Tempest: Chapter Nineteen: BlackNet's Limbo


Roy didn't understand how Black Canary could give up so easily; Amara was her sidekick! Flash still scoured the country every day looking for his daughter, even if he came up with nothing. Roy watched the video-feed every day trying to find miniscule details that might give any indication of where his partner was hiding out.

"You're angry."

"Of course I'm angry!" Roy snarled. "She's my partner!"

Dinah's calm expression didn't alter even with the fire blazing in his eyes now being directed at her; she was far too used to his anger about the situation.

"No," Dinah disagreed, "you're angry with her."

Roy reeled back, startled. "Of course I'm not!" he refuted. How could he be angry with Amara? It wasn't like she wanted to have someone watching her or making a kidnapping attempt. It wasn't like she wanted to have Weather Wizard for a father.

"You're angry with her because she didn't leave any clues of how to find her," Dinah corrected, swirling her spoon in her cup of tea without much interest.

Roy gritted his teeth together in annoyance, turning his back on her to continue sharpening his arrows.

"Roy, do you know how worried Amy was when you disappeared?" Black Canary asked him gently, her eyes soft even if he didn't see it with his back facing her. "She would have scoured the country –the world– if she could have, but there was next to nothing in a way to track you down and with her there's even less information…there's nothing on the security tapes, there's nothing in the forensics…Barry doesn't even know how Amy got her hands on a gun."

Roy frowned thoughtfully.

As Oracle, Amara had become a bit famous in the electronic underworld, something she had called the BlackNet. Finding your way into the BlackNet was one thing but actually knowing your way around was another. Fortunately, Amara had been able to do both, which had been a great help to the League, particularly Batman, who had used her skills in navigating the BlackNet to take down a few weapons manufacturers in Gotham.

"BlackNet," he murmured.

"What was that?" Dinah asked, furrowing her brow as she missed his words, too soft to be heard.

"Nothing," Roy said, replacing the arrow and his sharpening tools as he took the stairs up to his room two at a time, calling over his shoulder, "I've got to make a call!"

Dinah watched him until her disappeared, the crease on her brow deepening as she raised her cup to her lips to sip her tea as the main door opened and Oliver came through it, shrugging off his suit's coat as he did so.

"How was work, babe?" Dinah asked as he bent to kiss her cheek before riffling through the kitchen cupboards for a glass to pour some whiskey into. "Rough day, then?"

"Like you wouldn't believe," he grumbled, taking the alcohol in one gulp. "How are things here?"

Dinah knew well enough that he meant: How is Roy?

"Well—"

Before she could say anything more, Roy had raced down the stairs, pulling a light jacket over his shoulders and shoving his phone into his pocket before pulling his key ring off the hook on the wall that held the respective keys for: his motorcycle, the manor's main keys, and Amara's house key (from when she'd been stuck in her wheelchair and took an age to answer the door).

"Where's the fire?" Oliver asked with a quirked eyebrow and Roy had to do a double-take, since the last time he had checked, Oliver had still been at work.

"I'm meeting Robin and Kid Flash," Roy said after a moment of shaking his head to clear his thoughts.

"Dinner's going to be soon," Dinah mentioned.

"Have it without me," Roy said distractedly. "Go out on a date, or something."

Then he grabbed his helmet and darted out of the kitchen to the garage and the last thing the pair heard was the revving of the engine of Roy's motorcycle and the last thing they saw was the red motorcycle tearing out of the manor's main gates.

"It's really eating at him," Oliver sighed, slumping down into the seat opposite Dinah.

"Amy was the same back when he went missing, remember?" Dinah sighed. "Actually, I think that Amy might have been a bit worse; I think she was running on only caffeine at one point." The amount of time she had dedicated towards finding Roy had been great and Dinah wasn't even sure how many hours of sleep she had gotten at night, if she had even gotten any.

"We'll find her," Oliver promised, reaching a hand over the table to squeeze her fingers comfortingly, "or she'll find us…when she's ready."

Though Dinah had to wonder when Amara would be ready; she'd left because she knew she was putting her friends and family in danger.

"I think the odds would be a bit more in our favor if we were close to catching Weather Wizard, but he's as hard to find as she is," Dinah sighed, "I suppose she inherited that from him."

"That and the grey hair and her stormy powers," Oliver mused thoughtfully and Dinah rolled her eyes for good measure.

"She'll be all right," Oliver added, "Amy's a tough kid, and it isn't like she hasn't done this before."

"Last time she was gone for two weeks," Dinah pointed out. "Ollie, it's been a month…how long is she expecting to stay gone?"

Oliver didn't say anything to that, only repeating: "She's a tough kid."


"I'm going to fucking kill you!" Amara swore loudly from where she was swinging, feet chained to a branch high above the ground, giving Amara a perfect line of sight to view Jade's self-confident smirk.

"You're the one who said you can get out of cuffs without using picks," Jade responded easily. "I'm just testing that."

"That happened one time!" Amara yelled angrily, making her swing a bit more precariously from her branch. "Do you have any idea how difficult it is to condense air in a confined space to open a lock? It's pretty damn hard, Jade!"

Amara was sure that her face was red from the blood rushing from her feet to her head, but she was beyond the point of caring.

"Well, then I guess you are going to be up there a very long time," Jade said, remarkably uncaring as she strode off, leaving Amara hanging in the tree, grumbling viciously under her breath.

Four weeks of hell and this was where it had gotten her? Up a tree with chains cutting into her ankles. In what life had trusting an assassin ever ended up good for anyone involved?

Amara had honestly lost count of the downright painful training methods that Jade had subjected her to. She could still feel the bruises from when Jade had made her hover high above the island for over five hours; Amara had barely made it, crumpling into a heap when she'd finished it. Then there was training with the metal pipes everyday…and then there was that time she had dislocated Amara's arm, forcing her to put it back into place herself… there was a fine line between training and torture, but Jade had made good on her promise to push Amara past her breaking point.

Her fingers curled inwards and Amara closed her eyes briefly, taking a deep breath and preparing herself to move. Then her eyes snapped open and she used her own flexibility –rather than taking the easy way out and manipulating the air around her– to swing her torso towards her legs, grasping the chain to pull herself upright and get a good look at the keyhole.

"God, I hate picking locks," she complained, focusing a hand over the hole, thickening the air inside of it, but it wasn't easy work. Getting out of handcuffs was one thing, but getting out of shackles was entirely different, especially these kind of shackles, designed to be next to impossible to pick. "I hate Jade too," she muttered a few moments later, her brow still creased from focus when the shackles gave a click and opened.

Amara sighed, releasing her grip on the chains to flip down to land heavily on her feet on the ground below. She allowed herself a brief moment to revel in her accomplishment, right before a harsh blow connected with her leg and Amara felt it snap under the pressure.

A sharp yell left her lips as she fell, clutching at the leg while Jade stepped into view, holding a pipe over her shoulder.

"What the fuck, Jade?!" Amara raged.

"I hear you heal fast," Jade said, unperturbed as Amara swore angrily.


Wally didn't have access to the Cave yet like Dick and Roy, Dick lived with the Batman, and Roy lived with Green Arrow (and Black Canary most days), there wasn't a long list of places they could meet where they couldn't be overheard, but Wally's house had to be at the top of the list.

"I'm guessing you still can't find Amy anywhere," Roy mentioned to Dick who was sitting backwards in Wally's desk chair.

"No dice," Dick agreed with a sigh, running his hand through his hair, "wherever she is, she's staying out of range from any kind of camera."

"Great," Wally drawled out, flopping back on his bed, "so we're back to square one."

"I don't think so," Roy said, a small smirk forming on his lips. "There's one place no one's looked yet…BlackNet."

Dick's sunglasses –why he insisted on wearing them inside when the two red-heads knew his secret identity, Wally didn't even want to know– slid down on his nose, giving Roy full view of the blue eyes that widened in shock.

"You're joking," he said stunned, "the BlackNet? Are you crazy? Their encryption is next level! It would take me weeks, maybe even months to get in!"

"All right, the Wallman is confused," Wally said, looking from archer to acrobat. "What exactly is the BlackNet?"

"You can think of it like an online criminal underworld," Roy said with a shrug, "drugs, weapons, assassinations, you name it, they've got it."

"But what does Amy have to do with BlackNet?"

"Oracle is a fixture in BlackNet," Dick said instead. "The BlackNet doesn't specifically cater to the criminal sort, but it is the best way to get information, and that's how Amy got involved in it back when she first started out as Oracle. The League's tried to infiltrate it before, but they've never gotten close to getting an invite to join; you have to request to get into the site."

"If the League couldn't get in then how did Amy?" Wally asked, his eyebrows drawing together.

Roy shrugged. "Amy sees the world differently; she's the biological daughter of a villain and the adoptive one of a hero, I'd say it's given her a unique perspective…either way, she got in by offering her services. There's a part of the BlackNet that deals exclusively with people stuck in impossible situations where they can't reach out to anyone, those are the people she helps; if you mention you're a friend of Oracle, then those people will give you whatever you want."

Wally blinked. "So she's some kind of knight in shining armor to…abuse victims?"

Well, she would certainly identify with them the most.

"Sometimes," Dick agreed. "Other times its people seeking justice when the courts fail them, you know, actual proof that crimes have been committed even after they're swept under the rug, the occasional blackmailed person trying get out from under their blackmailer's thumb, getting people what they need, like expensive medications for next to nothing…"

Wally whistled lowly. "I had no idea Amy was such a badass."

Roy snorted. "She's always been a badass, only now she's a badass with wifi."

"It sounds like a lucrative business."

"It is," Dick agreed. "Sometimes her clients pay her in money, but Amy only asks for what they can afford –I think she once had someone give her five dollars– and if they can't give money, then they give out favors."

He could remember one time in particular when the sister of a leader of a drug cartel had been trapped in an abusive relationship that Amara had helped her get out of and the head of the drug cartel had told Amara she could have anything she wanted (Dick was sure he meant the drugs, but drugs weren't really Amy's thing) and Amara had asked for the child rapist in his crew to be handed over to the police.

He was there in an hour with his face bloody and two limbs broken.

"But BlackNet…I probably couldn't get in; that was always her thing," Dick mused thoughtfully.

Wally cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Would it help if you had her laptop?"

Two pairs of blue eyes fixed on his green and Wally swallowed.

"What're you talking about?" Roy asked. "Amy took her laptop with her, didn't she?"

There was a flush rising up Wally's neck to his suffuse across his cheeks and Dick watched the color change with fascination.

"Well, um, she actually had two," Wally stumbled over his words and Dick's eyes widened his friend got up to open his closet door, reaching for the top shelf, something hidden in the darkness, but a moment later he pulled out a small, sleek, black laptop.

He handed it over to Dick immediately and he took it, opening it quickly. "She left it with me a few weeks before she disappeared."

"Why?" Roy asked, flummoxed.

Wally shrugged his shoulders. "She didn't say."

"And you didn't ask?" he demanded, and then Wally glared at him.

"She's my cousin, she doesn't need to tell me everything, she just needs to know that I've got her back."

Wally had known her the longest of the three of them; if there was anyone who had her complete trust, it was him.

"It's got a four-digit code," Dick mentioned, "It's not her birthday and I can't hack it."

Roy screwed up his face slightly as he thought hard. "Try 0824…Amy's sentimental, that's the day she became Oracle."

A moment later there was a sharp beep. "All right, I'm in…it looks like this is where she saved all her BlackNet stuff…the level of encryption on here is incredible…" His eyes roved over the documents before he drew up short. "Hang on, there's a video she streamed to this laptop a day after she disappeared."

"What?"

Both red-heads found themselves quickly perched at their friend's shoulder as he clicked on the attachment.

The screen went fuzzy.

"Ugh, is this thing even working?" came a familiar voice, followed by a rough smack to the side of the screen, giving off the impression that she had hit the laptop, making the fuzz clear and revealing Amara with a thick blossoming bruise on the side of her face.

"I had to re-task a satellite in order to get this connection," Amara complained, running a few fingers through her short curls. "But I guess this is as good as I'm going to get…I'm streaming this only my laptop and by now I'm sure that you've realized he has it and you figured out how to get into it, Robin isn't that bad at hacking…"

Dick grumbled under his breath.

Amara breathed out sharply, rubbing at her eyes tiredly. "I wish I had a better explanation for you, but I don't. A few weeks back –or was it a month?– one of my contacts in the BlackNet told me they heard rumors about someone trying to find me…I knew it had to be my father, but I'll admit I wasn't too concerned about it." She sounded a bit annoyed with herself at that, jutting out her lower lip just slightly. "But my contact left me with a gun just in case…I didn't really think anything of it until that man showed up at the door with a package for me."

Her lips thinned into a line. "Those pictures set off all kinds of warning signs and I wasn't about to let any of you get hurt because Weather Wizard wants me…I tried to run up stairs and grab the gun, but he grabbed me and injected me with some subcutaneous micro-trackers." Amara raised a hand to her neck, rubbing at the injection spot, no doubt. "It was all kind of a blur, but somehow I managed to shoot him and get that transmission-jamming bracelet that Robin left me with…what you need to know is that I'm safe and I'm working hard to get him, I'm going to get him. Tell my folks I love them and miss them, all right?"

The image on the screen froze as she cut the feed.


The rain was drenching and pouring down on Jade and Amara as they sparred together. Jade's sais collided fiercely against Amara's metal pipes, but Amara wasn't willing to give against her.

Amara flipped over the assassin's shoulder, aiming a strike at her companion's shoulder, more surprised than anything else that the hit actually connected..but Jade recovered fairly swiftly, flipping back onto her feet and striking against Amara more furiously than before.


Iris was struggling to focus on her daughter's image on the large monitor in the Hall of Justice while Barry kept an arm wrapped securely around his wife's shoulders.

"…what you need to know is that I'm safe and I'm working hard to get him, I'm going to get him. Tell my folks I love them and miss them, all right?" Amara said into the camera, her voice static-y before the video cut off.

"You—" Barry cleared his throat when his voice cracked. "You can't track her down?"

"Robin tried but Amara only streamed the video to that laptop and she bounced the signal across a multitude of satellites," Batman explained. "Oracle was the best; we won't find her through that laptop."

"Do you think she's all right?" Iris pressed the Caped Crusader, thinking about her daughter's massive bruise and asking for his personal opinion in a voice that shook and for a moment he didn't say anything.

"I think Oracle is very good at what she does, Mrs. Allen," Batman said finally. "Robin's trying to navigate through the BlackNet to find any details about what Oracle's been up to…"


The BlackNet, it should be known, was incredibly difficult to navigate and Robin didn't know how Amara did it.

There were nine different circles based on the services you required (basically it was like the nine circles of hell from Dante's Inferno); Amara mostly dealt in the first circle.

He was tapping out a code when a chat popped up on his screen bearing the name Masq: Welcome to Limbo, Robin.

Dick narrowed his eyes suspiciously. Do you know me?

I know lots of things, Masq typed out. It's an upside to being so skilled in hacking. You're good but you're not that good.

Dick felt an eyebrow twitch in irritation. And just how much do you know about me?

Not much, just that you're looking for Oracle and she's not a fan of people trying to find her. Look at the last guy.

There was a certain dryness to the words but the words themselves were what caught his interest. How do you know about that?

Oracle isn't the only one that has resources, Masq responded. Most of us are a lot less honorable than her, but that's the way the business works.

And what's your business? Dick asked.

I'm a modest thief, obviously.

In my experience, thieves aren't modest, Dick countered.

Touché, Masq responded, but I believe it depends on the day…I have a taste for old artifacts ;) See you around, Robin.

And then the connection failed and Dick was left with a frown on his face. There was something familiar about the way Masq had written their words…it was impossible to tell if they were a man or a woman but if Dick was a betting sidekick, he'd go with woman. (That was probably Catwoman's influence)

He tried to follow Masq's electronic trail, but it only locked him into what he and Amy liked to call a 'black hole', turning his screen dark with the exception of the large masquerade mask that dominated the screen, golden with delicate designs.

Dick cursed himself for getting himself stuck in the black hole that was going to take him an hour, at least, to get out of it.


Jade had left sometime in the morning before Amara had come around and it was that day that Amara decided she was going to try her hand at the salmon ladder that was sitting in the remnants of the plane's broken hull, taunting her.

Amara grabbed the pole, lodging it on the highest rung she could reach on her own two feet before tightening her grip on it, swinging slightly forward and back a few times before managing to attempt to swing the pole up onto the next rung; Amara barely got it out of the rung it was locked in.

It was harder than it looked, Amara decided five minutes later, but she wasn't willing to quit, not yet.

She swung her body forward and then back before pulling the pole –at long last– up to the next rung on the ladder.

It was more exhausting than she'd thought; no wonder Oliver could do it so easily like those muscles of his.

She was on the sixth rung up from where she'd started when Jade returned, arching an eyebrow at her for good measure, but she didn't tell her to come down, which probably meant that she didn't really care that Amara was using the salmon ladder –which was great, because Amara didn't really care if she did.

"How do you feel about helping me on a job in Star City?" she asked as Amara took the pole up another rung, gritting her teeth in exertion.

"I don't kill people," she hissed between clenched teeth.

"Which is a huge handicap, if you ask me, but that's not what I was talking about," Jade snorted, leaning forward with glittering eyes. "How about you help me steal a priceless artifact?"

Amara released her grip on the pole to land on her feet, rubbing at her sore hands from gripping the pole so tightly.

"Sounds like fun," she said, grinning widely. "What will I be going as?"

Being Storm Chaser was completely out of the question.

"Yourself, I presume," Jade said, withdrawing something from her bag and holding it out to Amara. "I hear Masquerade is teaming up with Cheshire."

In her hands was a golden masquerade ball mask.