A/N: The winner of the Easter Egg Contest was Naitch03 for being the first person to identify that the names Felicity and Oliver suggested in the previous chapter were all cast members of either Arrow or The Flash. As a result, Naitch03 has selected a name that will appear in this chapter.
I had really great success with the Easter Egg Contest so I may continue to do it but with one little twist. I would really love it if, along with providing an answer, you also provided some feedback in your review. So, please include some feedback along with the answer or you won't really be considered unless no one else answers it correctly (unlikely since y'all are so smart).
A/N 2: I've also included a bit of a fan cast for this story. Now, for those of you that think that most of these names wouldn't appear on a CW show, you are absolutely right. However, most of the bigger roles that are non-Arrow/Flash roles are more limited. They may be able to afford some of these names for one or two episodes. So, this is more of a wish list than anything. Either way, this is who I imagine playing the following roles:
Roman Sionis: Edward Norton
Maxwell Lord: David Stratharn
Bruce Wayne/Batman: Eric Bana
The Voice of the Mystery Transmission: Clive Owen
Dick Grayson/Nightwing: Joseph Gordon-Levitt (I know TDKR and all that. However, I do think that they should have just bit the bullet and named him Dick Grayson. He fits all of the particulars of the character almost perfectly)Clark Kent/Superman: Joe Manganiello
John Stewart/Green Lantern: Jamie Foxx (he's the one least likely to do this in my opinion)
Wonder Woman/Diana of Themyscira: Emily Blunt
12 hours to deadline
The moment they had access to the system, it was all hands on deck. Even Dick, who had basically been there for emotional support, was given another computer to access the Arrow system. Normally, Oliver would have been wary about just handing out access, even to Barry, but this wasn't the time. He knew that without the three of them, he wouldn't even be at this point yet so he obviously needed all the help he could get.
"Wayne, I want you to get to work on tracing the signal from the first broadcast."
"How do you suppose I go about doing that?" Wayne snapped back. "You said they took over your system. Do you really think they left traces in there?"
"At any time, our system is running updates on over 100,000 news sources around the nation while also simultaneously syncing with every government database known to man. It runs over 4 million processes a second. I'm willing to bet that when they busted into our system, those processes stopped and may have been replaced with other ones."
"I'll do my best." Wayne confirmed.
"Good." Oliver said before turning to Barry. "You're reviewing the footage at my mother's home, Roy and Thea's home and their base of operations and Laurel's home. I'll cover Diggle's home, here and ARGUS just in case Lyla was taken from there."
"You have your mother's home on your system?" Barry questioned. "I thought you hated your mother."
"It's complicated." Oliver said simply before turning back to his computer to start accessing security files. Once he accessed that system, Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. He had been worried that when they took over his system (really Felicity's system), they had deleted the video footage of them being in any of their homes.
Thankfully, that had not been the case. One year earlier, Diggle and Lyla had bought a new home on the outskirts of Starling City. It was only a few minutes from Queen Mansion and just a twenty minute drive to ARGUS HQ. When they had purchased the house, Felicity had personally led a team of QC analysts who had redone the house's security, which meant they had access to everything from the ArrowCave.
The moment Oliver had selected the video, he knew that watching his friend's family get abducted was going to be challenging.
He really had no idea though just how hard it would be. Oliver looked on in horror as a group of armed men silently stormed the outside of the house. Unlike most security systems, the systems that Team Arrow used had full audio. However, it was like watching a silent film. Not a single member of the twelve man team spoke a single word as they surrounded the house.
Quickly, one of the members worked to break into a security panel on the outside of the house as the rest of the team kept watch. Within minutes, the man had broken the panel open and hacked into the system. From there, the team infiltrated the house, three in the back, three in the front with four outside to keep watch.
With clockwork precision, they entered the house and wasted no time. Only one thought popped into Oliver's head as he watched the men move to their targets.
They knew exactly where they were going within the house. Now, the house's blueprints would have been public access but the level of understanding they had was impressive. They knew which steps to skip because they creaked and exactly which door belonged to John and Lyla and which one belonged to Andy.
Slowly, each door opened its respective door before raising their weapons and firing a single tranquilizer dart at their target. With their targets asleep, they broke radio silence and called in a van that had been waiting at the edge of the property. Once the van approached the house, they grabbed the entire Diggle family and carried them outside before throwing them in the back of the cargo van.
The very moment the three of them were inside, the van took off. Following a quick trace, Oliver lost track of the van as it left Starling City and unlike Felicity, he didn't have the abilities to hack into the national security archives to get other cities' security footage.
With the van gone, the remaining members of the team simply walked away, disappearing into the night. If you looked at the house, it was if they weren't even there.
A quick check of ARGUS' system showed no incident. Not surprising since Lyla had been at home when they had been taken.
Taking a deep breath, Oliver selected the video from Queen Mansion. The tactics were identical to the team that took the Diggles. However, they had one difference between their assault on the Diggles and here at Queen Mansion. The security system that Felicity hooked up at the Diggle home was impressive, exponential better than the standard system.
However, they wouldn't have been able to install a better system without tearing the house apart and the amount of work that would have been required would have been obviously strange for a simple house remodel. Plus, the amount of energy required to run that security system wouldn't have made sense for a house of that size.
Simply put, it would have caused someone to start asking questions and with their nightly activities, no one wanted that.
But the security system at Queen Mansion was a different monster altogether. Pressure sensitive windows, infrared laser grids in the hallways, timed guard patrols that rotated nightly: simply put, the place was a fortress. While working for ARGUS, Oliver had once broken into the headquarters of the Chinese Intelligence Agency. If given a choice between breaking into there or his own home: he would have chosen the Intelligence Agency.
Each person in the house carried a biometric scanner card. Basically, if you walked through an infrared laser but you carried that card with you, it wouldn't alert the system.
Assuming the facial recognition software matched your face with the card.
However, just like any security system, there were weak points. They had actually been intentional, allowing Oliver to break into his home if he absolutely needed to.
But as Oliver watched, he was shocked to see those weak points be used against him. First, the team of only four had sneaked in between the patrolling guards on the outside of the house, not a single one of them seen. Moving quickly and silently, one of the team short circuited part of the house from the outside.
That would give them 30 seconds to get inside before the generators turned back on.
They were inside a first floor window in 22.
Once they were inside, they still had to avoid the rotating guard. Moving quickly, the team of four hid in a closet as the guard passed before quickly stepping back out, heading up the stairs and racing across the second floor to the room that Felicity was staying in.
These people had been watching Oliver for at least two weeks, he realized. They knew that she wasn't staying with Oliver and they knew exactly which room she would be in. Just like before, they silently opened her door before firing a tranq dart at her. Curious, Oliver watched as they grabbed her and raced back to the weak window they had entered before.
But this time, they did something mildly unexpected. They intentionally stepped where an infrared laser ran across the balcony they stood on. However, they then turned and stood Felicity upright, facing the closest security system. Seeing Felicity there with her biometric card obviously on her, the system recognized her as a non-threat and shut off.
There were two problems with that. The first was that Oliver realized that they had never thought the facial recognition software to identify between sleeping and awake targets. That was something that would need fixed.
The second problem was that they were exploiting another one of the intentionally set up weak points. When a person was identified by the system, that shut the entire system off for a period of 30 seconds.
Just long enough for the group of four to gently drop Felicity out of the window before getting out and closing the window in 29 seconds. With Felicity in hand, they quickly raced back along the house and then sprinted in between several of the rotating guards.
The only reason Oliver could see them was the heat signature tracking on the security system. Without that, they would have simply been shadows on a cloudy night. They then placed Felicity on the back of one of the team members and scaled the fence before racing off into the distance.
"Holy shit." Barry muttered to himself at his own terminal.
"I'm assuming that yours is just as impressive as mine." Oliver growled, rage already started to build within him.
"Yeah," Barry said with concern. "These guys are the best of the best."
"If Waller was still in charge, I would have said ARGUS."
"They were unmarked though." Barry countered.
"Hadn't stopped her before." Oliver said softly. "Watch it again. We have to find something that are going to identify these guys."
4 hours to deadline
"EIGHT HOURS!" Oliver barked as he stood and upended the medical table nearest his position. "EIGHT FUCKING HOURS AND WE'VE FOUND EXACTLY NOTHING!"
Eight hours of watching their videos on repeat had turned up nothing. Nothing could be determined by their tactics, which Oliver didn't recognize. They were unable to identify any of the equipment they had used to break in and none of the gear they wore was something that Oliver or Barry could identify.
Meanwhile, Wayne had reached dead-end after dead-end in his attempt to trace the signal. Unfortunately, it appeared that the only way they were going to be able to do that was if they received another transmission.
They were scheduled for one in four hours and Lyla Diggle life was on the life.
And they had nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
"Oliver, this isn't helping!" Barry replied, literally racing over to him. "Oliver, I know you. I know how much you hate losing and I know how much you love your family. You've got focus on them."
"I am." Oliver roared although his volume had dropped off tremendously. "I'm focusing on the fact that I have four hours left until they kill someone that I love."
"Then keep working." Barry said calmly. "They aren't ghosts and they aren't robots. That means they're human. All humans make mistakes even if they don't realize it."
"Then why can't we find it?" Oliver challenged him. "You and Wayne are borderline geniuses and I'm one of the smartest people I know. We've given this information to Caitlin and Cisco, both of STAR Labs best and brightest. Between the five of us, we have exactly nothing. Not even a single theory on who these people are, who they work for and what they really want with my family."
Try as he might, Oliver could feel the depression sinking in around him. Oliver had lost plenty of times before. Yao Fei. Shado. He'd been beaten by Slade on the island. If not for that beam falling on him, Oliver probably would have died that day. But he lost Sara on that day as well.
He'd lost to Malcolm Merlyn when he had successfully leveled most of the Glades.
He'd nearly lost to Slade when he beat him half to death.
He'd lost to Ra's when he'd had Tommy murder Sara.
Losing was not a new thing to Oliver but this was different. This was his entire family. Every person that he cared dearly about was on the line and they had absolutely nothing to go on. Even when he'd failed the city during The Undertaking, he'd found something. Sure, he'd still failed but he had something.
Now, he had nothing.
"I don't know why we can't find them." Barry admitted. "But it's not going to stop us. We're going to keep looking and we're going to find them."
"Do you really believe that? Do you really think that if the group of us have been working for 44 hours straight that we're suddenly going to find something in the next four hours that's going to lead us directly to them in time to save Lyla?"
"I do." Barry replied.
"You're full of shit, Allen." Oliver snapped. "They're going to murder her. They're going to kill her right in front of her husband and her son. Her son! Do you realize that he is just over five years old? But he's going to see his mother die."
"You don't know that, Oliver. We could find something."
"Stop lying to me." Oliver growled.
"Well they certainly will die if we're standing here arguing and not working." Barry replied, scolding Oliver. "Guess what? You're right. I don't know that we're going to find them. But I know that I'm done having this conversation. If we don't exhaust every resource we have trying to find them, that's when we've really failed. Right now, time is our resource. We have just under four hours to find them. Are we going to use that time to stand here and fight and vent frustration or are we going to get to work and get closer to bringing your family home?"
As was normal, Barry was right. Oliver knew that he had a guilt complex, blaming himself for everything. He was frustrated, that much was sure. But he also knew that if they didn't work, Oliver would never forgive himself. Looking back, he would realize that he had wasted the one asset that he had: time. Wasting that would essentially be condemning his family to death, something he simply would not allow.
"Let's get back to work." Oliver said, his emotions finally in check.
"Good choice." Barry smiled before turning and walking back over to his terminal.
Slowly, Oliver approached his own terminal before hitting the play button to watch the Diggle family's abduction again.
"I'm going to get you back." Oliver growled to himself. "Come hell or high water, you're coming home."
Given 48 hours to find his family, Oliver and his new team had found exactly nothing. Looking up at the clock in the corner, Oliver watched as the seconds up until the deadline ticked away. They were down to just a few seconds now.
"Maybe they'll bluff." Wayne suggested. "It wouldn't be the first time something like that happened."
"These people went after the family of Oliver Queen, Mayor of Starling City and one of the richest men in the country. Do you really think they're going to try and bluff me?" Oliver said, his voice flat and emotionless. "They know that I'll find them eventually. They can't bluff."
"You don't know until it happens." Barry responded.
"I know." Oliver said before turning to Wayne. "Be ready to trace it when the transmission comes in."
"Will do." Wayne confirmed.
"Can you record it on your screen?" Oliver then asked Barry.
"I'll have it." Barry replied. "Why do you want a video of it?"
"Maybe we'll get some information from it. If we don't, then we delete it."
"OK."
In the seconds leading up to the transmission, Oliver absentmindedly continued to work. However, he knew that he had failed at least one person. The work he was doing was now for the second person, his own mother. He couldn't imagine what it was like to be his family right now. They had to know that time was getting close and that they still had heard nothing from Oliver.
Failure on this level was something new for Oliver. Never before had he failed so spectacularly. What made it so much worse was that it wasn't the lives of strangers on the line.
It was his own family, adopted or not. It was the people that he cared about most in the world. His sister, his mother: his only biological family left in the world. His best friend, his wife and their son, his own godson: the family that he'd hoped to create with Felicity one day.
Roy, his adopted little brother and his sister's husband. Someone who he had seen grow up from a worthless punk to one of the most respectable young men he knew.
Felicity. There was so much he could say about her but it wasn't time. He knew they were saving her for last. She was going to be the nail in the coffin or directly to his chest as it were. He loved all of these people but it felt like Felicity was a part of him.
Without Felicity, there would be no Oliver Queen. Just the Hood, a killing machine, a monster with no remorse and no time for second chances.
Instead, she had given him a second chance to become a human being again and in turn, he became the hero that his city needed. Without her, he was nothing.
Suddenly, the clock in the corner rang its alarm as the screen in front of him went white before video appeared on the screen.
"Trace it. Record it." Oliver ordered softly.
The video on the screen was simple. It was a transmission of Lyla Diggle sitting alone in the same room that they had shown him two days earlier. If there was one bright spot to this, it was that Andy didn't appear to be in the room.
"OLIVER QUEEN, YOU HAVE FAILED TO COMPLETE OUR DEMANDS IN THE TIMELINE."
"Would you have stopped if I had resigned?" Oliver asked, fairly certain he knew the answer.
"NO. THIS IS YOUR PUNISHMENT FOR YOUR ACTIONS. YOUR ROLE IN STARLING CITY POLITICS DOES NOT CONCERN US."
"Who's us?"
"THAT IS NOT OF YOUR CONCERN. YOU WILL BE GIVEN FIVE MINUTES TO SPEAK WITH YOUR FRIEND BEFORE YOUR PUNISHMENT IS CARRIED OUT."
"Lyla, can you hear me?" Oliver shouted as if raising the volume of his voice would make her hear him.
"Yes," she whispered softly. "I can hear you, Oliver."
"Is Andy in the room?"
"No, they took the rest of them out of the room."
Despite the horror of the situation, Oliver breathed a sigh of relief. At least Andy wasn't going to see what was about to happen.
"Do you have any idea where you are?" Oliver asked.
"When I woke up, I was on a plane. I couldn't see out the windows but I felt like we were on the plane for at least an hour."
"OK." Oliver replied softly. "I'm so sorry, Lyla. We've gone through everything we have and we couldn't find anything."
"It's okay, Oliver. Keep working." she said softly, tears starting to fall. "Just promise me something."
"Anything." Oliver said, determined to keep his promise.
"You die before you let them hurt my son." she replied, a determined look in her eye as she looked into the camera.
"Done." Oliver said firmly. "We will find them if it's the last thing I do."
"They're going to need you. John and Andy, I mean. With John's brother and then me, I worry about what will happen to him. You've been there before and we've both seen it. Don't let him fall into that same place."
"So that was you in Hong Kong?" Oliver said, shaking his head. "You've known who I was from the very beginning and you never said anything?"
"I knew what you were coming back to Starling City to do. It's why Waller wanted you on that island instead of in Starling. So, I may or may not have leaked a distress beacon on the island about a year after they put you there. I may or may not have been the reason that John got hired on with you in the first place."
"Why?" Oliver asked, amazed at the woman in front of him.
"I loved him. I wanted him to find his brother's killer and I knew that you were a good person. I knew that you would realize what John was and you would become friends. For all of your differences, you're very similar. I knew you would take an interest and figure out who did it."
"Lyla Diggle, you may be one of the most remarkable people I've ever met." Oliver said, tears of his own now falling. He knew that he was talking to a dead woman. Now, it was only a matter of when.
"I do aim to please." Lyla replied, a sad smile on her face.
Then, far too soon, that voice returned.
"YOUR TIME HAS EXPIRED, OLIVER QUEEN. NOW, YOU WILL RECEIVE YOUR PUNISHMENT."
"For what!?" Oliver shouted desperately.
"ALL SHALL BE REVEALED IN DUE TIME."
Slowly, one of the masked men from the abductions stepped into the frame, a silenced pistol in his hand. Looking at the pistol and then back at the camera, Lyla smiled.
"Tell them I loved them."
"I will."
Quickly, the man raised the pistol and without hesitation fired the pistol into the side of her head. The force of the blast knocked Lyla's body and the chair to the ground, blood flowing from the giant hole created by the bullet.
"YOU HAVE FAILED ONCE, OLIVER QUEEN. YOU NOW HAVE 36 HOURS TO STOP US BEFORE YOUR MOTHER BECOMES THE LATEST IN YOUR LIST OF FAILURES AND MISTAKES."
33 hours to deadline
1, 2, 3 miss.
1, 2, miss.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, miss.
For the last three hours, this had been Oliver. One attempt after another, Oliver failed to hit one of the six tennis balls. It wasn't the two weeks off as The Green Arrow that was preventing him from hitting his target.
It was rage.
A rage that Oliver had never felt before. Each fire of an arrow was an attempt to put the rage out. But he had no target. No face to use to calm him or ease his pain.
But nothing helped. Nothing could help and without Felicity there to calm him down, he risked becoming the wraith he had started out as when Waller had started training him.
If he didn't get his family back, he risked becoming the monster that Waller had turned him into.
Lyla Diggle had been something that Oliver hadn't even expected. For years, he had suspected that he had met Lyla towards the end of his time with ARGUS in Hong Kong. Thinking back, she had been an agent-in-training working directly with Senior Agent Amanda Waller. At the time, Waller was the second in command of ARGUS but the command leader of all Asian activities.
She had worked as an assistant for Waller during the last few weeks before Oliver had ended up back on the island. Since truly meeting Lyla, he knew that she had been promoted quickly through ARGUS due both to her working for Waller and her military records, which were nearly perfect.
Of course she had been the one responsible for getting him off the island. She had been present when he had told Maseo his true goal: to return home and save his city. Being a resident of Starling City, she must have realized that Oliver was the right person for the job.
But it had been her knowledge that John would be the perfect man to work with Oliver that just amazed him. She had known that after what he went through in Hong Kong, Oliver was likely to not trust anyone. However, she knew that there was one man whose morals were so impeachable that even Oliver would be able to trust him.
The fact that Lyla had basically orchestrated the beginnings of The Green Arrow seemed right. It had been ARGUS who had turned him into the monster that he was on the island. But it had been Lyla who had given that monster direction and guidance. For the last few years, Oliver had gone to Lyla for advice on several occasions.
He couldn't help but think that every time he went over there, that she knew just how much she had influenced him to become the man he was.
And she never said a word.
"Oliver."
Turning around, Oliver saw Barry approaching him slowly. He knew that without the element of surprise, he would never be able to hit Barry but Barry was still being careful. He couldn't blame him. Honestly, Oliver wasn't sure what he was going to do right now but sitting here was not very high on the list of things he wanted to do.
"Oliver." he whispered again. He obviously thought that Oliver wasn't present because he was approaching him like Oliver was ready to snap at any moment. Again, he couldn't really say that he blamed him.
"What is it?"
"Wayne is leaving."
"What!?" Oliver said in shock as he looked up to see Wayne and Dick packing up their things. "He's leaving?"
"It's something to do with that Kryptonian signal that he's been tracing." Barry replied. "He won't tell me what's going on."
"Yeah, he'll tell me." Oliver growled before pushing past Barry. As Oliver pushed through, Barry tried to grab him.
His mistake. As Barry grabbed his arm, Oliver turned on him, punching him directly in the face and knocking him to the floor. He knew that Barry thought he was helping but he wasn't going to be stopped. Not now.
He left Barry to consider his wounds on the ground as he marched towards Dick and Wayne. The second that Dick saw him approaching, he sought to get in his way, hands up to keep Oliver from breaking through.
Not a particularly smart move as Oliver simply swept the legs out from under him, pressing on to Wayne. When he reached Wayne, he grabbed him by the shirt and throw him up against the nearest wall, an arrow in hand and aiming at Wayne's left eye.
"Explain." Oliver barked.
"So you think that taking advantage of the guy in the wheelchair makes you a big tough guy?" Wayne mocked him.
In response, Oliver pulled him away from the wall before slamming him back into the wall again.
"I won't ask again."
"Or what you'll kill me?" Wayne challenged him. "Prove me right. Do it. I dare you."
"You think I won't?" Oliver roared. "You really are an arrogant piece of shit. I've killed people worse than you for less. Now, you will tell me why you intend to leave."
"And if I don't."
"Then they'll be holding a funeral for Bruce Wayne in Gotham City this time next week."
Looking at the arrow aimed at his eye, Wayne 's gaze leveled back to Oliver's eyes.
"Do it."
"Fair enough." Oliver said before rearing the arrow back and shoving it into his arm. Instantly, Wayne cried out in pain as Oliver left the arrow sticking out of his arm.
"Wayne, I really don't want to do this right now. I know it's not particularly productive and I'm shocked that Dick and Barry haven't stopped me yet. But maybe, they think that whatever you're doing is the wrong choice."
Looking over, Oliver saw Dick and Barry. Neither of them moved to stop him and although they didn't look comfortable, they certainly weren't stopping him.
"I would have to guess that I'm right on that." Oliver said, a rough smile coming to his face. "So, why do you think you're leaving?"
In between the growling and spitting and cursing, Oliver finally got the answer that he wanted.
"The Kryptonian signal keeps getting closer." Wayne said, grimacing from the arrow in his arm. "The signals have packed together in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It could be anything but I don't trust it."
"Why can't you check it from here? You connected our system to yours."
"Do you really think that I'm stupid enough to give you complete access to my system?" Wayne replied, laughing through the pain. "You got some case files and access to my information database. That's it."
It was amazing. This whole time, Oliver thought that Wayne had changed. Maybe it had been his own injury or the death of the second Robin. Either way, it seemed that he had changed.
Internally, Oliver was laughing at himself for thinking that Wayne could be any different than the arrogant monster he was. It was rare that Oliver was trusting of someone and even more rare when he gave someone a second chance after the way Wayne had treated him in the past.
"Grayson, get him out of here."
"I still have to remove the access from your system." Wayne protested.
"You're lucky you're getting out of here alive at all." Oliver replied. "Now move."
With that, Oliver simply dropped Wayne. Without the use of his legs, he dropped to the floor as Grayson raced over to pick him up. Within minutes, Nightwing and Batman were gone, leaving Barry and Oliver alone.
"You were a little rough with him."
"I was a little rough with you too." Oliver countered. "How's the jaw?"
"I heal fast." Barry answered. "You thought he had changed." It wasn't a question.
"I did." Oliver admitted. "He seemed different like the world had affected him. I thought he trusted us and actually cared about what happened to us. That was the whole point of The Justice League. We were supposed to be a team so that if something happened, we could call on each other for help."
"Yeah, because you're the master of calling for help." Barry replied sarcastically.
"I may not be great at asking for help but I know when to do it." Oliver answered. "I've asked you for help before."
"Begrudgingly."
"Yes, I don't like doing it. Are you happy?" Oliver said before continuing on. "Do we have anything? Have we been able to trace the signal?"
"Not yet. They encrypted the signal pretty well. However, I may have something else." Barry replied before pointing Oliver back to the computers. On his screen was the video footage of the Diggle abduction.
"We've spent hours looking at this. What's different now?"
"This." Barry said, pointing at the frozen image. The particular point where the video had been stopped lined up with the team calling the van in to collect the Diggle family.
"What about it?"
"Well, these guys are good." Barry said, starting his explanation as Oliver sat next to him. "Most of their gear is either custom or completely unrecognizable. I even had the computer scan the guns for serial numbers and found nothing. However, this was something that they messed up."
Barry was pointing at the radio in the man's hand.
"How so?"
"Well, most radios of this sort have an effective range of about two miles. However, this particular model is a slightly different breed. It's a satellite two-way. Rather than simply using radio ways to transmit your message, it is beamed up into a satellite receiver system in the atmosphere."
"I'm assuming this allows you to talk at a much larger range."
"So far, the testing has proven to allow people as far as 4,000 miles apart may speak to each other. The issue is that cell phone companies are very against this product. It could make their plans obsolete once they figure out how to access the internet with them."
"You're saying these could eventually become consumer products?"
"Years down the road, maybe. Now, they're hardly used at all. A single radio cost twenty grand and you need at least two. Plus, they don't come with any shortwave radio options so they can't be linked with a standard two-way radio set."
This was certainly something. Equipment of a rare nature like this meant less place to look and it would be easier to trace shipments and purchases.
"Who makes them?"
"This particular model is made by a company known as SkyLabs. They specialize in military assistance tech like radio, specialized vehicles and non-lethal weaponry."
Finally, they had a lead. It may have been small and it may lead to nowhere but Oliver need to know one way or another.
"Let's start looking into SkyLabs then."
"You got it."
28 hours to deadline
"Oh dear." Barry suddenly said next to him.
"What? Did you find something?"
"Sort of." Barry replied before turning his screen to him.
Five hours of searching had turned up next to nothing. The company was smart and held all order information on a dedicated hardware server within their Coast City, preventing Oliver from looking into specific orders of their equipment. For a company that worked directly with the military, this was not altogether surprising.
However, it did make things exceedingly frustrating. As a result, Barry and Oliver had been forced to attempt to look from the other side of the equation, the buyer. They knew that the team equaled at least thirty men. This allowed them to eliminate any small orders. However, there were still plenty of large orders to parse through and this meant attempting to track down each and every buyer to determine their motivation.
While Oliver had been looking into that, Barry had been looking into the company itself. Ironically, there was no listed owner on their website and even their CEO's bio was startlingly brief. This gave both Barry and Oliver a bad feeling and had been the reason they had started the search in the first place.
However, the name that Oliver saw on Barry's screen was not one that he expected to see.
Maxwell Lord.
He probably should have expected it but still it caught Oliver off guard.
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure." Barry confirmed. "It's worked through a maze of shell companies and holdings but it's there. He is the controlling owner in SkyLabs, provider of radios to mercenaries everywhere."
"Cute." Oliver replied.
"Seemed like something Felicity would have said."
"It would have come out with more innuendo."
"Yeah, I'm not doing that."
"And I thank you for that." Oliver replied as he thought. "If Lord provided the radios, he wouldn't have had to buy them."
"Sure he would have. If not, they would have just disappeared from his inventory. A company like this? Someone would notice that."
"Is there anyway to double check for sure?"
"There is." Barry replied before looking back at the case where his gear was held. "If you're willing to put that on again."
27 hours to deadline
Oliver stopped his bike just outside of the back entrance of the largest warehouse owned by SkyLabs within Starling City. According to Barry's research, this was where the bulk of the radios were kept.
"Coast is clear." Oliver muttered into mic.
Suddenly, Oliver felt a rush of air and Barry zip next to him, staring at the back gate which remained closed.
"I thought you were going to have this taken care of when I got here." Barry said in confusion.
"Changed my mind." Oliver replied before withdrawing an arrow from his quiver and then attaching a new arrowhead on it. The function of this new arrowhead would allow Oliver to remotely control any electronic or computer systems. All he had to do was hit a spot on the device without destroying it and he would have complete control.
So, Oliver aimed and fired at the security panel on the side of the building and fired, causing the arrow to stick just barely into the front panel. This gave him access without damaging any of the circuits.
Looking down, Oliver accessed his wrist computer.
"Security system is offline." Oliver muttered, mostly to him." And this door is now open."
Sure enough, the door in front of them rose automatically. Within seconds, they were inside and moving towards the inventory computer which would be their easiest way in determining if those radios did in fact come from this location.
The warehouse was massive with pallets of supplies wrapped tight and ready for shipment at any time. It made it a tough location to scout out. Not only were the pathways in between the pallets small but it prevented Oliver from looking up and seeing if there were any guards on the catwalks above them.
Thankfully, it was very dark within the warehouse itself and that gave them cover to move without being seen.
Unfortunately, that only really worked over long distances. They were almost at the computer when a guard stepped out from behind one of the pallet walls. He turned to go walk down the path that Oliver and Barry walked when he realized he was face to face with The Green Arrow and The Flash.
"Shit." he muttered before reaching for his gun.
Fortunately for Oliver, he was accompanied by the fastest man in the world. Before he could even think about moving, Barry had zipped over to the guard and removed any weapons he had on him. Once that was done, he spun the man towards Oliver who grabbed him by the shirt, lifting him in one swift motion and pressing him against the nearest pallet.
At the same time, Oliver reached across his chest and activated his voice distorter.
"What's your name?" Oliver growled.
"Andrew." the guard sputtered. "Andrew Flair."
"Andrew, The Flash and I are here are some very special business and we really cannot be interrupted." Oliver said, his voice barely above a menacing whisper. "I need a distraction. Do you think that you can come up with something for us?"
"Y-y-yea, I t-t-think s-s-so."
"Don't think, Andrew." Oliver countered. "I need to know if I can trust you. Because if you leave and then a team of security guards finds us, I'm going to know it was you."
"Yes, I c-c-can help." he muttered with absolutely no confidence before grabbing his own radio, an exact replica of the ones that the men who had taken his family had used. "I h-have a Code Black in the front loading area. Suspicious vehicle parked out there. I need all available officers to make their way there."
"Nicely done, Andrew." Oliver said before lowering the guard to the ground. "Now get out of here."
"Y-y-yes sir." Andrew stuttered before racing off in the direction of the front loading area. Turning around, Oliver marched passed Barry who turned and walked with him.
"You were pretty nice to him."
"He's not the bad guy here." Oliver said simply as they reached the computer. "Do you have him on your line?"
"Vibe." Barry said, using Cisco's callsign to contact him. "We're at the computer. Tell us what to do."
"Well, that flash drive that I gave you is basically a slave drive. It fills in any passwords and allows me to remotely access their system from here."
"So we just put that into the computer?"
"Yeah, that should be it." Cisco replied simply.
Following Cisco's instructions, Oliver inserted the flash drive into the lowest USB port. Only a few moments later, the computer was running remotely, the cursor flying across the screen as if it were being controlled by a ghost. While Cisco searched for the information they were looking for, Oliver and Barry kept an eye out for any stray guards.
"How are you doing?" Oliver asked as he scanned the room.
Turning, Barry looked at Oliver in confusion.
"Why are you even asking?"
"Because the last time I saw you, you were vibrating through chairs." Oliver said as he turned to Barry. "And you hadn't told Iris about it. I let it be then but I know that something's up about that."
"We're just struggling a bit." Barry admitted. "She saw a picture of me from the day before I left for Starling."
"The very first time? When Cyrus Gold broke into Applied Sciences."
"Yeah." Barry admitted. "She found the picture and I don't like any different."
"Well it hasn't been that long since then."
"Over five years, GA." Barry countered. "I was in my mid twenties. Now, I'm just a hair over thirty. You end up looking at least a bit different in that time. Hell, you look just a little different than you did when I met you."
Barry was right on that account, although Oliver honestly thought that a lot of that had to do with stress and injuries.
"She thinks you've stopped aging." Oliver observed.
"She's not wrong." Barry admitted. "I think I've aged about a year instead of one. It's my metabolism. It keeps me healthier than most."
"She's worried that she's going to age and you're going to stay the same."
"It freaked her out when she realized it." Barry said sadly. "She left about a month ago."
"A month!" Oliver exclaimed. "When the hell were you going to tell me?"
"Caitlin and Cisco don't even know. I don't know what to do, Oliver. Is this the curse for having this power? I'm either going to be ignored by those who love me or watch them die."
"She'll come back, Flash." Oliver said softly, placing a hand on Barry's shoulder. "You've been through more before this. It will just take her some time to get used to the idea. But she'll realize that she loves you and that's what matters."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then you aren't alone out there. We're all here for you." Oliver replied with a smile.
"Thanks, man." Barry answered before Cisco spoke up.
"You guys definitely have the right place." Cisco said as the pair of them went back to the computer. "This file here is a theft report. A shipment of fifty radios just up and disappeared. Then, about two weeks later, Lord approved a reconciliation."
"What's that?" Oliver asked.
"Basically, he's admitting they're gone and that the company is just going to take a loss on them."
"Why would he do it that way rather than just having a third party order them?"
"Because he couldn't have had Sionis do it if they're connected. We would have found that too quickly. Plus, he can't out whoever it is that is his mystery backer and he certainly can't pay for them himself without someone asking questions."
"Make sense." Oliver replied before speaking to Cisco again. "When did the theft occur?"
"December 29th of last year." Barry pointed out as he looked at the report in front of him.
"Days after I fired Sionis." Oliver observed. "That doesn't really seem like a coincidence."
"Still too weak of a connection." Barry argued. "We need real proof."
"Vibe, get me the video and audio surveillance from the days before and after the theft. We're going to look through that and find any suspicious activity and then trace it."
"Sounds like a plan."
24 hours to deadline
With the information that Lord did in fact have something to do with the theft of the radios, Oliver and Barry returned to the ArrowCave. The moment that Oliver pulled in, Barry zoomed over to the computer, instantly working on something.
"What are you doing?" Oliver asked as he removed his mask and pulled back his hood.
"Working on a hunch." Barry said quickly as his hands moved faster than Oliver could keep track of. Seconds later, he turned back to Oliver. "Lord's bank account is absent activity on that day as well."
"Why would his bank account have something to do with it?"
"Well, we can assume that he was involved in the theft of the product. However, we know that he couldn't have done it himself. I'm sure that when Cisco gets us that video footage, it's going to involve more of the same mercenaries that took your family."
"I'm failing to see the connection as to why this will help."
"Likely, this was a separate job from the actual abduction of the family. They couldn't approve the abduction without this particular set of equipment. If for whatever reason they had failed to get it, they wouldn't have been paid the full amount."
"So you're saying two separate transactions? One for the theft of the gear and another for the actual abduction."
"Exactly. However, I've checked both Lord and Sionis' accounts and neither have any activity on either date."
"But what does that mean? I mean we have a fairly strong connection to Lord but nothing really links to Sionis at all."
"Then we keep looking." Barry said simply before turning back to his computer. "Keep scanning Lord's records. It's going to be a bit before Cisco can consolidate all of that video footage and have it in the system."
Sitting down, Oliver lifted his hands to access his computer when a thought crossed his mind.
"What if we've been looking at this the wrong way?"
"What do you mean?"
"I've been assuming that whoever was providing the funds was simply a bank account." Oliver answered. "However, it seems odd that these two would work together on such a quick schedule after me crossing them."
"Crossing them?"
"I beat Lord in the election and then fired Sionis. Within weeks, the structure of this plan to take my family was already in motion. As far as I know, neither of them know that Oliver Queen and The Green Arrow are the same person."
"You're suggesting that the money and the mastermind are the same people."
"And that whoever has the money is recruiting people that have a score to settle with me to help him."
"Then the real question is: Who has that kind of money and a reason to be angry at Oliver Queen?"
"And knows that Oliver Queen is the Green Arrow." Oliver added. "Right now, your guess is as good as mine."
A/N 3: This Easter Egg is fairly obvious. Remember, it's the first person that gives an answer plus a review will get their name or something of their request (to an extent) in the next chapter.