea split off, she split the image across two screens to continue tracking them all. "We may be about to see some action," she commented to John. Felicity continued to watch as Thea took a parallel route to Oliver and Laurel on the level above. "Thea's going for a perch."
"Makes sense," John said. "Of the three of them she's the weakest in a hand to hand situation."
Felicity scoffed. "You mean the woman personally trained by both Malcolm Merlyn and Nyssa al Ghul? She's going to kick your ass when she gets back."
"That wasn't what I meant," John said quickly. "If she comes face to face with Merlyn…"
"You think she won't be able to take him down." Felicity shook her head. "You've got a lot to learn about women John. As the father of one, you should work on that."
"Yea, well, when you have kids you can lecture me."
"You better get ready then," Felicity shot back, only to freeze when she realized what she'd just said.
There was a ringing silence on both ends of the connection.
"Felicity?" John questioned.
"We're not going to talk about this right now."
"How far along?" He asked, ignoring her statement.
"Seven weeks. And no, before you ask, I haven't told Oliver yet. I was planning to, and then this thing with Nyssa happened, and I didn't want him to be thinking about anything else," Felicity's words came out in a rush.
"Congratulations," John said.
Felicity could hear the smile in his voice. "Okay, back to the thirty assassins trying to kill a good chunk of the people we hold near and dear."
"Agreed," muttered John. "What's the exit strategy look like?"
Felicity pulled up a full map on yet another screen. "It's a long trek from where they are, but the majority of Merlyn's guys are clustered." She tapped her lip as she studied the image. "Most around where we think Nyssa is, a smaller group in the main chamber, and a few stragglers wondering around." Felicity hated not being able to communicate with the team. "If they can take out the main group, they should be good to get out."
Felicity was double checking the plane's location when her 3D scan lit up. "Holy!"
What had been muted depictions of the architecture of Nanda Parbat became a violent burst of white.
"What's going on, Felicity?" John's voice was urgent.
Felicity ignored him as she waited for the screen to clear. "Damn it." Another burst rendered her screens useless. "Damn it. Damn it. I should have anticipated that."
John growled over the speakers. "Felicity?"
"I have light bursts," she snapped as she began to write code that might fix the problem. "Some type of explosion. I'm hoping it was us." Her fingers reined over the keys, desperately hoping to increase visibility. The screens displaying the scan went blank, then slowly started to refresh. "That's right! Still the queen," she crowed a moment later.
When she'd fashioned her 3D mapping, she'd set it to display as night vision. The new code she'd just inserted gave her the ability to switch to thermal. The current image showed Laurel and Oliver engaging multiple enemies, and Thea, quite literally, raining fire down from above.
