Usual disclaimers apply.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The Mission Log

As the whole team gathered again, Iris felt like she was back in speech class about to give her final presentation; ten excruciatingly-long minutes of her babbling before a crowd. She was an investigative journalist, and though she wrote for a living, that didn't mean she was great at public speaking. Talking to a crowd was more Barry's forte; he was great at pep talks. Iris enjoyed writing, using her words to inspire and bring the truth to light. She developed a serious case of butterflies in her stomach at the thought of presenting her ideas out loud, even with friends. But she knew the best way to convince a crowd of an idea was with verbal communication, not written. She would share her discovery and hope they agreed to her suggestion. She understood what she was asking would be difficult for Oliver most of all, but after talking with Barry, she knew it was the right call. She looked to her boyfriend and he gave her a confident smile. Yeah, she had this.

"As you know, once Claybourne Pharmaceuticals was exposed, I decided to look into Lord Industries. The people I talked to were quick to warn me off, citing another reporter who tried to take down Maxwell Lord's company and fell from grace instead. Kara Danvers. I decided to do my own digging into Kara, to see if she might have anything we could use," here Iris paused to pull up some digital articles, to show Kara's earlier work;

"At the start of her career, Kara Danvers wrote a series of articles exposing crime and corruption from the lowest branches of Luthor Corp to the head. Her work ousted Lillian Luthor as CEO. Her son, Lex, has taken over and worked to reboot the company's image over the last few years. Kara promised Luthor Corp was just the tip of the iceberg to what she uncovered, and she hinted at dirt on a number of well-known multimillion-dollar businesses. Just before that big article was to come out, she was hit with plagiarism accusations."

"Did she? Plagiarize, I mean," Harrison asked for clarification.

"From what I've dug up, no. That's not the kind of reporter she was," Iris replied.

"Do you think she may have uncovered the conspiracy?" Ronnie wanted to know.

"Maybe, or at least part of it."

"Then there's a good chance someone she was targeting set her up to keep her quiet," Thea finished Iris's exact train of thought.

"I agree, and I'm not the only one to believe so, but proving it is difficult," Iris added, then paused in case someone else wanted to interject.

"So, what happened to Kara?" Caitlin inquired when the pause went on too long for her.

"She was fired from her paper and ruined as a reporter. She's spent the last few years writing fiction under the pen name, Nadica Zoric, the Girl of Steel series. She also keeps a blog, mostly about the charities where she works."

"Sorry to interrupt," Oliver smiled apologetically, "but is Kara Danvers related to Alex Danvers?"

"They're adopted sisters I believe, why?"

"Alex Danvers, she's in the journal," Oliver answered and then appeared to get lost in thought as he remembered something else.

Diggle sat closest to the journal, but he handed it over to Barry who was the fastest reader out of the group. Barry skimmed until he found the reference Oliver had mentioned. Then Barry read the excerpt aloud:

Mission Log, Fall 2045

Finally received word from Guardian. The intel was verified. The General sent my team and the Legends in. Our primary objective was to free as many prisoners as we could, the secondary was to gather information on the 'bots Lord Industries was building to hunt down the rebellion. Guardian's intel was good, except for one detail. We thought we were going to be liberating a work camp, instead we found a rehabilitation center. And it wasn't a basic facility, as unpleasant as those are to begin. No, Lord's facility included a sector designated for extreme experimentation; splicing technology into humans. Lord wasn't just content with making cyborgs, he was trying to put machines into humans, to turn them into drones. . .

We rescued nineteen survivors from that horror section. We lost two Legends in the process, Captain Cold and Hawkman. They sacrificed themselves, holding the line so that the rest of us could escape and then they blew the facility to kingdom come. We honored them on the wall. The rebellion mourned their loss, but it was not all in vain.

One of the cyborgs identified herself as Alex Danvers. She claimed her sister had once tried to expose Edge Industries as the developer of the drones we now call Ghosts, among other crimes and corporations, before the war. Her sister discovered the companies had planned the war, they worked on it for decades to create this future where they hold all the power – no wonder our efforts to avert this future have failed so far, we started too late. No one listened to Alex's sister back then, but Alex kept an eye on Lord Industries for her sister. She tried to warn the public about the A.I. program, but they captured her and made her a test subject to silence her. Alex told us everything she knew. Her upgrades killed her in the end. We honored her on the wall as well.

"That was," Cisco paused, momentarily at a loss for words; "heartbreaking."

And to think, this journal contained only the bare minimum of details. They had thirteen other journals which future Oliver had filled with as much information as he could remember. Knowing that an inconsequential detail to him might prove key to saving the future, Oliver had spared nothing in his larger descriptions. This journal was the master one their Oliver had created to simplify their searches. Oliver had let only Diggle read the full details on the rehabilitation centers, though Ronnie and Caitlin had had to read about the experiments to provide insight into the tech. The expressions on the married couple's faces said heartbreaking didn't even begin to cover the monstrosities committed. They all took a moment to reflect, then Iris brought up the crux of her presentation.

"I reached out to Kara, to find out what she knew, but she was skeptical of the reasons I fed her. I believe she could be a great asset to the team, but to get her help we may have to tell her everything."

"That's a big risk, trusting someone none of us knows," Diggle stated, his mind running through the potential threat level to his client and friend.

"I don't think we should," Thea moved protectively in front of her brother.

"Listen, Iris and I have already weighed the pros and cons of what we're asking, we aren't suggesting this lightly, but because we truly believe this is the best way to complete our mission," Barry spoke up before the room descended into a pitch battle over the suggestion. He trusted Iris's intuition and wanted the team to know they were united in this plan.

Everyone turned to look at Oliver, respecting that ultimately the decision to reveal his gift rested with him. He smiled at them, a reaction Iris hadn't expected. "We can trust Kara, I've already seen it, and we're going to bring Alex in with her."

Iris shared a bewildered expression with Barry. When she'd first approached Barry with her idea, they'd figured Oliver would take three times the persuading Barry had. They certainly hadn't planned on this outcome. Life was certainly never dull with a time-traveling friend.