Earth 1, Central City

Felicity Smoak followed Ray Palmer and Nora Darhk into what looked at first to be nothing more than a dilapidated building - the corrugated roof was rusting, the paintwork peeling and the windows so dirty that nothing could be seen through them. The lock on the heavy door was rusted and squealed in protest when Ray turned the key. Felicity suspected that Nora had used her telekinesis to give him a bit of discrete help to get the heavy door open.

She couldn't help blinking slightly in surprise to come face to face with another door only a few feet down the corridor they were now in. This was far more sophisticated, requiring a combination lock sequence and a palm print to gain entry. Evidently Ray had been before, for his hand fitted one on the list of approved people.

What lay inside the second door definitely impressed her. A full range of state of the art IT equipment that was the equal of what she'd assembled for her work with the Arrow team. Mick Rory and a woman who must be Joanne Hervey were waiting for them. Since they hadn't actually met before, Ray introduced them.

''How did you get all this together?'' Felicity asked Ray, knowing from her time at Palmer Tech how much he had poured into the A.T.O.M. project.

''I paid for it'' Joanne Hervey said.

Felicity was surprised. She'd heard Rory's friend was rich but hadn't thought that it would be by this much.

''Shall we start?'' Ray suggested.

''I thought you'd never ask'' Felicity quipped. Her fingers had been itching to get on the keyboard from the second she'd walked in. Ray had already told her what they needed, so she went straight into hacking a satellite that was currently in the Caribbean region. It was still some way to the west of the target co-ordinates which gave her time to adjust the magnification before it began to cross Savage's estate. Ideal holiday spot, she thought, long sandy beaches, warm sea and - what was that - ?

Two people were watching a bulky, nightmare inducing figure taking part in what appeared to be a series of training exercises.

''Record it'' Ray burst out.

''I am'' Felicity was annoyed that he felt the need to tell her that.

X

Ray spent hours studying the Chronos recordings and analysing the abilities of the suit. Rory, although a bit stymied by how much the suit had been changed, sat beside him and gave what information he could.

When Ray'd put together a few draft versions of his own plan, he began to feel he could do with a second - even a third opinion. Curtis Holt arrived. So did Cisco, who had brought along a friend from another Earth. Ray and Nora recognised a version of Wyn Schott - very different from the Earth X version. The quartet of techs/IT nerds spent hours staring and pointing at the Chronos recording and Ray's plans, while talking what appeared to their audience to be a foreign language.

Some of the time, that audience included Oliver Queen and Barry Allen. Mostly they stood in the background and listened or sat at one of the far tables and talked to each other. They were, Nora thought, rather obviously checking up on what was going on here. She wondered exactly what Lyla Michaels had told them.

She - together with Joanne - took care of the domestic arrangements. This was not the first time she had seen Ray in inventor mode. She put food and drink in front of him at intervals and he ate and drank, probably without knowing what he was consuming. The other techs were much the same. Sometimes she, Barry, Oliver, Mick and Joanne would sit together. Surprisingly Oliver and Joanne hit it off, to an extent that was plainly beginning to make Mick a tad jealous. The older woman remedied the situation by taking Mick off for some quality time on their own, during which she pointed out quite firmly that Queen was little more than a boy.

Joanne had also been doing a lot of thinking during the enforced waiting for the techs' plans to come to fruition. A lot of it was about her Survivalist friends. Despite their losses at Dead End, most of them were keen to join the next round against Savage and his allies. The obvious way, at least initially, was to dispatch them to other Earths. Savage still had people visiting those where there was conflict or other factors that would make the population amenable to recruitment. The Molloy twins and Stephanie Karras were proving to be very good at that kind of assignment. Using them on Earth 1 would be more of a problem - Lyla Michaels had made it plain that she would take action against 'weekend warriors creating more mayhem', as she put it.

The other matter, although very much on her mind, was something she was keeping to herself - for now.

X

''It's finished'' Ray announced, which was a definite exaggeration, since the project only existed in hologram form.

They all gathered round and looked at the image floating in the air.

''It's pretty good'' Mick allowed ''but could it be in red or something and have some kind of flame-thrower?''

''No!'' was the general chorus.

He shrugged. ''OK - as soon as it's ready I'll take it out for a test run.''

''No'' Joanne said suddenly. ''No, you won't.''