Chapter 6: Genesis

Past – May 19, 2016 – 4 months ago

Felicity stood up and paced, rubbing a hand over tired eyes. She was exhausted. The night before had been terrifying and had culminated in Lyla and Oliver's confrontation with Damien Darhk. It had been far too close to ending in tragedy for the Diggle-Michaels' family. As the case was, the night had still ended in bloodshed – Digg had been forced to shoot and kill his little brother Andy.

Felicity felt awful. She was so relieved that Andy was no longer a threat – having a snake in their midst had made them all paranoid and Digg was still blaming himself for Laurel's brush with death due to the trust he had placed in his brother. And Andy's fixation on Lyla and Sarah had been downright scary. Still, Felicity felt awful imagining how Digg had to be feeling. Even if his brother was evil and had double-crossed them to support Darhk, he would always be Digg's baby brother.

Felicity didn't have any little siblings to try to imagine how that felt, but she had certainly seen her teammates struggling to keep theirs safe and their devastation when they couldn't. Oliver with Thea, Laurel with Sara – John with Andy. Thea was quickly becoming the little sister Felicity had never had, but Felicity was aware that there was something particular about watching someone grow up by your side. It had to be particularly painful for Digg after hearing about Digg's rough childhood and how he tried so hard to raise his little brother himself.

Speaking of little siblings, Felicity had managed to grab minutes of sleep the night before, in between Oliver getting up and down from bed. Felicity knew that Oliver hadn't wanted to break for the night in their search for Thea and his attempts to rest had been fairly futile. And he wasn't the only one.

Felicity hadn't been able to turn off her own thoughts as she had tried to sleep. It made Felicity's stomach twist to imagine where Thea was and what was happening to her. Did she have a bed? Was she sleeping on a hard floor? Tied up to a chair? Not sleeping because she was being tortured? … Was she already dead?

Despite this, she had convinced Oliver that they would all be able to help Thea better if they started again after some rest. She had been searching for Thea since 10 am the morning before.

As it was, she still found herself in front of her computer monitors by 7 am, looking for any hint of where Thea's cab had gone. It was now nearly 9, and Felicity felt herself fading from the lack of sleep and the intensity of her searching.

Oliver had headed back out to the streets for several hours and had only just returned, eyes underlined with lack of sleep, and without any new leads. He was seated at the Bunker's conference table with a cup of coffee. Laurel was already there, her own face showing her exhaustion and concern for her roommate. Felicity considered how difficult it must have been to go home to an empty apartment last night with no leads on Thea's whereabouts.

John and Lyla walked into the Bunker from the back room where Lyla had been resting, unconscious, since being attacked by Darhk the night before. "Lyla!" Felicity said warmly, relieved to see her up and walking. "How are you feeling?"

Lyla gave Felicity a placid smile, "I'm doing fine." She looked over at Oliver. "Thank you. I don't know to thank you for saving my life. You gave my daughter her mom and John his wife."

Oliver managed to muster a smile. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Lyla shifted her weight to her other foot and looked over the room, feeling the heaviness in the air. "I hear Thea is missing?" Lyla asked with gentle concern. "Do you have any leads?"

Laurel said softly, "We don't know anything for sure, but we are pretty sure Darhk and HIVE has her."

Lyla nodded somberly. She rubbed her wrist unconsciously. Then her hand stopped and she looked down at the large white bandage covering that section of her arm. She released a gasp and began to rip at the covering.

"Lyla?" Digg asked concerned.

Lyla looked haunted. "Rubicon. It's gone."

Oliver squinted his eyes in confusion. "I thought Rubicon was safe with ARGUS?"

"It wasn't safe, so we moved it." Lyla held up her wrist where John had set several stitches the night before. "It was placed subdermally in my arm." Lyla's face looked nearly translucent with panic.

Felicity was floored that Lyla had been holding top secret, potentially dangerous information within her body this entire time. John looked equally shocked by his wife's revelation and said in a tense voice, "I think it's time you tell us what Rubicon is."

Lyla looked around the small group, then nodded. "Rubicon is a series of override codes for every nuclear weapons' system in the world. It was designed as a failsafe so that any nation attempting to launch a nuclear weapon, including our own, could be stopped."

Felicity paled and asked shakily, "So, Damien Darhk has the code to launch every single nuclear weapon in the world. My god. What will he do with them?"

Oliver licked his lips nervously and said, "Andy called the HIVE movement 'Genesis'."

Digg asked, "Like Genesis in the Bible? The one with the worldwide flood which destroyed the world?"

Oliver nodded and added, "Leaving only the people in the Ark alive."

Laurel looked nervous. "So, Darhk wants to destroy the earth. Why?"

Oliver shrugged and guessed, "To remake it in his image?" Considering the situation, Oliver warned, "If even one nuke goes off, Darhk can harness the power from all of those deaths to increase his power."

Felicity's heart pounded in panic. She turned back towards her computers and began searching nations with nuclear weapons. "Oh my god," she realized, staring at the nuclear silos across the globe. "He is arming them. We have three … no four nations with nuclear missiles going through their start-up sequences."

"How long until the end of the first start-up sequence? When is the soonest a missile could be launched?" Oliver asked.

Felicity identified the Russian Federation's missile arming. "Um … 21 hours," she said.

"Okay … okay," Oliver said aloud as he grasped for a plan. "Felicity, can you hack them? Can you end the start-up sequences?"

"Um, this seems like a department of defense level problem," Felicity said nervously before catching Oliver's eye. She added quickly, "But I can try!" She began inspecting the encryption on her screen. "That said, these kind of Fourier protocols, they're beyond my skills -" She stopped nervously, loath to say anything, but understanding the urgency of the situation. "- There is someone who practically wrote the book on them."

"Who?" Oliver asked nervously.

"Noah - my dad," Felicity said sardonically.

Thea observed the two guards carefully. They didn't seem like they were trained at the level typical of Damien Darhk's ghosts and Thea wondered if Malcolm had merely managed to grab a couple of low-level minions to watch that his kid didn't escape.

It had been 24-hours since Thea had taken her last antiviral. Every time she thought about it, it made her stomach twist a little. Dr. Henson had been so clear that she needed to take every one, every time, on time. She knew the consequences if she didn't. She could easily have exposed the virus to this powerful new drug combination only to give the virus an opening to build tolerance. And that tolerance could prove deadly with her immune system already teetering on the edge.

But she had to set that aside for now. She had a bigger problem on her hands - she now knew Damien Darhk's plan to destroy the earth and she had no way of letting her brother and team know. Hopefully Felicity was clever enough to happen upon the information, or Laurel would overhear something from Ruvé Adams, Darhk's wife.

Thea did her best to appear casual as she scrambled some eggs at the kitchen stove. She reached up into the cabinet, going onto her tip toes to reach down several plates. Serving up one plate, she offered some to the eerily silent guards. As one started towards her to accept, the other grabbed him and pulled him back to his post. Thea shrugged, "Suit yourself."

"Good morning," Malcolm said cheerfully, walking into the kitchen. "Did you save some for me?" he asked looking at the freshly cooked eggs.

"Nope," Thea said, emphasizing the "p" with a pop as she stabbed up a forkful and shoveled them into her mouth.

"I trust you slept well," Malcolm said.

"Then you've clearly never been drugged and held against your will in suburban hell," Thea noted saucily.

Malcolm gave his best relaxed smile, but Thea could see the frustration building in Malcolm's eyes. "Now that you've settled in," Malcolm said in a placid tone, "I wanted to offer a second chance to get whatever medication you need from the surface. I tried to do some searching of my own -" Thea's heart stopped. "And it turns out your clinic doesn't keep paper files. Surprisingly technology forward!"

Thea couldn't believe how relieved she was that Malcolm hadn't gotten access to her medical records. "Well, I guess I'll just die, then." Thea bit out.

Malcolm turned from warm and friendly to cold in an instant. "So that's it then – you would allow yourself to die just to punish me?"

Thea shrugged, "I mean, I gave you a pretty solid option – don't destroy the world. If you aren't taking that option, then I guess we have nothing else to talk about."

"I am trying to protect you, Thea," Malcolm said with a sneer. "Let me know when you're done pouting like a child and we can talk." He turned around and vanished out the door.

Thea placed her plate in the sink and then noted to her two guards, "I'm gonna take a nap. See you in a few hours." She gave a dramatic stretch and yawned, and then walked slowly around the corner. She could hear them both shuffling at their posts as they looked forward to a few hours of reprieve from watching her. She leant down next to the living room couch and gripped the fireplace poker she had stored under the couch during the night.

She stood up and gripped it in her hands, then counted to ten. Springing out, she caught the first guard in the head with the poker and kicked out with her leg to knock the other in the chest. Thea dropped blows back and forth between the two until they were unconscious. She wrenched their radios out of each of their ears and ziptied them to a pair of sturdy dining chairs. She quickly undressed the smaller of the two, leaving him in his undershirt and boxers. She then dressed herself, donning his gear. Then, fully disguised with SWAT gear and helmet, Thea punched in Malcolm's date of birth into the pad by the door and pushed her way out into the simulated sunshine.

"My mom says 'Ravenspur' is the name of my dad's cabin on Sunset Cove," Felicity called over the comms from her seat next to Laurel in the Bunker. "If he's anywhere, that's where he'd be. Are you getting close?"

"Yes, we're only a few minutes out," Oliver confirmed.

He closed his comms and looked over to where Digg was focused on the road, driving their vehicle.

"Hey," Oliver said. "I'm worried about you. Andy's death is hitting you harder than I've ever seen. And Lyla said you told her that you shot Andy in self-defense?"

Digg focused on the road. "I can't have Lyla look at me different if she knew that I put him down while he was unarmed. I just … I can't handle it. I feel sick enough of myself as it is."

Oliver looked at Digg sympathetically. "Lyla would understand, and you could really use her support right now. Don't make this worse by lying to your wife."

"Oliver, you have no idea – that was the little boy that I practically raised. The kid who followed me around, who I kept shielded from my parents. Who became this fine man and a great husband to Carly and dad to AJ. I just can't reconcile the man he was with the monster he became. And … when I shot him … he stopped being that monster all at once and just became my baby brother again." John shook his head, voice low and full of emotion. "But at the same time, I can't help but be relieved that he'll never come after my family again."

"I know how much you loved your brother, John." Oliver sighed. "I hope you can find a way to still honor and love the brother he was … and not what he became."

"I just … how would you feel if that was Thea?" John said softly.

Oliver shook his head. "For a moment last year, I thought it was, John. After Thea trained under Merlyn in secret and was lying to me – when she fought off the Arrow and when I first saw that video of her shooting those arrows into Sara. I know that I didn't have to grapple with it for long before I knew the truth. But in that moment, I had this horrifying feeling that I was going to have to go head-to-head with my baby sister. That my baby sister had murdered Sara. I know it's not the same, but…"

"Yeah," John said morosely. "Look, this is just gonna take me a minute to shake this."

Oliver nodded understandingly.

"How are you doing with Thea missing?" John asked quietly.

Oliver sighed. "Not great. I'm hopeful that Laurel is right and that Malcolm abducted her to try to protect her. It doesn't feel good that I can't focus on finding her right now."

"If you don't save the world first, finding Thea becomes a moot point," John noted drily.

"Yeah – honestly I just don't want her anywhere near Darhk and Merlyn. Cult leaders have this way of burning their followers when their plans are foiled."

The vehicle stopped outside of a small cabin in the woods. Oliver called out, "Noah Kuttler – Felicity Smoak sent us because she needs your help to save the world. We'd like you to come with us."

Thea frustratedly banged on the glowing panels of the side of the Ark, watching as the images of fields and trees wavered with each strike. She had been sneaking through the placid neighborhood, searching for weaknesses in the walls or entrance points for the last several hours and she had yet to find anything of use.

An hour ago, she snuck into a house to steal a cell phone only to find that it had no signal to the surface. Just in case it got reception, Thea sent out a distress text to Felicity, knowing that if Felicity received it, she should be able to locate Thea from it and find the Ark.

Thea gave one last slap to the side of the Ark.

"Hey!" an electronically altered, angry voice shouted.

Thea turned around and found a figure on the nearest street outfitted in SWAT gear waving at her. Thea thought for one moment about bolting, but noticed the figure seemed angry and watched her expectantly, but was not chasing after her. Thea took a breath and approached the figure on the road.

As soon as she was a few feet away, the figure demanded through their helmet's speaker, "What do you think you're doing?"

Thea dug deep for a moment of courage and said, "Sorry, sir! I just can't believe how real it looks."

"You're not here to entertain yourself, soldier," the voice said. "We need every man and woman searching for the intruder." Thea's heart stopped, thinking the commander meant her. "Machin is a danger to our entire community. Get back out there and find him."

"Yes, sir!" Thea said quickly and turned around and purposefully strode away, telegraphing broadly her movements like she was inspecting the street as she walked.

Lonnie Machin. Here in the Ark.

Under typical circumstances, Thea would hate to come face to face with Lonnie again – he was a horrifying reminder of her bloodlust. His face and body bore scars from when Thea had lit him on fire during a confrontation while her bloodlust fully consumed her. And he was certainly unstable and a little obsessed with her for 'freeing him' by revealing that Darhk cared nothing for him and his support. Fortunately, it seemed like all his anger was directed solely at Damien Darhk.

Thea mused as she walked down the street taking in perfectly manicured shrubs and flowers that the enemy of her enemy was her friend, and Lonnie might be her best bet to get out of here and warn Team Arrow of Darhk's plan.

It wasn't long before she saw a large TV glow within a house as she passed, revealing a wild-eyed Lonnie Machin on the screen. Thea quickly clambered up the patio and looked in through the window to watch the broadcast.

"Hello, sheeple of suburbia!" He called out, the camera directly on his face. The frame stabilized and he took a step back, revealing a small room covered in knobs and pipes, with two men tied and gagged on either side. "I don't have any particular bone to pick with you, except to tell you you all look ridiculous. Gray is no one's color." He giggled as if he had said something particularly clever.

"No, I have no reason to hurt you, but I also don't particularly care if you die in the crossfire," Lonnie continued. "See, I want Damien Darhk. And I have a feeling that if I mess with these little levers back here, it may bring Darhk out of hiding. What does this one do?" Lonnie asked, peering down at the two tied up men, hand on a blue lever. The men's eyes went wide and one began to shake his head furiously. "Well, if you're not going to tell me, I guess I'll just have to find out!" The broadcast abruptly ended.

Thea looked around and noticed that other figures dressed in SWAT gear all seemed to be heading quickly, some jogging, some running, in the same direction. Thea took off to follow them.

The figures began to gather around a clubhouse building in the center of the neighborhood. They appeared to be in disarray as a few commanders seemed to be trying to send some of them back to their posts while directing a handful to continue on into the building. Thea realized that the clubhouse must be some kind of central hub. She began to walk backwards, ducking behind a nearby house. She would be surprised if the small building was able to contain all of the functions it would need. She suspected that there were likely tunnels or structures buried beneath the picture-perfect neighborhood. She just had to find an access point.

Thea began to peer around her, inspecting the landscape for anything out of place.

The house across the street had the largest tree she had seen yet – a large oak tree, surrounded by a bed of large magnolia bushes. Thea did her best to move casually towards her intended destination. She first approached the confused group around the clubhouse, then crossed the street to approach her target.

Once behind the tree, she began to run her hands along its bark, pushing at any knobby bits. The tree remained solid.

Thea was about to give it up and to look for something else, when she stepped back and her foot fell firmly onto a thick root sticking out of the earth.

A large hole opened up at the base of the tree, vanishing underneath it's false trunk. Thea blinked as she realized that the tree was a shaft leading both up and down. Thea took a deep breath. Up or down?

Lonnie had been surrounded by pipes and wires, items which, Thea thought, could be hidden in a furnace room or electrical room. Those rooms tended to be squirreled away under structures. Down it was.

Thea quickly clambered onto the ladder and watched as the opening to the "outside" closed her in. The shaft remained well-lit with a string of lights traversing the entire tunnel. Thea took a deep breath to steady herself and began to climb down.

As soon as her feet touched solid ground, Thea inspected where she found herself. In multiple directions were wide tunnels, each with lights overhead and covers attached to the walls indicating a likely network of electric or other wiring.

Aware that any direction she chose could just as likely throw her into the hands of her captors as it was to bring her to Lonnie Machin, Thea struck out in the direction she believed held the clubhouse on the level above. She slowed her walk as she heard voices ahead.

"You can not tell me, but I think you underestimate my unwillingness to kill hostages."

Thea felt her heart leap in her throat. She knew that voice. She hadn't heard it since they had saved Darhk's wife Ruvé and daughter Nora. The night he had spared her life.

Lonnie.

Thea stepped confidently into the room and pulled her SWAT helmet off. "Lonnie Machin," she said with confidence. "I'm Thea Queen, and we know each other. I am the one who gave you that face."

Lonnie pushed his greasy hair out of his eyes and back across his forehead. His face broke into a wide smile and his eyes sparkled with eerie delight. "Mommy!" Lonnie cried out. "I didn't recognize you without your red leather!"

Team Arrow, along with Noah Kuttler, regrouped in an old warehouse belonging to STAR Labs. Felicity knew she didn't even have a moment to consider how strange it was to work alongside her absentee father turned super villain. Hesitation could mean the world ending in a burst of fire and radiation. Instead, Felicity and Noah got to work, bringing computers to life and quickly connecting the servers with Curtis' Palmer Tech battery for a power source.

Laurel strode into the room with her father, Captain Lance, at her side. Oliver gave a firm nod of greeting towards Lance. Felicity was grateful that Lance had so completely changed his tune on the Green Arrow as they had coordinated efforts to bring Darhk down – Lance from within, and Team Arrow on the attack.

Felicity refocused on the screen in front of her, searching for the Russian nuke she had first noticed being armed. As she worked, she glanced back and noticed Noah had already managed to hack into another nuclear site and was madly typing, trying to hack back control of the missile.

Lyla, stepping ahead of a team of ARGUS agents, approached Felicity's workstation and asked, "ARGUS is doing what it can and I've called the Department of Defense, but they didn't give me a lot of confidence that they could contain this. Can you stop the nukes before they launch?"

"We'll do what we can," Felicity said quickly. "No pressure," Felicity added under her breath.

Felicity had just returned her focus onto the screen before her when Kuttler called out, "Shit!"

"What is it?" Oliver demanded, coming behind Kuttler and trying to discern the problem from the screen lit up with code.

"It's a tapeworm!" Noah stated as Felicity's heart started to sink. "I triggered code buried into the Rubicon system – it will alert our location to whoever created the tapeworm."

Digg said, "Darhk and HIVE."

Laurel stated, immediately grasping the seriousness of the situation, "So they know where we're hacking them from – it'll lead them right to our door!"

"We'll just have to cover Felicity and Kuttler," Oliver said. "We set up a perimeter around STAR's outpost. We make sure they stay safe so they can do … whatever it is they do." He glanced at Felicity and Kuttler taping wildly on keyboards, bouncing between computers.

"Uh, I'd hold that thought," Lance said, holding a finger up. "City Hall has just been evacuated – reports are there is a gas leak."

Oliver met Felicity's eye and she knew that he had the same thought she did. Oliver noted, "City Hall is on a ley line – the place where nexus chambers gather magic. We've suspected that Darhk could be found in a nexus chamber." Oliver turned towards Digg and said, "Darhk's nexus chamber must be underneath City Hall."

"Oliver and I will go to City Hall," Digg said quickly. "We'll confront Darhk."

"I'll stay here," Laurel said. "Dad and I will keep Felicity and Kuttler secure so they can stop the warheads."

As Oliver and Digg departed to intercept Darhk at City Hall, Laurel consulted quickly with Lyla. Lyla led her ARGUS agents out one door while Laurel and Captain Lance made their way towards the opposite exit. Felicity opened comms so she could receive updates from Oliver and Digg, as well as Laurel and Lyla.

Felicity tuned out the distractions around her, typing quickly, completely absorbed into the screen in front of her. She battled the firewall before her, mind speeding through code. With a deep breath she confirmed she had managed to contain her first nuclear warhead in its bunker. Glancing up, Felicity noticed Noah had managed to shut down the codes for two more.

There only remained the Russian nuke.

Felicity was pulled from her thoughts by her comms. Lyla and Laurel were providing information quickly, updating their teams on their positions. A tenseness rested in their tones and Felicity could almost sense how primed these two women were for the battle ahead.

Only minutes passed before the first report from an ARGUS agent – a vehicle was spotted careening around the corner, heading with single-minded focus towards the STAR compound.

"They're here!" Laurel yelled into her comm.

"Looks like our ghosts have arrived," Lyla's voice added, referring to the heavily armed HIVE soldiers the team had dubbed "ghosts" due to their penchant to show up, wreak havoc, and then vanish.

Lance's voice added, "Hey – I know that guy. He was a prisoner who escaped during from Darhk's jail break from Iron Heights!"

"I'm seeing at least five vehicles with armed soldiers – no, six. Seven!" Laurel called out.

Felicity's heart pounded, trying to set aside concerns for her team so she could focus on her task. Noah leant over and gave her a suggestion on how to approach the code. Sounds of combat filled the comms.

Laurel called out in a panic, voice heavy with exertion, "Felicity, one made it through and is coming your way!"

Felicity looked up from her computer in time to see a figure appear in front of her. Her mind immediately froze. She hadn't found the wherewithal to move when she felt her body being shoved towards the ground, followed by gunfire. She heard Lance shout and more gunfire.

Felicity's thoughts were blurred and she stared at the desk above her head in confusion. She saw a figure enter her line of sight and she focused on it.

Quentin Lance stood above Felicity, reaching out his hand. "Are you okay?"

With a gasp of air, Felicity choked out, "I'm okay, I'm okay!" Ensuring that was true, Felicity looked down, inspecting her arms and stomach for bullet holes. A cold feeling trickled into her consciousness, and she turned. She saw a downed figure over by the computer desk – Noah.

Noah remained on the ground next to where Felicity had just lain. "Noah?" she asked worriedly.

"I'm okay," he said quickly as Felicity noticed blood streaming down from his shoulder. Lance helped haul her dad off the ground and quickly inspected the wound.

"It's a through and through," Lance said, pleased even while Felicity's eyes widened. "We still have to get it checked out."

"Not now," Kuttler said. Shaking off Lance's supportive grip, he grabbed his toppled chair and returned it to his computer. "We don't have time."

Still shaken, Felicity righted her chair. She sat again and began to type on her computer, but she said in a wobbly voice, "You … you took a bullet for me."

Her dad didn't make eye contact with her, but said, "I told you I may not have been a great dad, but I never want to see you hurt."

Felicity's eyes watered for a brief moment, before she returned to focus on the nuclear warheads.

With moments left to spare, Kuttler said, "Here's the last one – the Russian Federation." Felicity looked over and watched him type in one more item, then secured it. They both sat back in shock.

Laurel entered the room. "What is it?" she asked looking at the still father and daughter. "What happened?"

Felicity looked at Laurel and slowly said, "We … did it. All the nuclear devices that were activated are being held in their silos. They aren't going anywhere." She looked at Noah with wide eyes. "I think … we did it."

Laurel called over her comms. "Arrow? Spartan? Status?"

There was silence for a moment, when Oliver's voice came over the comms. "We found the Nexus under City Hall, but … Darhk got away. Did you stop the bombs?"

"Yes," Laurel said. "Felicity and Kuttler contained the warheads."

"Darhk's not done yet," Oliver said in a low tone. "We have to find the Ark."