Arrow

by Marc Guggenheim

  The thug dropped like she’d been shot.

  Black Canary stepped over and moved to the gangplank, watchful for any other attackers. Reaching it, she jerked the lever to raise the plank into sailing position, satisfied when she heard the hydraulics kick in. A glance over the rail showed the end of the gangplank rising, already a few feet off the dock.

  A thug about midway down hung onto the railing as it rose, unsure of what to do even as the sections of it began to fold into themselves, including the one on which he stood. Black Canary watched until he dove off and fell along the ship’s hull to splash into the black water below.

  Vision back to normal, she turned to find the rest of the team.

  * * *

  Wild Dog thumbed the magazine release, reloading as the empty fell away. Still moving forward he began to fire at the group of thugs still standing. A handful lay on the ground, already out of commission from his first attack. His mind was a wire strung taut, all his rage at life and lawyers and court systems compressed into a line so fine it could have sliced flesh, if it were real. It was a focus he let ride him, turning him into an efficient machine.

  Two of the goons fired at him, machine guns chattering bullets in his direction. The wire thrummed, vibrating behind his eyes, as he turned toward them, not moving for cover, just lining them up in his sights and pulling his own trigger. The two of them seized and twirled, dropping to join their associates.

  Three more thugs ran, and on autopilot he popped off in their direction, not even aiming consciously, his eye, his mind, and his gun all one continuous circuit of efficiency. Two of them stumbled and fell, hitting the deck hard. The third turned the corner around a stack of pallets laden with boxes.

  Drop the empty clip.

  Pop a new one in.

  Thumb the slide release.

  Wild Dog began to follow after the runaway thug.

  * * *

  Mister Terrific spun, his feet leaving the deck and twisting in the air to avoid the length of chain whistling at the end of a massive thug’s hand. He flipped over it as it cut the air where his kidney had just been, and landed on his heels.

  He stayed low, crouched, as the hulking thug swung the chain in an arc around his head and brought it down in a figure eight. Curtis leapt back, hands coming out from under his jacket.

  Holding his T-Spheres.

  He released them and they zoomed forward, driving themselves into the thug’s stomach with enough force to lift him off the deck and drop him on his knees. It took them a moment to push their way back out of his bulk.

  “Stay down,” Curtis said. “I don’t want to hurt you more.”

  The thug nodded, staying on his knees but lifting his hands up in supplication, his head hanging low as he sucked air.

  That was easy.

  Mister Terrific pulled a zip tie out of his pocket and stepped forward, reaching for the man’s outstretched hands. He had it looped around one wrist when the thug turned his hand and grabbed Curtis’s sleeve. Before he could pull back the thug launched himself forward, wrapping his arms around Mister Terrific’s torso and lifting him off the ground. Doing so left him off balance, however. Mister Terrific drove his foot into the crease of the man’s hip and shoved, making him stumble backward. As they dropped down Curtis rolled, toppling the thug all the way to the ground.

  But he didn’t let go.

  Suddenly the vigilante found himself pinned beneath a thug who outweighed him by twice his bulk. He bucked, using his shoulders and hips to bridge up, but the bigger man shoved him down again, driving the air out his lungs. Before he could bridge once more to try and breathe, there were meaty hands around his throat.

  Mister Terrific dug his fingers under the edges of the thug’s hands, trying to pull them off his windpipe. The pressure on his larynx increased and a line of pain cut across his esophagus, as if the cartilage inside had creased, folding in on itself.

  His head pounded from a lack of oxygen.

  He reached up, tapping the thug on the side of his face.

  The criminal shrugged his hand away and snarled, “No tapping out in this wrestling match.”

  Mister Terrific pulled down on the fingers, loosening them just enough to gasp, “Wasn’t… tapping… out…”

  Before the thug could respond the T-Spheres slammed into his head. He jerked straight, going stiff, muscles locking up as his eyes rolled back in his head. Mister Terrific pushed him off, the big man falling sideways, unconscious. He stood, swallowing vigorously to try and clear the hard, painful lump there. He made the signal to call the T-Spheres back to his hand and put them away, massaging his neck with the fingers of his other hand.

  Catching a glimpse of Wild Dog’s jersey, he began following it across the maze of crates.

  * * *

  White Canary dropped down next to Spartan, landing with no noise. Her arrival made the circle of thugs around him stop suddenly. Her costume almost gleamed in the shifty darkness of the boat, making her look like a vengeful angel touching down. She gave him a grin and jerked her head in the direction of the gang of thugs that had pinned him into the corner. A smear of something dark ran along her jawline. He didn’t see any active bleeding, so he assumed it wasn’t blood.

  At least not hers.

  “Want an assist?” she asked, pulling out a pair of nunchaku. Somewhere off to the side there was another explosion and the sound of grinding metal, but if she noticed it, she gave no hint.

  His hands felt swollen, tight laced with a deep ache in the joints and tendons. He’d caught a few punches in the brawl and landed a few of his own, so they hurt even through the padded jacket of his uniform. His helmet had saved him from a particularly crushing blow from an opponent who had gotten behind him earlier.

  He wasn’t about to go down but…

  “Oh, yeah,” Spartan said, raising his fists. “Let’s mop these guys up.”

  As one they stepped forward, training and experience making them angle their backs to each other, dividing the bad guys between them like a knife through an air balloon.

  He caught the first one with a punch he slipped under the thug’s gun arm. His fist flared with some pain, but it was worth it to see the criminal drop. His follow-through was a wheel kick that landed his heavy boot into the back of another attacker, sending him stumbling to the ground. He grabbed the thug’s shoulder, bracing himself as he snap-kicked the gun from a third criminal, this one a woman with short-cropped red hair.

  As he slammed his elbow into the skull of the thug he held, the redhead landed on his back, throwing a wiry arm around his throat beneath his helmet, holding him in a choke. He pulled his shoulders up, driving the bottom edge of the helmet into the muscles of her arm. She howled in pain, loud in his ears, but didn’t let go. He spun on his heel, making her legs flail out. Stopping suddenly slammed her into his back, one leg out to his side.

  Latching onto that he jerked up, bracing his elbow against the knee, applying joint-separating pressure.

  That made her let go.

  As she slid off his back he hauled up on the leg he had captured, increasing her momentum. She bounced off the ground, limp and unconscious. Her dead weight dragged at him and he let go to keep from being pulled to the ground.

  He stumbled, stopping himself on one of the crates. Looking up, he caught sight of White Canary in action. She was a blur of movement, driving her way through the criminals who seemed to be standing still by comparison. The nunchaku whirled around her, too fast to see in the dim light, but their effect was immediate.

  Whirr and smack, and a thug hit the ground as if dropped from a height.

  Whirr and smack, and another one crumpled like a stack of cardboard boxes.

  Spin, whirr, and smack, and one more bent in half to be taken out by a spinning wheel kick that landed on the back of his neck. She wasn’t just Sara Lance anymore. Not the same person he had known for years, and fought beside in the past. She wasn’t simply a vigilante—not like him, not just a soldier in t
he fight for right.

  She had become poetry of violence, a song of brutal efficiency.

  She was the White Canary.

  Damn, he thought, she’s a superhero.

  The thought brought him no feeling of inadequacy, simply awe at what someone he considered an ally— and even a friend—had become. He knew the League of Assassins had trained her. He knew she’d been through the Lazarus Pit, brought back from death. He knew she’d spent the last bit traveling through time alongside the Legends.

  He was still impressed.

  As the last thug lay moaning at her feet she shook her hair out of her eyes and gave him another reckless grin.

  “Let’s go find the others and join their fun.”

  14

  The deck of the ship rushed up at him as he slid down the zip line, shooting arrows into the dock and herding the criminals who had yet to board the ship. Close enough, he released his grip and dropped. Right onto the back of a thug who had his rifle aimed at Black Canary.

  He hit solidly, all his weight and momentum driving through the bottom of his boots, transferring it into the thug like a wrecking ball. The machine gun chattered out, bullets flying up into the night sky. The man didn’t stand up as the Green Arrow rolled away and onto his feet.

  Spinning, he dismissed that one, then drew and notched an arrow. He located another target, a figure moving quickly across the deck, and fired. The arrow streaked across. He already had another arrow notched and ready when it struck down its target.

  He fired four more, clearing the area in front of him.

  Into the comms he said, “Green Arrow in position, converge.”

  Moving over to the rail, he glanced down. The gangplank below was a twist of scorched metal courtesy of the explosive arrow he’d fired at it before zip-lining down from his perch. The one on the other end had been drawn up by Black Canary and hung folded at the top of the ship’s hull.

  The ship was cut off. All the henchmen on the docks had been removed from the equation. The rest of his team were moving steadily toward him. Now all they had to do was clear the lower decks. As they gathered around him, he spoke into the comms.

  “Overwatch, any idea how many we could be dealing with down below?”

  “The ship hull is too dense to get any type of satellite imaging, except that a lot of heat is being generated in the cargo hold,” Felicity said. “Judging from the schematic, you can get to it just two decks down.”

  He nodded, even though Felicity couldn’t see it from the Bunker, then spoke to Team Arrow as he began moving toward the hatch.

  “Alex Faust is priority number one,” he growled. “We find him and take him down, no matter what. Teams of two.”

  They all nodded, falling into step after him as Felicity began giving directions over the comms. Abruptly the ship’s motors revved, the deck vibrating under their feet.

  “Is that the engine?” Mister Terrific asked.

  They stopped moving, boots and shins absorbing the oscillation caused by the boat’s motor. The vessel lurched sideways, and slowly began chugging away from the dock.

  “I think someone is on to us,” White Canary said.

  “What do you think their first clue was?” Wild Dog replied sarcastically.

  Green Arrow spoke, voice stern. “Doesn’t matter. Faust is the objective. If he’s expecting us it means he’ll probably be easier to find.” He began moving toward the below-decks hatch, Team Arrow on his heels.

  * * *

  “You should be coming up on the cargo bay hatch.”

  “We see it, Overwatch,” Green Arrow answered. The hatch was shut, a lever lock in place. He stopped, raising his hand to signal the rest of the team to stop as well. There was no window in the door, just a welded metal slab. They’d made their way to this point unhindered, not encountering any resistance.

  The trap was obvious.

  For the briefest moment he considered turning around, just leaving. Ordering the team to evacuate, walking away to confront his target another time when it was on his terms, not Faust’s.

  To be smarter.

  Or luckier.

  To avoid another Lian Yu.

  William.

  Adrian Chase had put Faust on his trail. Chase knew his identity, knew about William. If he had told Faust… the ramifications could be fatal to his son, and to those he cared for most.

  He would protect William, at whatever cost.

  “Be ready for anything.” His murmur carried to everyone through the comms. He put his hand on the lever and opened the door.

  * * *

  “Well, it certainly took you long enough.”

  The voice came from a dark so thick it felt like pressure against their skins. A dim light entered through the open hatch, but it could only diffuse, not disperse, the inky blackness. It was too weak, not enough. The team fanned out behind him, covering his back. He pulled an arrow from his quiver, notching it into the bow in his hand.

  “Faust!” he bellowed, voice amplified by the distorter. “I know you’re here. Show yourself!”

  “Oh, I’ll show myself.” The voice thrummed off the metal walls, warping into a psychotic melody. “After all, we are nothing more than what we choose to reveal.”

  “He’s quoting Sylvia Plath?” Wild Dog muttered.

  “You know Sylvia Plath?” Black Canary asked.

  “I’ve got the soul of a poet.”

  Before Green Arrow could tell them to be focused there was a buzz and a click, and light flooded the room they were in. Klieg lights had been strung along the top of the cargo hold and now they blazed down like the eyes of some sun god. He squinted up into their glare, then turned his eyes down before his vision could go spotty. Even with the top half of the cargo hold lost to shadow, the room loomed around them. Its walls rose twenty feet up, braced with steel beams. They had been scrubbed and scraped by whatever things had been transported in this hold, and now they were more rust than paint. A steel catwalk surrounded the room midway up the wall, connecting additional hatches like the one through which they’d entered. A dozen or more ropes hung to the floor, scattered through the cargo hold.

  On the other side of the vast space stood a man.

  Middling height and awkwardly thin, he seemed to be loosely knitted together in the mud-colored suit that hung off him. Frizzy hair spilled over one side of his clean-shaven face. Even this far away his smile could be seen. He leaned casually against a rough wooden table, and there was a suitcase-sized mechanical device on it. Beside him stood a stack of orange plastic bricks piled to the same height as the table. Behind him was a wall of similar bricks that stood ten foot high and stretched nearly across the width of the hold.

  “As you can see,” Alex Faust said, indicating the plastic bricks, “it would be best if you hooligans refrain from shooting any bullets, or even arrows, in this direction.”

  “Semtex,” Spartan said. “It’s stable. Bullets and arrows don’t set it off.”

  “You are correct about Semtex,” the man replied, “but do you think I’d be here if I used plain old, boring Semtex? Certainly not without doing a little doctoring of my own.” He giggled and the sound rippled along the steel walls. “Does that seem like the kind of person Prometheus would leave in charge?”

  Exchanging glances, Spartan and Wild Dog lowered their guns.

  As they looked to him for guidance, Oliver’s hands itched to draw his bow and put an arrow feathers-deep in Faust. But he couldn’t stop picturing Chase, pulling the trigger of the gun he held to his own temple, and then hearing the first of a chain of explosions that might mean everyone he cared about was dead.

  Everyone but the son he held in his arms.

  He hesitated.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Faust cocked his head, looking at him. “And you’re right. I might have a dead man switch. It wouldn’t be out of character.” He sighed, swinging his arms around dramatically. “But you don’t really know my character, now do you?”

&n
bsp; “We know the character of the man who put you up to this.”

  “Does that make you more or less certain of how I’ll act?”

  “Screw this,” Wild Dog growled. “What’s to stop us from just going over there and delivering a beat down to this psycho?”

  Faust pointed toward the darkness above the lights. “They are.” As one the hanging ropes began shaking as men in black tactical gear rappeled to the floor, filling the space between them and Faust. Green Arrow did a quick head count.

  They were outnumbered three to one.

  “Have fun!” Faust called. “I’d stay and watch, but I really need to go.” He patted the device on the table. “Don’t get so caught up in dancing that you forget about Betsy here.” He flipped a switch, causing a red light to begin blinking. Then he turned and slipped around the end of the wall of doctored Semtex.

  Oliver slung the bow over his back, speaking over the comms so everyone heard him. “They don’t have guns, so Faust must be telling the truth. No shooting, not even away from the explosives. If there was just one ricochet…” He didn’t need to finish the thought.

  Spartan and Wild Dog looked at each other.

  “Ah, hell,” Spartan said, holstering his pistol.

  * * *

  Dinah stepped forward, twisting outside the man’s attempt to grab her. As she passed him, she fired a punch to his temple. He stumbled. She drove the end of her bõ staff into the back of his knee and leaned, her body weight making the joint crumple and fold. He went down to all fours with a cry of pain that she silenced with a quick strike to his neck.

  Something heavy struck her back, just to the left of her spine and above her kidney. It knocked her forward and left her gasping for air as her diaphragm spasmed. She hopped to keep from tripping on the henchman she’d just knocked out, spinning around to see who had struck her.