"And you're saying you didn't travel in a ship of any kind?" the man called Wyatt demanded.
It was the third or fourth time he'd repeated the question, even though Felicity had given him the same answer every time. She looked him in the eye again and nodded. She didn't think she could be any clearer.
She'd told Wyatt and Lucy the story of how she'd ended up in 1884 New York; told them about The Flash carrying her (being careful to leave Barry's name out of it) and how they'd emerged from the mysterious tunnel into old Central Park. Other than The Flash's identity, she'd omitted nothing. As far as she could tell, there was no reason not to share. She hadn't traveled to the past by choice and all she wanted now was to return to her home and her husband. If Lucy and Wyatt had the ability to jump back in time, then it stood to reason they had the ability to jump forward again and bring her with them. If they didn't like her being in 1884 – which, clearly, they didn't - then they should take her home. It seemed perfectly simple.
But apparently Wyatt didn't see it as simple because he kept interrogating her. "You're sure?" he said again.
She sighed with exaggerated patience. It was almost dark and it felt like they'd been standing on the path in Central Park for hours. "Yes," she confirmed, "I'm sure. There was no ship. I think I would have remembered if I'd been in one."
Wyatt and Lucy exchanged glances. They continued to appear skeptical.
"It doesn't make sense. I don't see how else you could have gotten here," Wyatt said flatly.
Felicity shifted her weight from one foot to the other. They were sore after her attempt to sprint away in fashionable boots. "Look," she said, "Physics predicts that wormholes exist and that they connect different parts of the space-time continuum. They're in Einstein's equations. The Flash and I assumed that we found a wormhole and went down it when he was moving near light speed. I'll admit it's not something that happens every day, but it is possible. And it would explain how I got here."
Lucy frowned. "Are you a physicist?"
Felicity hesitated briefly before replying, "No – it's not my job. But I've studied physics and I'm good with the sciences in general." She didn't bother to add that she had a pretty damn high IQ on top of that.
Wyatt and Lucy looked at one another again. Felicity got the sense that the two were conducting some kind of silent conversation. Eventually, Wyatt said aloud to Lucy, "Do you think there's a chance that what she's saying actually happened?"
Lucy pursed her lips. "Physics isn't exactly my specialty. Historically speaking, she's right about Einstein predicting the existence of wormholes. They're an outcome of his general relativity equations, first recognized by another physicist in 1916." When Wyatt remained silent, she continued, "What about you, Wyatt? Do you know anything about The Flash? He seems like the kind of guy the military might be interested in. Her explanation becomes a little more believable if he really can move at light speed."
Wyatt gave a noncommittal shrug. "We heard stories about The Flash when I was in Special Ops, but to be honest, a lot of the guys thought the reports of his abilities were exaggerated. You know, Central City's way of trying to put itself on the map." He flicked his gaze to Felicity and then back to Lucy. "Anyway, even if half of what we heard about The Flash is true, what reason would the guy have for knowing her? She doesn't exactly seem like the type to have a superhero boyfriend. She seems too," he paused, searching for words, "too wholesome."
Felicity was getting annoyed at being talked about as if she weren't there. Not to mention the fact that she did indeed have a superhero husband, and the things he had done to her that morning hadn't been wholesome at all. "First of all, The Flash is not my boyfriend – he's just a friend," she said tersely. "And second; the two of you don't exactly strike me as the time-traveling types either, and yet, here you are." She shook her head. "At least I was smart enough hide my cell phone from Tesla. You," she pointed at Wyatt, "came marching down with the path with your twenty-first century gun exposed for all the world to see. You're lucky no one other than me actually saw it."
Lucy smiled sweetly at Wyatt. "She has point there."
Wyatt narrowed his eyes back at Lucy but didn't reply. Felicity got the feeling that arguing was a comfortable habit for them, similar to the way she and Oliver used to argue in their early "Arrow" days (and sometimes argued still). She wondered how often Lucy and Wyatt had travelled through time together. Enough to form a tight working relationship, she thought. The two seemed to rely on one another and clearly respected each other.
"Well," she asked both of them, "what do you want to do now? If we're going to hang around Central Park with the two of you talking about me, can we at least go to the bench and sit down? I'm tired, and I'd like to be someplace The Flash can find me when he manages to get back here."
Lucy glanced at Wyatt and then shook her head. "No," she replied to Felicity, "we're not going to stay in Central Park. We're leaving, and you're going to come with us."
Felicity said, "I am?" at the same time that Wyatt said, "She is?"
Lucy nodded. "Yes." She turned to Wyatt. "Look, the Mothership may be gone now, but we know it came to 1884 earlier today. I've got to think that this woman," she paused and looked at Felicity. "What's your name, by the way?"
"Felicity. Felicity Smoak."
Lucy nodded again. "Well, I've got to think that Felicity ending up in old New York at the same time as the Mothership might not be a coincidence. We should talk to Rufus and see what he thinks. He can tell us if the wormhole story is even plausible. And if it is, and this all just some horrible mistake, then we can take Felicity home."
Wyatt frowned. "I agree that it can't be a coincidence - which means there's a chance she's with Rittenhouse and travelled on the Mothership. Do we really want to risk taking her with us in the Lifeboat?"
Lucy sighed. "A minute ago you said she was wholesome. Now you think she's with Rittenhouse? Make up your mind, Wyatt." She turned to study Felicity. "Honestly – she really doesn't strike me as the Rittenhouse type." Her tone was dry.
Wyatt rolled his eyes. "Neither did your mother, remember?"
"Let's not talk about my mother right now."
Wyatt opened his mouth, then glanced at Felicity and closed it again. She was starting to rethink her tight working relationship impression. Lucy and Wyatt were clearly something more than colleagues – although exactly what, she couldn't tell. Frankly, she wasn't sure it mattered. There were more important things to worry about at the moment, including: What's Rittenhouse? Who's Rufus? And What are the Mothership and the Lifeboat? Most important was the question of whether she'd be jumping from the frying pan to the fire if she left the park and went with them.
Aloud, she said, "Suppose I don't want to go with you?"
Lucy reached out and touched her arm. "Look, Felicity, if you really don't want to be in 1884-"
"I don't."
"—then we promise to take you back to the present . We just need to figure out what's going on, first. We can do that faster if you come with us and talk to Rufus. He's our scientist. Does that sound fair?"
She appeared sincere and Felicity's instincts were telling her she could trust the woman, even if her friend, Wyatt, carried a big gun and didn't speak too softly.
"You promise to take me home?" She searched Lucy's eyes.
"Yes, we promise."
Felicity bit her lip. Sometimes, she thought, you just have to trust your gut. There's no guarantee that Barry's going to be able to make it back here. This might be your only chance to get home to Oliver.
"Okay," she agreed. "I'll come with you."
When it came to finding people, Curtis was right when he'd said that he wasn't Felicity. Oliver was certain his wife could have located Connor Mason in half an hour. She'd have hacked some federal agency's database, and then used a combination of facial recognition software, security footage, and maybe even an ARGUS spy satellite to find the guy. Curtis, on the other hand, fussed around for a couple of hours searching news feeds and social media, causing Oliver to frantically pace his office and Quentin and Barry to do their best to keep him from imploding. Finally, just when Oliver was about the throw his chair (with Curtis in it) out the window, Mr.-Not-So-Terrific sat back from the computer with a satisfied grin.
"I don't have the exact location," he announced to Oliver, "but I'm pretty sure Mason's somewhere just outside Palo Alto."
That was it – after more than two hours searching? Somewhere just outside Palo Alto? "I was hoping for an address, Curtis," Oliver said brusquely.
Curtis closed his eyes and massaged his temples. "Yeah, well, I can give you the street address of Mason's home, but I don't think it's going to do you any good. I checked the footage at the company that monitors security on the house, and Mason hasn't been there for a few months – not since the explosion at Mason Industries."
Great.
"So what makes you think he hasn't left the state…or even the country?" Oliver asked.
"Because he's occasionally been seen in the Palo Alto area with this woman." Curtis pointed to a photo on the computer monitor. Oliver walked behind his desk and leaned forward to get a closer look. The photo showed a middle-aged woman with dark hair and a no-nonsense expression. She appeared intelligent and tough; kind of like a female version of Quentin Lance.
"Who is that?" Oliver asked.
"That," Curtis replied, "is Agent Denise Christopher. She's with Homeland Security."
Homeland Security? Well, that explained the no-nonsense look.
"Is she his girlfriend?"
Curtis laughed. "Hell, no. Apparently the rumor of Mason being escorted from that Tech Symposium by federal agents turns out to be true. Members of the tech community waiting to get into the symposium took cell phone pictures and posted them. Denise Christopher was the lead agent." He began scrolling through a series of photos showing Agent Christopher walking next to an African American man who, Oliver assumed, must be Connor Mason. Mason did not look happy in any of the photos. "Since then," Curtis continued, "the two of them have been spotted together from time to time – most recently last week."
"So they've been seen together. This helps us how?" Quentin asked. It was the same question that was on the tip of Oliver's tongue.
"It helps because Agent Christopher isn't as much of a recluse as Connor Mason," Curtis explained. "She has a family and a house with an address – which I happen to have found. I'm pretty sure she's been assigned to keep an eye on him. Dollars to donuts, if you follow her, you're eventually going to find Mason."
Oliver didn't like the word eventually. It felt far too slow given that Felicity was trapped in another century and history could change at any moment.
"Isn't there something else you can do to find Mason?" he asked Curtis. "Following Christopher…it could take days. That's not fast enough."
Curtis rubbed his temples again. "If you let me into your bunker, I can try using Felicity's programs to search for other signs of Mason. But it's still going to take time." When Oliver glared at him, he added, "I get it, Oliver. You're worried about her. We all are."
"You're damn right I'm worried. She's alone in a place where her tech skills can't help her. And every minute she's there, there's a chance that our entire reality could change. I could lose my wife, Curtis."
The office went quiet. No one argued with his statement or tried to tell him everything was going to be all right. Barry walked over to Oliver and rested a hand on his shoulder.
"Maybe we should do both," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?" Oliver asked.
"You and I can follow Agent Christopher while Curtis uses Felicity's programs to locate Mason. I can get you to Christopher's place in a few minutes and we can start shadowing her right away. Curtis can call us when he finds something else out about Mason. If it turns out Mason isn't in the Palo Alto area…well, I can get you to wherever he is pretty fast."
The approach felt iffy, but Oliver didn't have anything better to propose. And at least he would be doing something. Standing around his office doing nothing was driving him mad.
"Okay," he said to Barry. "Let's go."
Barry nodded.
"I'll make your excuses and handle anything that comes up at City Hall," Quentin offered.
"Thanks, Quentin."
"And I'll head to your bunker," Curtis said, "and start running those programs." He got up from the computer and strode rapidly out of the office.
"Ready?" Barry asked Oliver.
"Yup." Oliver began walking toward Barry. He'd been carried at Flash-speed once or twice before and never really cared for it. At the moment, however, he was grateful for Barry's speed.
"Hang on a minute," Quentin said. "Exactly who's going to go?"
Oliver frowned. He thought it was pretty obvious. "Barry and I."
Quentin nodded. "Yeah, but you who? You - Oliver Queen, or you -The Green Arrow?"
Good question. Oliver wondered who would have more luck getting cooperation from Mason; the worried husband or the scary vigilante with the bow? He decided it might be best to cover all his bases.
"Let swing by the bunker," he said Barry. "We can pick up my suit, just in case."
Felicity had hoped that Lucy and Wyatt would bring her to their time ship to meet Rufus. It would confirm their intent to take her home and assure her that she hadn't been foolish to trust the two of them.
Not to mention that it would also give her the chance to see some very cool tech.
Unfortunately, they didn't take her to their ship. They took her to a small, tired-looking rooming house on the lower east side of the city. Felicity recalled from a visit to New York's Tenement Museum during her college days that the lower east side had once been home to immigrants and poorer working folks. Sure enough, the streets - already a mixture of mud, soil and horse manure - grew progressively dirtier and the smell grew stronger as the three of them got farther from Central Park and deeper into the city. Lucy wrapped a long shawl around Felicity's shoulders in an effort to hide her modern outfit but Felicity didn't think it was necessary. The people they passed looked weary and uninterested - like they'd worked a long day and didn't have the energy to be indignant about a woman wearing trousers. Even the horses hitched to the carts appeared exhausted.
They walked for nearly an hour, giving Felicity's anxieties a chance to grow. She tried to distract herself by watching Lucy and Wyatt to figure out the nature of their relationship. It wasn't easy. In some ways, they acted like a married couple. They finished each other's sentences and seemed to have a large library of shared experiences. On the other hand, Wyatt wore a wedding ring and Lucy didn't; and any time he reached out to touch her (which was fairly frequently), she appeared uncomfortable. Maybe, thought Felicity, they're in the middle of a divorce – one that she wants and he doesn't. Or maybe he's married to someone else but cares for her as well.
Things hadn't gotten any clearer by the time Lucy and Wyatt ushered her down an alley and into the rooming house. Felicity gave up trying to understand the connection between the couple and instead began to worry about Rufus. Lucy had only described him as "our scientist," which didn't give Felicity a lot to go on. Given that he worked with time travel, she figured he must be brilliant. She pictured a middle-aged, professorial-looking man, kind of like Dr. Harrison Wells in Central City's S.T.A.R. labs or even like her father. She hoped that he used his brilliance for good and not evil.
To her surprise, the man waiting in the shabby bedroom was only a few years older than her and more attractive than any science professor Felicity had ever had. He was black, with short hair and a thin, neatly-trimmed beard (Felicity tended to notice beards), and he was dressed, like Wyatt, in 1880's clothing; soft woolen trousers that came up high on his waist and a vest snugly buttoned over his shirt. He glanced briefly at her face and then honed in on her jeans.
"You caught the sleeper and decided to bring her back here?" He gave Wyatt a bewildered look.
Wyatt shrugged. "She says she's not with Rittenhouse."
"And you believe her?"
Wyatt shrugged again and pointed at Lucy. "She believes her. She says this woman – and I quote - doesn't strike her as the Rittenhouse type."
The man turned to Lucy. "Really? Can I remind you that your mother didn't strike you as the Rittenhouse type either and we know how that ended?"
Before Lucy could speak, Wyatt held up one hand and said, "I already used that one, Rufus. Apparently, we're not allowed to bring up Lucy's mother right now."
Lucy gave Wyatt a sharp look but remained silent.
The man – who had now been verified as Rufus – narrowed his eyes. "Fine. Then did she," he pointed at Felicity, "give you any explanation for how she might have wandered into the nineteenth century? Because other than Rittenhouse planting her here as a sleeper, I'm having a tough time thinking of one."
Lucy stepped next to Felicity. The gesture felt supportive and Felicity gave her a brief smile - even though she was peeved at once again being discussed as if she weren't there. "Felicity says she travelled here by accident," Lucy explained to Rufus. "She thinks she was pulled down some kind of wormhole."
Rufus rolled his eyes. "Yeah – because wormholes pop up and people get pulled into them every day."
"Actually," Wyatt interjected, "she says she was with The Flash and he was running near light speed. The wormhole – or whatever it was – just appeared and they went down it." He didn't try to hide his skepticism.
Rufus knitted his eyebrows. He stared at Felicity again, this time with a little more curiosity and a little less hostility. "The Flash? She was with The Flash?"
Wyatt frowned. "She says she was. Why? Does that make her story more believable?"
Rufus nodded. "Yeah, it does - at least somewhat." He said it grudgingly. "There are a couple of ways to time travel. One is to bend space-time - that's essentially what the Lifeboat does. It creates an artificial gravitational field and warps space-time so that we can jump from one point to another. The other way is to move near light speed." He hesitated and then added, "Although I'm not sure how light speed leads to the wormhole. I can't think of anything in physics that ties the two together."
Felicity perked up at Rufus's mention of the Lifeboat. There's one of my questions answered, she thought. The Lifeboat must be their time ship. And evidently it works by bending space-time. She turned to Lucy. "Back when we were in Central Park, you talked about a Mothership travelling to 1884 earlier today. Is the Mothership like the Lifeboat – is it used for time travel?"
Lucy glanced at Wyatt. It felt to Felicity like they were having another one of their silent conversations. After a few seconds, she said, "Yes. Both the Mothership and the Lifeboat are time ships." She didn't elaborate.
"And do they work the same way?"
This time it was Rufus who answered. "Yes," he said. "The Lifeboat was actually a prototype for the Mothership."
Felicity nodded slowly. "Is it possible, then, that the Mothership could have created the wormhole I went into? By accident, when it was bending space-time?"
Rufus pursed his lips. Pondering the scientific question seemed to make him forget his suspicion of Felicity. "I suppose it could happen," he said. "If a wormhole is a passage through the cosmic fabric, then maybe bending that fabric could create one. To be honest, we never tested for that possibility when we were designing the ship." He gave Felicity another curious look. "What's your name, by the way?"
"Felicity Smoak."
Rufus's eyebrows went up. "Seriously? You're Felicity Smoak? The Felicity Smoak?"
Felicity nodded silently, surprised that he recognized her name.
Rufus shook his head. "For some reason, I always pictured you as being less…blonde."
"Who's Felicity Smoak?" Wyatt asked before Felicity could respond to the blonde comment.
"She's a programmer," Rufus replied, "like me. Connor tried several times to get her to come work for him, but she always said no."
Wyatt turned and examined Felicity as if he hadn't just spent two hours with her. "When you say, 'a programmer like you,'" he said to Rufus, "do you mean as good as you?"
Rufus nodded energetically. "Oh yeah. When it comes to encryption, maybe even better. She went to MIT a few years after me. The school has contests for cybersecurity majors to create encryption algorithms that no one can break. My algorithms stood until she came along and broke them. Well," he amended with a grin, "she broke most of them. There might have been one or two that she didn't get."
Felicity frowned as she tried to remember whose codes she had broken. She recalled that some of them had been written by a Rufus Somebody-or-Other. Rufus Caine? Rufus Charles? The lightbulb went off. "You're Rufus Carlin?"
Rufus continued grinning. "That's me."
"How did you hear about me breaking your algorithms?" she asked. "You'd already graduated when I was a freshman."
Rufus's brown eyes crinkled as he smiled. "From Connor Mason. He had his eye on you. He's always on the lookout for technical talent – or at least he used to be. He sponsored me at MIT and when I graduated, I went to work for him. He talks about you a lot. You're the one that got away - he really wanted your programming skills."
So Connor was Connor Mason. Well, that explained it. A number of companies had aggressively pursued Felicity when she was in college, but Connor Mason stood out for his persistence. He'd even continued to call her after she'd told him she'd accepted a position at Queen Consolidated.
"Now you know what Connor was developing," Rufus went on, "and what you would have worked on if you'd come to Mason Industries. A time machine. He couldn't tell you when he was recruiting you, because the project is highly classified. But that's what it was - and you could have been a part of it."
That certainly would have been exciting, Felicity thought. The programming she'd done at Queen Consolidated had been more conventional; firewalls and virus detection – nothing nearly as out there as a time machine. But if she'd gone to Mason Industries and not QC, then she would never have met Oliver - and he was anything but conventional. He was The Green Arrow, he was the love of her life, and now he was her husband. He was worth giving up a time machine.
"I always wondered why you didn't want to work for Connor," Rufus said. "He was offering good money and Mason Industries is in a nice part of California. It certainly frustrated him that you went to Queen Consolidated. He thought your skills were being wasted."
Felicity shrugged. "I didn't accept Mr. Mason's offer partly for the reason you just mentioned. He wouldn't tell me what I'd be working on. He just kept saying it was something that would change the world – which is a pretty big claim to make without specifics." She smiled wryly. "The rest of the reason I didn't accept is because I thought he was an arrogant ass. He kept telling me that his was the best scientific mind in the country and that I'd have the good luck to work directly with him. It got tiring after a while."
Rufus laughed. "Yeah – humility isn't Connor's strong suit. In all fairness, though, he is pretty brilliant. He came up with the time machine concept, after all. And he lost a little of his ego when his company was blown up."
Wyatt coughed but said nothing.
Someone had blown up Mason's company? Felicity's eyes widened. That didn't happen every day. Well, she amended in her thoughts, except in Star City where there seems to be a big explosion of some sort every year. I wonder why someone would do that to Connor Mason? Is it because he was working with time travel?
It dawned on her that she'd been so focused on getting home that she hadn't paid much attention to what was happening in front of her in 1884. Lucy, Wyatt and Rufus clearly hadn't time travelled by accident (unlike her); nor were they here for the fun of it. They were on some kind of mission. She decided she should learn more about that mission. For all she knew, it might be the key to returning to Oliver.
She started by blurting out, "What's Rittenhouse?" The word sounded odd coming from her lips, but it really was the logical thing to ask. They'd mentioned Rittenhouse multiple times - always with a worried expression – and they'd each assumed she was associated with it when they first met her. Felicity would have had to have been an idiot not to notice.
For a minute, no one said a word. Wyatt, Lucy and Rufus looked at each other before turning to regard her thoughtfully. Finally, Rufus gestured toward the thin cot that served as a single bed. "Why don't you have a seat," he suggested, "and we'll tell you about it."
Felicity felt a spark of optimism rise within her at the possibility of getting answers. She started to move toward the bed but Wyatt put out a hand to stop her. "Hang on," he said to Rufus. "Are you sure this is the right thing to do – to explain everything to her? When we walked in here, you thought she was with Rittenhouse."
Rufus looked wearily back at Wyatt. "I know I did," he conceded, "but that was before I learned that she's Felicity Smoak. I don't believe she's with Rittenhouse. I think if she was, she would have taken Connor up on his job offer years ago. After all, Rittenhouse wanted a time machine. What better way to get access to one than by planting her as an agent on the development team?"
Wyatt gave him a long stare. "Maybe they recruited her more recently," he proposed. "If she's as good as you say, then they'd still want to have her technical skills."
Rufus frowned. "Maybe. But then wouldn't Rittenhouse have better prepared her for time travel – at least given her the right clothes and helped her blend in?" He ran one hand over his short, dark hair. "Worst-case – say, she's with Rittenhouse - then we're just telling her things she already knows. We're not giving away any secrets. And given that she says she time travelled by accident and you've dragged her all around old New York, I kind of feel like we owe her an explanation. She looks a little disoriented." Rufus glanced at Lucy as if asking for her agreement.
Lucy answered him by putting her hand on the small of Felicity's back and guiding her past Wyatt to the bed. Then she sat, and patted the space next to her. "Have a seat," she said to Felicity. To Wyatt, she added, "Rufus is right. If Felicity's with Rittenhouse – and I don't think she is – then we won't be telling her anything new."
Wyatt stared at Lucy and Rufus. "Fine," he said shortly. It was clear he still had reservations.
"And if we are wrong and she's a sleeper agent," Lucy continued dryly, "you can always shoot her later, Wyatt."
Wyatt appeared to be considering the possibility. Then he met Felicity's eyes and gave her a small grin.
She shifted uneasily on the bed. She wasn't sure if they were joking, despite Wyatt's grin. He certainly struck her as a guy who had shot people before. In fact, he reminded her a little of Oliver; he looked like a man more comfortable with fighting than talk.
Lucy smiled at Felicity reassuringly. "Don't worry, Felicity - I really don't think anyone will be doing any shooting tonight. And Rufus is right. We owe you some answers."
Felicity gave her the barest of smiles in return. After a long pause, Rufus sat on a plain wooden chair that creaked under his weight. Wyatt remained standing. The two men looked at Lucy as if providing explanations was typically her job.
Lucy obliged. "Rittenhouse," she began, "for lack of a better word, is a secret organization, founded during the American Revolution. Its goal was to take control of the newly developing country – but from the shadows, not as a recognized part of the government. It was created by a man named David Rittenhouse and Benedict Arnold was one of its original members." She paused and then added, "We know this for a fact, because Rufus, Wyatt and I travelled to 1780 and met both Arnold and Rittenhouse." She shuddered slightly as she said Rittenhouse's name.
Felicity didn't question her assertion that they'd travelled to 1780. They'd already demonstrated their ability to move in time. She was more interested in the part about Rittenhouse wanting to take control from the shadows. "But they didn't succeed, right?" she asked, just to be certain. "The founding fathers went on to create the Constitution and George Washington was elected the first president. The U.S. became a real democracy."
Lucy sighed. "No, they didn't succeed, much to their disappointment. But that only made them more determined to try again - with greater planning and resources. Rittenhouse didn't go away when the U.S. government was formed; the opposite happened. Its membership grew, and over the decades it recruited some influential scientists and industrialists. By the early 1900's, the leaders in Rittenhouse had developed a strategy for using time travel to create a world more," she paused, searching for a word, "receptive to their control. Their plan was - and still is - to alter the present in their favor by changing key events in the past."
"But time travel didn't exist in the early 1900's. They built a strategy around something that wasn't there?"
Lucy shrugged. "Their scientists expected it to become possible at some point and one of their leaders, Nicholas Keynes, documented a plan for using it and left the plan for future members to follow." She slumped tiredly as she sat. "And, of course, they were right in the end. Connor Mason developed the technology for time travel and built a ship."
"Which," Wyatt interjected, "Rittenhouse stole and now has. That's the Mothership."
Well, that couldn't be good. An organization with a plan to use time travel to control the country now was in possession of a time ship? "And the Lifeboat?" Felicity asked.
"The Lifeboat is an earlier version of the Mothership," Rufus explained. "Connor kept it as a backup in case the Mothership failed and we needed to rescue people who had become stranded in the past. It's the ship the three of us use now."
The three of us. So they definitely were a team; maybe the way she, Oliver and John Diggle were a team. Things were becoming clearer to Felicity – at least as far as the trio's mission was concerned. Just to be sure she was on the right track, she said to the room in general, "So Rittenhouse travels around in the Mothership trying to change events in the past, and you three follow them in the Lifeboat and what? – try to stop them from changing things?"
Rufus nodded. "Yup – that's pretty much it. We have the ability to monitor when the Mothership jumps in time. We go after them to try to preserve history."
Wow. And Felicity thought that she, Oliver and John had an unusual job trying to stop the baddies in Star City. At least they didn't have to chase them through multiple centuries to places that lacked electricity and modern sanitization (well, except for deserted islands and Nanda Parbat). She wondered what Rufus did on these missions to preserve history. He was a computer scientist, like her, and he was travelling to places with no computers. It didn't exactly play to his strengths. Not to mention that she'd only been in 1884 for a few hours and she was already experiencing withdrawal symptoms without her tablet. She had to think it would be the same for him.
"What do you do without computers?" she asked him.
He laughed and she saw that he knew exactly what she meant. "My job is to pilot the Lifeboat," he said matter-of-factly. "She can be pretty tricky to land. And I take care of minor repairs if she gets damaged."
That made sense. With a time ship, the team would always need technical support, no matter what era they travelled to. Felicity turned to Wyatt. "And you're the soldier," she said, certain she was right about his role. His ease with weapons, the way he always seemed to be on the lookout for trouble – it just screamed military.
He nodded. "Army. Delta Force."
Felicity raised her eyebrows. Delta Force wasn't just Army; it was the elite, special mission unit of the U.S. Army. It dealt with terrorists and classified reconnaissance and other high-value targets. Wyatt being here told Felicity that, unlike Team Arrow, this trio wasn't freelancing. Their mission to preserve history was sanctioned by some branch of law enforcement – although Felicity couldn't begin to guess which one. Definitely something to do with national security, she thought.
She finally turned to Lucy, sitting next to her on the bed. "And you," she asked, "what do you do? You don't seem like you're with the army and you've already said you're not a scientist."
Lucy gave her a wry smile. "Furthest thing from either. I'm a history professor," she said softly. "Or, at least I used to be. Now, I guess I'm just a professional time traveler."
"Lucy knows what's supposed to happen," Wyatt explained, "and she tells us when major events are at risk of being changed. She's the key to preserving history. Without her, we'd be lost."
There was a warmth in his voice that Felicity hadn't heard before. She was certain now that Wyatt had feelings for Lucy. He's proud of her, she thought, and he means it when he says he'd be lost without her. And by the way Lucy's eyes softened when Wyatt spoke, she was pretty certain Lucy had feelings for Wyatt as well. So what was up with Wyatt's wedding ring? And why did Lucy appear uncomfortable any time he touched her? She thought about herself and Oliver, and how many years it took the two of them to sort out their relationship, despite working together closely. She wondered if Wyatt and Lucy's situation was equally as complicated.
Aloud, she asked, "So what is the key event that brought you all to 1884? What part of history are you trying to preserve?"
The room went quiet and the three time travelers regarded one another cautiously. Felicity instantly understood. If she was a sleeper agent with Rittenhouse, then giving her a list of key events in 1884 New York wasn't a good idea. It would let her know if they'd already foiled a Rittenhouse attempt to change history and possibly give her new ideas for targets.
Wyatt shifted on his feet. "Maybe you can tell us," he said. "What were you doing with Nikola Tesla in Central Park? We never did get an explanation."
Rufus's eyes lit up. "You met Tesla? That must have been a trip." Wyatt made a face at him but Rufus merely grinned back.
Felicity nodded. "Yeah, I met Tesla. He walked up to me when I was sitting on a bench in Central Park and started talking. He said it was his first day in America. "
Wyatt looked at Lucy and raised one eyebrow – no doubt his way of asking her if Tesla's arrival date was historically accurate. Felicity wondered if the couple's talent for wordless communication ever got on Rufus's nerves. Then she wondered whether she and Oliver ever got on John Diggle's nerves; they looked at each other as often as Lucy and Wyatt did, and probably with similar expressions. She made a mental note to ask John when she got home – assuming she managed to get home.
"Luce?" Wyatt prompted.
Lucy looked at him thoughtfully. "Tesla arrived in New York on June 6, 1884, so today would be his first day in America. That's true." She turned to Felicity. "What else did he say?"
Felicity shrugged. "Not a lot. Just that he was from Serbia, had studied electricity, and was starting a job in Thomas Edison's shop tomorrow."
Lucy turned back to Wyatt. "That's all true, too. Tesla did go to work for Edison as soon as he arrived in the U.S. He only lasted six months at Edison's shop, though."
Felicity chuckled. "Yeah, I could have predicted that, and I'm not a historian. They're going to have a serious scientific disagreement. Edison didn't – doesn't - believe AC can be made to work and Tesla thought – thinks – it's the only way to deliver electricity." She frowned. "How do you guys decide what tense to speak in when you travel to the past and are in the same time period as the historical figures? It's kind of confusing."
Rufus laughed. "To start with, we don't worry about grammar when we time travel. As long as we understand each other…that's all that matters." His smile faded. "We know that Edison was with Rittenhouse," he said more soberly. "I wonder if that's why the Mothership came here. Maybe they tried to talk Edison into doing something to Tesla." Wyatt and Lucy both shot him angry looks. "What?" he continued. "If Felicity's with Rittenhouse, she already knows about Edison - and she would know that we know. Remember the Chicago World's Fair, 1893? We learned all about Edison then."
"Why would Rittenhouse even care about Tesla?" Wyatt asked. "I mean, no offense to you guys on the Geek Squad," he nodded at Felicity and Rufus, "but Tesla isn't exactly a household name in our century. Edison's the guy we remember for electricity and the lightbulb. He was the big inventor."
Lucy shook her head. "The only reason Tesla isn't remembered as well as Edison is because he became eccentric later in life and alienated his investors and his followers. When he was younger, he was every bit as well-known and his contributions were just as big. His belief in AC made electricity possible for people in suburban and rural areas. It became something everyone could have and afford - not something only for the wealthy people in cities."
"So you think Rittenhouse might want to harm Tesla to keep everyone from getting electricity?" Wyatt asked doubtfully.
Lucy frowned. "I don't know – I admit it's a stretch. Tesla isn't the only proponent of AC. George Westinghouse believes in it, too. And even Edison will eventually come around in 1892. He was a businessman as much as he was an inventor – so he went where there was the biggest profit. When Westinghouse started eating his lunch on the big contracts, Edison stopped trying to make DC work and converted to AC."
Felicity noted that Lucy had used the past, present and future tenses when talking about Edison. Apparently grammar really was fluid when you time travelled.
"At any rate," Lucy continued, "Edison was a very stubborn man. He believed in trial and error and hard work – not book learning and mathematical models. Tesla came from a more theoretical background, which Edison despised. I doubt even Rittenhouse could talk Edison into taking Tesla seriously – at least at this specific date."
"So why else would Rittenhouse come to 1884 New York?" Wyatt asked.
Lucy held up her hands. "I honestly don't know. The only other big event that comes to mind is Eleanor Roosevelt's birth – but that doesn't happen until October. I met her mother in the park earlier today, and everything seems on track. There's nothing we have to do there."
Felicity recalled seeing Lucy walking with a strawberry blonde woman when she and Barry had first tumbled into old Central Park. That must have been Eleanor Roosevelt's mother, she thought. How cool is that?
"What else did you and Tesla talk about?" Rufus asked Felicity.
Felicity shrugged. "Not much. Once he introduced himself as Nikola Tesla, I was afraid of saying anything about technologies that hadn't been invented yet. I didn't want to risk impacting the future. I'm not nearly as good with dates as you are," she added to Lucy. "I told Tesla my first name and that I'm from the west coast. Then I got out of there as fast as I could." She didn't see any point in mentioning that Tesla had wanted to have dinner with her. It seemed like a silly detail, and after all, she hadn't accepted.
The three time travelers looked relieved. Even Wyatt appeared to relax. Felicity took that as a positive sign.
"So," she continued, "do you believe now that I'm here by accident and that I haven't messed with history? Will you take me home?"
She was expecting them to agree immediately. It seemed like a no-brainer; the past was safe and she wasn't with Rittenhouse. But they didn't. There was a long and slightly awkward pause.
"I think," Lucy said slowly, "that before we take you back, we should check up on Tesla tomorrow morning. Just to make sure he starts his job with Edison like he's supposed to and everything's on track."
Rufus and Wyatt nodded in agreement. Felicity's heart sank.
"I know you're disappointed," Lucy went on gently, "but I promise you – I swear – that if everything looks okay in the morning, Rufus will take you home."
Felicity could feel the sting in her eyes as tears began to form. She wanted to get back to Oliver so badly. She tried to keep her voice steady. "I'm just so worried," she explained. "I've been worried ever since I got here that something would happen to change the present – my present. And I don't want it to change." She held out her left hand and the gold band on her finger shone in the weak light of the room's single gas lantern. "I just got married – after too many years of my husband and I dancing around each other and denying that we belong together." She shook her head. "I can't lose that – not now."
She couldn't miss the way Wyatt and Lucy looked at each other when she said the words, denying that we belong together. It was a gaze that somehow managed to be both earnest and awkward; at least until they lowered their eyes to the floor.
Lucy took Felicity's hand. "I understand," she said quietly, "better than you might think."
Felicity expected her to launch into the story of her and Wyatt, but instead Lucy continued, "I lost my sister - on my very first time trip. I lost her and I haven't been able to get her back."
Lost her could be interpreted a lot of ways. "What happened?" Felicity asked.
"We were trying to preserve events around the Hindenburg so we went back to 1937. We weren't…entirely…successful."
"The Hindenburg," Felicity repeated. "It was blown up by the anarchist group Black Cross when it was leaving New Jersey to head back to Germany. Fortunately, only two people were killed." She paused and added, "Right?"
Lucy sighed and rested her forehead in her hand. "That's what happened," she said, "but it isn't what was supposed to happen. The Hindenburg was supposed to catch fire as it was landing in New Jersey, killing thirty-six people. Because of our failure," she gestured at herself, Wyatt and Rufus, "the Hindenburg landed safely and thirty-six people lived who weren't supposed to live."
Felicity frowned. "Isn't that a good thing?"
Lucy shook her head. "Not for keeping history intact. A female descendent of one of those thirty-six people ended up meeting and marrying the man I believed was my father. So my father," she placed air quotes around the word, "never actually met my mother and my sister was never born."
Felicity was confused. "But you were born. And your mother is still your mother?"
"She is," Lucy agreed sadly. "But my father isn't my father. Someone else is…and that's a whole other story."
Felicity squeezed Lucy's hand. She didn't think she could find the right words to express sympathy for her loss. (And she was pretty sure Hallmark didn't make a card that said, Sorry to hear you wiped your sister out of existence when you failed to preserve history.)
Then something occurred to her. "How did you know?" she asked Lucy. "If your sister was never born in the current timeline, how did you know she once existed?"
"Because I travel with this," Lucy replied, fingering a gold chain around her neck that held a locket. "I had evidence of my sister with me when the timeline changed." She opened the locket to reveal the two photos that it contained – one on each side.
Felicity bent forward to study them. The left side of the locket contained a photo of a woman a little younger than Lucy. Her hair and eyes were a lighter shade of brown, but there was no mistaking the resemblance. The shape of the face, the nose…it was all similar. Then Felicity's gaze shifted to the right side of the locket. She gasped.
"Something wrong?" Wyatt asked.
Felicity pointed to the second photo. It was a picture of a middle-aged woman. "Who is that?" she asked shakily.
Lucy frowned. "My mother," she replied. "I think you've heard both Rufus and Wyatt mention her tonight. I learned a few months ago that she's with Rittenhouse." She gave Wyatt an apologetic look. "I couldn't bring myself to get rid of the picture," she explained. "Not yet."
Wyatt didn't reply. He was still focused on Felicity. "Why are you surprised by that photo?" he asked her.
Felicity didn't know where to start. After a minute she said, "She doesn't, by any chance, have an evil twin sister?"