Chapter 14- Injured and Losing Time
Anna watched from her seat as Oliver came over with what looked like blueprints. He had been gone for awhile and he unrolled the blueprints in front of them. "Find anything, Oliver?" Anna asked.
"Maybe. I can get us out of here by climbing up the elevator shaft," Oliver said, indicating the shaft on the paper.
"If you can think about going up the elevator, Chase has already thought of a way to stop you," Felicity said from her seat on the other side of Oliver.
"So you're saying it's booby-trapped?" Oliver asked, sounding frustrated.
"I'd bet my copious Palmer Tech severance pay on it," Felicity said.
"I'm saying I can handle it," Oliver said.
"Or we figure out a new plan, like getting a signal out to the team," Felicity said as Oliver straightened up and crumpled the blueprints in his hand.
"You just said that everything with an electrical circuit down here has been fried," Oliver said, exasperation clearly in his voice.
"Only because me and Felicity haven't figured out how to get power yet," Anna said.
"So figure out how to get power, and I will go up the elevator shaft," Oliver said as Felicity rolled her chair to him.
"Seriously, are you still not listening to me? Did the EMP give you short-term amnesia about what we were arguing about down here in the first place?" Felicity asked, sounding as frustrated as Oliver.
"This feels like the best choice right now," Oliver said, walking away.
"Besides the one I just gave you," Felicity whispered softly. Anna stood as Oliver went to the elevator and opened the heavy doors with a grunt. He lifted his glow rod and shone it up the shaft. Anna went over as he set the glow rod down and proceeded to climb up the shaft.
"Oliver, be careful. The floor is still concrete," Anna warned as she picked up the glow rod and shone it up the shaft. Oliver had climbed the shaft as if it was a ladder and considering how badly he could be hurt, Anna quaked at the thought of what would happen if he broke a bone on this floor. Oliver reached up and grabbed what looked like a door in the ceiling. An electrical charge lit up the shaft and Oliver fell with a pained grunt to the floor. He cried out as he raised himself slightly.
"Ollie, stay still. Let me look," Anna said as she stooped down and looked at his leg, which was crooked and a some blood was seeping through his jeans.
"I told you so, I told you so, I told you so. How many times do you think that is?" Felicity asked as Anna wrapped Oliver's leg in bandages and he gave out pained groans periodically.
"I was not keeping count," Oliver ground out.
"Hmm. 11, I think, but not nearly enough. You ready? Because your operating theater is now lit, and of all the things that we need to do to get ourselves out of this hermetically sealed bunker, stitching up a wound from a fall that Felicity predicted isn't one of them. I think that counts as 12, Oliver," Anna said as she threaded a needle and started to sew at a deep gash in Oliver's side.
"I...OK. I'm ready. Unh!" Oliver gave a sharp cry of pain.
"That hurt?" Anna asked.
"Yes. Yes, it did," Oliver said stiffly.
"I won't say "good," but let the record show I was tempted," Felicity said and Anna laughed as she proceeded to finish the stitching.
A few seconds of silence filled the air. "Do you remember what we were discussing before we got EMP-blasted?" Felicity asked.
"Mm-hmm," Oliver grunted.
"The fact that I back your play, even when I don't agree, but you don't have the same consideration for me and Anna. You didn't listen to us when we wanted to join Helix," Felicity said.
"With good reason," Oliver said.
"I could say the same thing about you a million times over, but I support you because I trust you," Felicity said.
"Felicity, Anna, I trust you," Oliver said.
"Really? Because the hole in your back says otherwise," Anna said dryly. Oliver turned to look at her.
"Fair enough," Oliver said.
"Is that the painkillers talking?" Anna asked, raising her light eyebrows.
"If you have a plan that will get us out of here, fantastic. Let's finish this up, and let's try it," Oliver said, cupping Anna's cheek gently.
"OK," Anna said as she finished stitching up Oliver.
"What's an EDM?" Rene asked from where he was sitting on the couch in Diggle and Lyla's living room with Curtis and Dinah.
"Something you might hear at a night club? This was an EMP. Actually, fun fact, the previous lair used to be underneath a night club," Curtis said.
"Curtis," Dinah said in her best pipe-down voice.
"Right. Sorry," Curtis said.
"And you said Felicity and Anna James's down there too?" Lyla asked.
"According to the last position logged by Felicity's tracking nanites," Curtis said.
"What do we need to get them out?" Diggle asked as he sat down in his easy chair.
"Propelling gear, acetylene torches, wideband active field probes, tungsten carbide drill bits," Curtis said, naming off the list of parts none of them had.
"But we don't have them," Dinah said, voicing Diggle's worries.
"I can cobble together most of those things, but- " Curtis started to say.
"Text me a list of whatever you need. A.R.G.U.S. is at your disposal," Lyla said.
"Great," Curtis said.
"If that's okay with you," Lyla said in a pointed tone at her husband.
A long silence filled the room before she walked out and slammed the door of their bedroom shut. "I hate to ask this, but how much air do they have down there?" Dinah asked Curtis.
"Well, if they don't exert themselves, 5, maybe 6 hours," Curtis said, his voice telling them how dire the situation was to get their friends out.