"So I need to talk to you." Artemis stated as she was in my office. "So I know that we've been closed a few days because of repairs. I wanted to know how this is going to affect our pay."
This was one of the difficult things about owning a business, was you sometimes had to deal with employees who were worried about things. I didn't really have to deal with closures when I was in charge of the club in my world. While I wasn't doing payroll, I was still in charge of making sure all of my employees got paid.
"I will make sure that all of you are compensated for the nights that we were closed." I declared. "Is there anything else?"
"Why is it that you always seem to be out at night whenever someone needs to talk to you?" She asked me.
"Because I'm trying to find new entertainment and doing networking. I can't be in my office all of the time." I lied. "The best time to talk to me is before we open."
"Hey Olivia?" Courtney tried to interrupt. I wasn't entirely sure what she needed me for but I was pretty sure that it was important. "I'm sorry to interrupt your meeting but we need to talk about our plans for this evening."
I couldn't help but wonder what was going through Artemis's mind. Taking Courtney on a date was a good excuse not to be there.
We went to break up an illegal deal of some kind. It was pretty minor, so it was just the two of us. I did think that we probably needed to talk about our relationship a little. Maybe we would have enough time to actually go on a date. It would be good for us. I heard the sirens were going off and knew it was time for us to go. We hopped on her staff and flew away.
"So Iris said that you were looking for Deadshot. Have you made any progress with that?" She asked once we were at Big Belly Burger.
"I think we're pretty close." I stated. "I just need a little bit more. We have contacts that are looking for any signs of her."
At that point, my phone rang. It was Thea.
"Hello?" I answered.
"So how is my favorite little sister tonight?" She asked me. I couldn't help but wonder if she wanted something from me.
"You probably shouldn't tell Emiko that you said that." I stated. "I can also tell that you want something. So what is it?"
"I was wondering you wanted to come to Central City with me. I have to go to on my first business trip and I am a little bit nervous." Thea explained. I wasn't sure why, but I kind of felt that going there would be the key to figuring out Deadshot's location. Plus, I also wanted to see what it was like in this world. There was no doubt that I would be going.
"Can I bring Courtney?" I asked.
"Sure." Thea remarked. "I was probably going to bring Linda with me as well."
Part of me wondered if I was going to run into anyone that I knew in Central City. I didn't know if Barry would be there. It was possible that I might also run into some of the other people that I knew from Central City.
"I'll be there." I promised. "Now if you excuse me, I have another call."
At that point, I picked up the phone. This time it was Iris and I had a feeling that she had some information.
"So I'm pretty sure that I know where Deadshot is." She stated. I had a feeling that it was going to be in or near Central City.
"Where is she?" I questioned.
"The last known location is Central City." She stated. Yup that seemed like a case of the universe telling me that I needed to go to Central City.
"That's quite a coincidence because Thea just asked me to go there." I explained. "And because you are my bodyguard, it means that I need to come with me. This is going to work out nicely."
After I hung up on her, Courtney and I went back to her meal.
"So where do you want me to go?" She asked.
"Central City." I explained. I was pretty sure that it would be easier for me to take her there than out of the country.
"I'll have to ask my parents to make sure that I can go." She stated. I hoped that they would let her go. "But are you sure that it's a good idea for us to just leave like this? What if something happens in the city while we're gone. Someone needs to protect this place."
"Well Mia is going to be here because I need someone to help manage my club." I told her. I knew that I didn't want to close it anymore because the employees were a little bit concerned. I couldn't just take more work away from them since they needed the money.
"Are you sure that you want me to come?" She inquired.
"Yes, I want to spend this time with you in a place that's not here." I stated as I held her hand. "Was there a reason that you didn't want to come?"
"This is a little embarrassing but I'm kind of afraid of airplanes." She stated.
"Well I'll be there with you. Nothing will go wrong." I promised her before I gave her a kiss. "Do you trust me?"
"Yes." She told me.
When we got back to the club, I noticed that Iris was watching a news report about the particle accelerator. You know I never really knew what the actual purpose of the particle accelerator was. I was pretty sure that it was not designed to give people superpowers. Maybe it was because I wasn't particularly interested in science. From what I saw from the report, not everyone was on board.
"So are they supposed to be setting this thing off while we're there?" Courtney asked. She was probably nervous about it.
"No, it's not supposed to be for another month." I told her. "We'll be fine. If you really don't want to come, you don't have to."
"No…I want to come." Courtney stammered. I hoped that she didn't feel like I was forcing her to come. I didn't want to do anything that would make her feel uncomfortable. I mean there was something that I wanted to do in the hotel, but if she didn't want to come, we could wait to do it. "I want to come."
"Okay. If you're sure." I told her. I felt kind of bad, but unless she explicitly told me that she didn't want to go, she would be coming with us.
The next day, we headed to the runway. Iris and Courtney were with me and Linda was with Thea. It was a little cold so I had to wear a sweater and also tights with my skirt.
"I didn't know that you would be coming." I remarked.
"I needed to make sure that she stays out of trouble while I'm gone and the best way to do that is to bring her with me." Thea quipped.
"I've never been on a private plane before." Linda commented.
"Well that's one of the perks of being the CEO." Thea stated. Technically, it was our family's plane, but it was mostly used for business anyway since we still didn't fly very much.
At that point, we all boarded the plane. I knew that I would probably have to hold onto Courtney for pretty much the whole trip. The good news was we were only going to Central City and not Moscow. It was still a three-hour flight but that was much more manageable.
"Is she okay?" Thea asked me.
"Yeah, she's just a little afraid of flying." I declared as we took off.
Another nice thing about flying in the US was that we didn't need to go through customs. I was pretty sure that Courtney didn't have a passport and I was also pretty sure that mine was expired. Normally, passports lasted for 10 years, but since I got mine when I was 11, it only lasted for five years. I would have to see about getting a new one soon.
Central City looked a lot like I remembered it, but that wasn't surprising considering that the worlds were mostly the same. There were usually only a few minor differences. I did know that any pretty much every world, the particle accelerator explosion happened, so I was fairly certain it would happen here. One thing that wasn't constant was pretty much even universe seemed to have a difference, so it was possible that Barry wouldn't be the Flash here. I just hoped that I would get the chance to meet him at least.
"This place looks really cool." I commented.
"I know. You should probably head to the hotel now. I have to go to my meeting." Thea commented. The hotel would be a good place to go over our bases. I could probably wait until later to do what I wanted to do with Courtney. This trip wasn't just for pleasure and we did need to find Zoe and if she had a target, protect them from her. She then whispered something into my ear. "You know I know why you brought Courtney with you. Let me know if you want any tips."
I blushed as she walked away.
"What was that about?" Courtney asked.
"Nothing." I lied. "We should go to the hotel."
When we got to the hotel, I found that we had a three room suite. Iris was going to be in her own room, while Linda and Thea and Courtney and I would be in the other rooms. She was definitely implying something when she gave us a room together. There were two beds in the room at least. Iris came into our room so we could discuss what we knew. I wasn't entirely sure what all we knew about Zoe. It would probably be best to start with some briefing.
"So I'm just going to give a recap so all of us on the same page." I stated. Courtney didn't have as much experience with Zoe as Iris and I did, so there was probably some stuff that she needed to be filled in on. "Who we're looking for is Zoe Lawton, also known as Deadshot. She was previously in Star City, hired by Warren Patel to kill the UNIDAC buyers. She was also hired by the Triad to kill Malcolm. In the past she killed several people including Iris's father."
"Why would a teenage girl become an assassin anyway?" Courtney asked before she seemed to remember something. "I mean besides Sara."
"Because her father was a former member of the military who suffered from PTSD. He shot her mother before turning the gun on himself. She was taken into foster care before escaping and operating under her father's name." I explained. "Even the Bratva never directly interacted with her."
I knew it must have been a hard life for her. I knew that the original Deadshot did have PTSD as well, but he just hadn't murdered his wife. Instead, she left him and took Zoe with him. I felt bad for him but I was still pretty sure that there were other ways to deal with life. He could have worked on trying to better himself instead of leaning into the trauma. I didn't know what other jobs he could get that used his particular set of skills. Barry said that the Earth 2 Lawton was a police officer…but he also had terrible aim. He probably could work as a police officer, but that might not be good for his PTSD. I didn't personally have it, so I didn't know how you were supposed to treat it.
"How is she even able to shoot? You shot her in the eye." Iris pointed out. That was one thing that I had been able to figure out through my research.
"The Triad got her a sort of cybernetic eye." I explained. It sounded pretty creepy. I hadn't really had a lot of luck with putting arrows in people's eyes. They really only caused the person to lose the eye instead of killing them. I knew that was a pretty big inconvenience still but that was still something they could work around. "I'm going to go meet with the Bratva in order to see if I can find some more information."
I had still used my contacts in the Bratva to get an in with the Central City branch. It was nice having an organization that I could talk to even though they were pretty evil.
I went to the party with Iris and quickly found out that there weren't very many girls there. Well there were, but there weren't really dressed up, if you know what I mean. There weren't very many women in the organization, that was for sure.
"Well I wasn't expecting to see you here." A blonde girl with a Russian accent stated. I wasn't entirely sure who she was supposed to be, but I was pretty sure that I was supposed to know her. "If it isn't my favorite American."
"I'm sorry. I lost a lot of memories from when I was away from home, so if I'm supposed to know you, I'm sorry, but I don't." I told her.
"You are very funny." She stated as I continued to look at her. "Oh, you are being serious. My name is Tara Knyazev. You saved my life from Anthony Ivo. I'm the reason you are in the Bratva."
"Well it's nice to meet you again." I told her. "This is my bodyguard, Iris West. We were hoping that you could help us find someone."
"Well before we do any of that we need to have drinks." Tara told me.
"I don't really drink." Iris commented. I shot her a look because I knew how important alcohol was to the Russians.
We all had our shots. It was pretty strong, but I knew that I wouldn't feel anything from it. Iris drank it quickly.
"So tell me who it is you are looking for." She remarked.
"Her name is Zoe Lawton. The organization has supplied her bullets before, though she was using her father's name to acquire them. She has red hair and is believed to have a cybernetic eye." I explained.
"Before I assist you, I would like to know the reason for this." Tara remarked.
"She killed my father and I want to see her put to justice." Iris stated. I couldn't help but wonder how far Iris's quest for revenge went. Did she want to put Zoe in prison or did she want to kill her? I seriously hoped that it was the former. I didn't want her vendetta to consume her. I also knew Joe wouldn't want her to kill the person who shot him. I still had my doubts that Joe was dead. I was just hoping that he wouldn't end up like Andy.
"I believe that there was a young woman arrested in the past few days here. She was being held at the juvenile detention center. That description matches. She would not tell anyone her name and she seems to not be listed in the DNA records. They probably don't even have any idea that they have captured the fabled Deadshot." Tara explained. I figured that meant that we would have to get her out of jail.
"What was she arrested for?" Iris declared.
"Gun possession." Tara responded. "I imagine she would be in solidarity confinement in order to get her to talk, but she seems like she won't."
"I need you to get me in there." I declared. I knew that getting her out of jail seemed like it would be kind of counterproductive, but I knew that Iris wanted to talk to her and probably send her to higher authorities.
"Olivia, I really don't think getting arrested in another state right before your mother's trial would be a good idea." Iris told me.
"I didn't say that I would be getting arrested." I declared. "I just need to get inside and know the best way to get her out."
"I think I fail to see your goal here." Tara remarked.
"Can you please just do it for me?" I requested.
"You are lucky that I still owe you favor." She replied. "But just to be clear, if you caught, you are not involved with us and we will not protect you. Understand?"
"I understand." I agreed.
From there, the two of us went back to the hotel. We would be breaking her out in the middle of the night when the fewest amount of people were there.
"So what are we going to be doing?" Courtney questioned.
"It's going to be a pretty covert mission. We need to be seen by as few people as possible, which is why we're going in the middle of the night." I explained. "So Courtney there was something that I wanted to ask you and you're completely free to say no to this. There's something that I have thinking about lately and I kind of really wanted to do it with you. Do you think that you're ready for it?"
"What exactly are you talking about?" She questioned. I supposed that I was being a little bit vague.
"Sex." I stated. She blushed when I said that and that made me blush. She then started to kiss me and things just happened from there. I don't really want to talk about it, but we were in bed together by the time we were done. I would say that it was pretty great.
We were then awoken by the alarm that I had set. I quickly started to get dressed and Courtney did the same.
"We need to get out of here as fast as possible." I stated.
"Are we going to talk about what happened?" She asked.
"This really isn't the time for it. We can do that on the way." I answered.
Soon the two of us were dressed in our costumes and on our way to the juvenile detention center. I had talked to Iris to see if she could disable the security cameras for a few minutes while we made our way inside.
"Now can we talk about it?" Courtney asked.
"Courtney, it was amazing. I know you want to have a nice discussion about it but we don't have a lot of time to do this." I explained.
I did want to say that I really enjoyed myself. It was a pretty fun time. I never knew how much I liked being touched in those parts of my body, but it might have been just because Courtney was the one who was touching them. I didn't know how it would feel if someone else did.
I could tell this wasn't going to be easy. It had been a while since I had gotten anyone of prison and I had never done in the middle of the night. Yes, I had broken Malcolm out, but he was being held illegally and he was just being guarded by local gang members. I had a feeling that the people here would probably be professionals, even though I wasn't sure if they would put their best people on third shift. It was probably harder finding guards who were willing to work that shift and I might be able to use that to my advantage.
I looked over the blueprints that Tara had sent me and found that there was a spot where we would be able to sneak in. I just needed to make sure that I had the signal from Iris that the security cameras were off.
Once I got the signal, the two of us went inside. The lights were also disabled, so we would only have the light from Courtney's staff to guide us. It would be pretty difficult. We made our way down the halls trying to make as little sound as possible before we made to the solitary confinement room. I still was having a few flashbacks to when I was in prison and they were not good times for me.
I had Courtney shoot open the door and I opened the door with my gloves hands so there wouldn't be any fingerprints.
"Who's there?" Zoe asked. I was pretty sure that she woken up by the blast, but if she wasn't, then it was probably the door opening that did it.
I put my hand in front of my mouth and motioned for her to come with us. I was pretty sure that she was confused by it, but she still did what we said. I was really breaking her out of jail. I saw her eye light up which probably gave her some expanded view. She was unarmed, so we wouldn't have to worry about her pulling a fast one on us. I was pretty sure that I didn't trust her, even though John ended up becoming friends with her father. Maybe it would be possible for her to become a hero. I had seen it happen to other people, so it was possible that it could happen to her as well.
We started to make our ways down the halls. I knew that we would need to get out of the vicinity before it would be safe to say anything. Fortunately, we were able to ride the staff to a nearby building. Once we got there, the first thing that Iris did was punch her in the face.
"Okay, what the fuck?" Zoe remarked as she spit out some blood. "I don't know who you are, but I'm guessing that I probably deserved that. So tell me who was the person close to you that I killed? Was it your boyfriend?"
"Her father actually." I answered.
"And you. You shot out of my eye and then you broke me out of jail. I don't understand you." Zoe stated.
"They didn't even know who you were. They weren't going to make you face the full extent of the law." I replied.
"And I suppose that you are?" Zoe challenged.
"We're going to drop you off with someone who more equipped with handling someone like you." Iris explained. "But before we do that. I just want to know why you killed him."
"It was nothing personal. It was just a job for me. I don't question it. I just take money." Zoe explained. I wasn't sure if that made it better, or actually worse.
"Well can you at least tell me who was the one hired you to shoot him?" Iris questioned
"I never got a name. They went completely anonymous. They just wired me the money and I did the job." Zoe explained. That was even more mysterious. I couldn't help but wonder what it meant. I was now more sure than ever that Joe was alive, but I couldn't tell Iris that because I didn't want to give her some false hope.
From there, we took Zoe to the rendezvous point that Iris had set up. After they took her away, I managed to get a glimpse of just who her contact was and I couldn't help but smile a little when I saw his smile.
"So who are you again?" Courtney asked him.
"I'm special agent Barry Allen and I need to thank you two for capturing her. My supervisor has been looking for people like her for her some time." He explained. I wondered if Task Force X was still going to exist here. "It was nice to see you again Iris."
With that he left and I decided to act a little like a teenage girl.
"I think that he likes you." I teased her.
"No he doesn't." She dismissed. "And I don't like him like that either. He's basically my brother. We just grew up together."
"That doesn't mean that something can't happen between you two." I responded. I couldn't help it. I was a big Barry/Iris shipper even before the two of them got together. Now that I think of it, it was probably a dick move to highjack their wedding. I should have told Felicity that we should let them have their moment before we got married.
We then went back to the hotel. I knew that we wouldn't have a lot of time to sleep because we would basically to go pretty soon. Well, we would have to go as soon as Thea decided that she was ready to go. I needed to ask her how her meeting went.
After a little while, we were back in Star City. It was probably the last time that I was going to leave until at least the summer. It was hard to believe that I was only going to be 18 in May.
"So what did you think about your first time in Central City?" Thea asked. "Would you say that it was unforgettable?"
"Yeah, I would say that." I declared. "You know I need to ask you something. Was part of the reason that you wanted to get out of town because of Mom's trial?"
"Why do you think that?" She questioned.
"It's okay to be nervous about it, but you have to know that Mom is going to be fine. She's going to make it out of this and they're not going to kill her." I remarked. "No one is going to kill her."
"How can you sound so sure?" She inquired.
"Because I won't let them." I responded with a smile. She laughed and hugged me before we dropped everyone off and went back home.
So this one is a little shorter since I didn't really follow the subject of the episode. One thing that happened was Courtney and Olivia. The other thing is Barry made an appearance. The biggest question is what happened with Joe. Please don't forget to review.