Day 73 of 100

Volume 1, Chapter 37

BREACH EARTH, WAR QUARTER
(ARGUS designation)

STEIN LABS

No one would have penalized them for taking a couple more than ten minutes before returning to start on the plan for Silent's release, but in the end it looked closer to seven, or eight, or nine minutes… They all wanted to get started as soon as possible, although they each felt that the break had indeed been necessary, and now that it was over they assembled, their heads a little clearer and maybe finding just enough ease to carry the exhaustion better.

Patty had marked her return by moving to the console that would allow her to establish contact first with Winn and then with ARGUS headquarters once he patched them through. The face she found on the other side was not one she would have known until very recently, but the liaison agent was now getting to be familiar with Iris West of Haven, and that was who greeted her, looking understandably frazzled, from what they'd been hearing about the events on Main.

"I believe you're at my desk?" Patty asked her.

"I am, yes, I hope that's alright," Iris replied.

"More than alright, especially if it will make things easier now. I need you to access my files. I have a list of SQSL proficient agents and allies in there, I need you to send it over here, and…"

"Would you like me to establish contact with them?" Iris asked, looking as though she had already reached the list and pulled it up in the seconds since she'd been told about it. "I can have them ready for crossing through headquarters as soon as you need them."

"I… Yeah, that'd be perfect, actually," Patty smiled. She had to appreciate initiative in people, and this one looked to have initiative up to her ears. "How's it going back there?" At this, Iris let out a breath, eyes widening, in what translated easily to 'oh you have no idea how much has been going on.' "That bad?"

"Well, it's just… We captured the gun guys." This got everyone's attention, several of them moving around so they could see the screen.

"You did?" Mike asked, looking to Jax at his side, the two of them thinking about Zari and Kendra, about Samantha and her leg…

"How'd you do that? Who got them?" Jax asked.

"Have they found Carter and the others?" Evelyn jumped in.

"Who are they?" Seeker added.

"Woah, hey, one at a time," Iris waved them off. "Long story short, it was sort of delicate to put that information out there earlier, but it's fine now, so here goes. We identified the two of them as Raymond Palmer and Nathaniel Heywood…"

"Heywood, as in…" Rene started, and Iris nodded.

"Turns out he's the director's grandson."

"Wait, what?" Winn interjected, listening from back on the Waverider.

"Again, long story, Director Heywood originally came from Slow Quarter, his son popped off to Haven and got married there, had a kid, who grew up to be a bit of a psycho and not that bright apparently. He and his buddy just waltzed in here a little while ago, pretending to be agents, but the director spotted them and managed to apprehend them. Now they're in a pair of holding cells, but they won't talk. We still don't know where the others are holding the people they took."

They had to stop for a moment and remind themselves that, even though it wasn't as much good news as they could have hoped, it was good news. They had two of the kidnappers. They could use that, they could dig deeper and hopefully find their friends. And if they were involved in the even grander scheme of things…

"It's possible their capture might have been intentional." Doctor Stein spoke up then, his face reading just a bit grim, back from his small excursion to Main. They turned to him.

"How's that?" Ralph asked. The man in the wheelchair hesitated briefly.

"Because I was visited by my daughter a few hours ago," he revealed.

"Mirror Mistress?" Evelyn asked, looking at once angered as she thought of the one who'd taken Carter. "She was here… I knew it…"

"Knew how?" Kara wondered.

"Before, I saw… I thought I was hallucinating, but I saw the other one, the blonde… right in there," she pointed to the glass pane. "But if she was there," she gestured toward Stein, "Then maybe the other one was, too, and…" She turned to Wells, who had not spoken, finding on his face everything she needed to confirm that Livewire had been here, too.

"They were here, all three of them," Laura Zeta let out a breath, stunned. Around the room, there were some eyes turned to Stein and Wells, no doubt wondering why they hadn't said something before now, hadn't ensured the trio's capture. She wasn't one of them, not at all, because like those who didn't stare questions at the two men, she understood all too well the dilemma they'd been forced to handle, faced with their daughters and the thought of any harm coming to them. They'd let them walk away and kept their mouths shut… until they couldn't.

"What did they tell you?" Ralph looked to the two men.

"Very little," Doctor Stein confessed. "Only that the people they took were not harmed. I tried… to ask her about who she worked for, but she wouldn't say.

"You let her get away," Evelyn pointed out. "We might have gotten more out of her."

"She knew exactly when and how to approach me so that there wouldn't be time to catch her," Stein insisted. Whether or not he would have enabled her escape if things had gone down any differently, he couldn't say, and he hoped never to have to find out.

"What about you?" Ralph turned to Wells. "What did yours say?" Harrison looked up at him, fixing him with a quiet stare for a moment before his shoulders sank just a bit.

"She advised me to stay in War," he finally spoke. There might have been a number of interpretations to these words, but for what they knew now it became fairly easy to know what she'd been referring to. She had known there would likely be other attacks, though maybe not in which quarter at the time… or she did know it would be in Silent but chose to be vague so they wouldn't immediately leap into action and prevent the Horus girl and her team to move into place.

"Iris, is Agent Sharpe back at headquarters now?" Gideon asked.

"Uh…" Iris turned around in her chair for a moment, talking to someone off screen before turning back. "She should be here soon," she finally told them. "But, uh… there's something else. Nora Allen's here." Standing on the other side of the console and thus not seeing the screen, Barry's head turned up at the sound of his mother's name. A few of the others now looked to him, too, knowing or realizing who this person would be to him even as he moved around the screen to see the girl back at headquarters.

"What… What's she doing there?" he asked.

"Well, she's sort of been checking in now and then, asking about Zari, checking that we're still looking for her, I guess, but uh… Does she know about you?" Iris asked hesitantly, looking to him.

"No, I haven't told her," Barry shook his head. "Why? Did you tell her?"

"No, no, I swear," Iris quickly replied. "Except…" She grew hesitant again, looking around before facing him again on the screen. "I'm not sure that she… I think she knows." Barry looked up to Eobard back on the other side of the console before turning back to Iris.

"How do you know that?" he asked.

"Another long story short, I… I can't remember who knows what and who doesn't anymore, but I came here with this couple, the Queens, after they were reunited with their son and daughter, they're heroes here, speedsters."

"You mean the Flash?" Barry asked, eyes widening.

"And Kid Flash, yeah, just…" she gestured as though to say 'keep this to yourselves.' "So the Queens and your mother were in the lobby together for a while, talking, while the rest of us were dealing with the Desert breachers. I had to escort in Mr. & Mrs. Queen because the Flash was injured out there, and they said something about how the woman they'd been talking to also had a son who was a hero, possibly out on Breach right now…"

He didn't know what to say. He'd had his reasons for not wanting her to know, and on the whole they hadn't changed. But now… If she did know, he guessed some things would make sense, although he didn't know how long she could have known about it, about him… She probably didn't realize Eobard was a part of this, too. She'd only ever seen Firestorm, seen him, never the merge, had she? So many questions were bursting in his thoughts, but… What was he supposed to do about it now? This wasn't the time…

"Can you… Can you find a way to somehow mention near her that Firestorm is okay out here, without telling her that… I know about this?" Barry requested slowly, and Iris gave him an understanding smile and a nod.

"I will," she assured him.

X

BREACH EARTH, SILENT QUARTER

When the signal had come through, flashing red and black, he had regretted at once taking his girls away from Main. He could not have known, of course, but now here they were, and all he could think was that maybe this was retribution for not having held up his side of the bargain in crossing to Main.

He looked to his daughters, both of them sitting huddled together, his younger one nestled in her big sister's arms, both of them staring up at him with questions in their eyes. What is this? What's happening? Are we safe? He came up and crouched before them, touching either of their cheeks before bringing his hands together to tell them the very least he could.

"I will keep you safe," he vowed. "Everything will be alright." He didn't know that it would, but right then it seemed like promising it to them would drive him that much more to make sure he wasn't lying to them, that they really would be alright. They looked so much like their mother, his eldest one in particular, and having already lost his wife, he knew he couldn't bear to lose anyone else, especially their daughters…

There had to be a way to do something, but what? They had been warned to stay right where they were, that if they became aware of any violations there would be immediate and random repercussions. Could they even tempt that?

Still, it didn't take a genius to figure out that these people were not from here, and that could be their one advantage. These people would not know the city the way that he did, the way they all did. Maybe, just maybe, that would be their undoing.

He thought of the woman who'd addressed them back in the strange place with the overwhelming… He didn't even know how to describe it. All he'd really known, what his girls had known, as they'd been led to cross from Silent on to Main, was that people here communicated with their mouths, that they spoke, with a voice. Was it what that had been? Did the objects have voices, too?

He had never met her or the others with her, but he was aware of who they were, just a bit. He had heard about crossings before, although for the most part he hadn't really known whether he saw it as truth or make believe. But he had heard of a ship that would fly over the city at times, something to do with the outpost at the heart of the city. That had to be where they were from, although the ship they'd been taken to wasn't that big.

Maybe they would come now. Maybe they would help them. He hoped they came… they had to… He knew that, if they did come, and if there was any way, he would help them stop what was happening out there. He had made a promise to his daughters, and though he dreaded to think what might happen to them if he were lost, he knew he would do just about anything to protect them, even if it meant his life was forfeit.

X

BREACH EARTH, WAR QUARTER

STEIN LABS

Agent Sharpe had been informed of her teammates on Breach and how they needed to speak with her upon her arrival at headquarters, and so now Ralph and the rest of them turned their attention to her as she took the seat Iris had just vacated in front of the screen. While the Haven girl went off to perform her covert 'mission' alongside Nora Allen, Ava was quickly briefed about the situation in Silent. As expected, in the middle of everything else happening on Main, she still had no idea about this turn.

"I can join you if you need my assistance," she offered at once.

"I can take her place on Main," Slade offered. "To keep the numbers balanced."

"They certainly wouldn't say no to a spare speedster," Ava pointed out.

"Except we could need you in Silent," Ralph reminded Slade. "If this is really the project soldiers…"

"There are none from Mercury, remember?" Slade told him.

"So they said. From everything we've seen and heard the last few days, are you willing to take the chance that they didn't lie about this, too?"

"You've got me," Roy spoke up. "I'm just as fast as a speedster." Slade looked up at him at this, momentarily curious like he was about to suggest a race.

"Alright then, make the switch," Ralph told the two of them.

In no time, with Jax enabling the crossing, Slade Wilson was off to ARGUS headquarters on Main, while Ava Sharpe set foot in Stein Labs to join the team. She looked happy to see her teammates again, though she showed immediate gratitude to Seeker upon finding her here, thanking her for the advice back in Desert Quarter, something several of them here didn't even know had happened.

"Before we go to Silent, before we can even figure out how to go about stopping what's happening out there, it might be best if everyone had a good idea of what they were heading into," Ralph told Ava, who gave a nod of understanding before facing the group spread out around the room.

"Silent Quarter is just that. It's silent, no sound, no voices… It's hard to explain if you haven't experienced it, but there really is nothing, no white noise, no buzz, just a world on mute. That means as soon as you're there it will affect you, too. The people born and raised in Silent, if they were to cross to any other quarter, they would be met with sound, not even knowing that it was a thing… They have never spoken or heard people speak. They have the written word, and they have SQSL, the Silent Quarter Sign Language. I can teach you some basics, but you'll need to equip yourselves with means to communicate in other ways. There's text, and then there's these."

Pulling up her sleeve, she showed them a band she wore on her wrist, a gift given to her on one of her earlier visits to the quarter.

"There's a code, colors and patterns," she went on, running through those they might need to know the most. "It's accompanied with a light vibration to the skin when the signal is sent on broadcast."

"If we are able to communicate telepathically…" Harrison Wells raised his hand to inquire.

"Honestly, I have no idea. You'll have to try it," Ava told him before carrying on. "There are systems in place, on motion detectors, which will manifest with lights again, most of the time. Once we know how we'll proceed, I can point them out to you so you'll know not to trigger them and give our presence away to… Do we know who's behind this?" she turned to her teammates.

"At least one soldier out of Project Horus," Rip revealed. Ava looked surprised at once, although it made the mention of Mercury speedsters make more sense now.

"A strong chance of other project soldiers being in on this," Gideon added, the memory of the Horus girl's pleased smile coming to her, right before the memory of how she'd flown away.

"Time for your presentation then?" Ava tipped her head to Hawkgirl, as she and Rip and Slade and Ralph shared a look. Even after they had all come to the War Riders' rescue earlier, they still knew very little about the projects being harbored inside the resistance army base.

"There were five groups," Rip started. "Project Mercury attempted to replicate Slade's acquisition of speed. There may or may not be more out there. Then there's us, Project Horus, the winged soldiers in the sky. Project Titan sought to make the strongest soldiers, indestructible. Project Neptune allowed soldiers to breathe underwater, among other attributes. And Project Svarog…" He stopped here, looking to the other three around him.

"Svarog was to be scrapped, buried," Ralph took over. "But one of them escaped, and ran into the arms of the enemy. They carried it on."

"Then there are both resistance and enemy aligned soldiers in there," Kara stated, feeling a new wave of frustration rising in her, the part that still identified so strongly as a citizen of War. "Making trouble for both sides, not caring who gets killed in the process."

"If this is who you all will be dealing with," Catherine Grant spoke up, "I may have a way to simplify your tracking."

TO BE CONTINUED (tomorrow, in volume 2)