Arrow

by Marc Guggenheim

  They moved to the door at the back of the restaurant.

  “I used to come here with Paul,” Mister Terrific said. “This should take us to the kitchen, then it’s straight through to the dining area. It’s a simple layout.”

  “I can’t believe you used to take your boyfriend to a drug distribution front.”

  “It’s not like they advertise it on the menu.”

  “Still—” Wild Dog shook his head. “—seems like something a crime fighter should’ve picked up on.”

  “Their ‘Barbecue and Belgian Combo’ is delicious.”

  “What?”

  “Barbecue chicken with Belgian waffles and a spicy mustard maple syrup.”

  “No wonder that dumpster smells so bad.” Wild Dog put his hand on the doorknob. “Ready?”

  Mister Terrific nodded.

  Before either of them could move, the door swung wide, making both crime fighters jump back. Wild Dog had his gun out before the steel door crashed into the brick wall beside it.

  In the doorway, partially silhouetted by the light from within, stood a tall, raw-boned, ropey man in a very expensive suit. An unlit cigarette dangled from his mouth, hung there on his bottom lip. He held a lighter, the flame flickering between his cupped palms.

  The cigarette fell from his mouth, tumbled down his chest, and dropped to the ground.

  “Who the hell are you guys?” he said.

  * * *

  “Team SBC, you’re up,” Felicity said in their ears. “We’re going dark side of the moon in five, four, three—”

  Spartan looked over at Black Canary. She nodded her readiness. They stood in a dark storage room that smelled of cleaning supplies and the distinctive shiny-rubber odor of sporting equipment.

  * * *

  They’d entered Lifters Gym together, using the fake identities of Mr. and Miss Conroy, longtime members of the Blüdhaven location, but new to Star City.

  “Yes, we just moved for her new job at Palmertech, isn’t that great. We love the city so far, much better than the crime-ridden war zone Blüdhaven is turning into.”

  None of the staff looked twice at the large duffel bags they carried, even though they arrived in workout gear. After a few minutes doing a circuit around to familiarize themselves with the layout of the gym, they both agreed that their target was the third-floor locker room. A crudely written sign hung on the door.

  CLOSED FOR REMODELING

  Despite that, there seemed to be a steady stream of bodybuilders going in and out. So they located the nearest storage room and suited up in less than five minutes. Both wore night-vision goggles.

  * * *

  “—two, one.” The lights in the gym went out, throwing the whole place into darkness. Felicity was thorough, so not even the emergency lights came on. They were out the door and moving as the first panicky screams began to roll through the building.

  Moving as a unit they closed on the locker room and stepped inside. The air was thick, indicating that the air conditioning was off along with the lights. The noise was loud and chaotic—too many voices to identify, most of them panicked, talking over one another and echoing off the tile and metal.

  Flashes appeared as the people inside began lighting up their phones and using them as flashlights. Four bodybuilders stood around a counter laden with boxes of white pill bottles and crates with small glass vials next to stacks of plastic-wrapped syringes.

  Black Canary pulled the collapsed steel baton from its clip on her belt, extending it with a snap of her wrist.

  “Left,” she said, peeling off. Spartan went right and they moved in on the four men. She closed the distance quickly, shaking the baton to loosen up her arm. The desire to unleash her canary cry was heavy on her, but in the enclosed space and with the amplification of the tile, she wouldn’t have the focus she would need. The echoes would make her scream ineffective as a precision weapon.

  So she was ready to get her hands dirty.

  Dinah kept the baton back and low, difficult to see and poised for use. The man in front of her was swollen, skin thin from steroid infusions. His arms boasted a map of veins, and he held his phone in one hand, the light on it shaking wildly as he came at her.

  One quick swing of the baton and the phone went sailing. It crashed into the row of metal lockers to the left. The light went out as the device shattered. The bodybuilder’s scream of rage echoed around her as he swung at her head. As muscular as he was, he was clumsy. She ducked, stepping nimbly to the side and sliding under his arm.

  Lashing up with the baton, she cracked him along the inside of the elbow. The impact made the steel baton sing a bit, the sign of a good solid blow, and he howled. She stepped up on the low wooden bench in front of the lockers, using it to lift her above the muscle-bound brute, then spun, whipping her foot around in a kick with all of her body weight behind it. It connected with his jaw, snapping his head to the side.

  The howling stopped.

  He crumpled to the ground in a mound of moaning beefcake.

  Black Canary quickly scanned the room. Spartan was holding his own against two more bruisers.

  Where’s the other one? she thought. Then she spotted him ducking around a corner, headed deeper into the locker room. She jumped down and sprinted after him.

  * * *

  “Team—”

  “We are not Team White Arrow, or Team Green Canary.” The archer cut her off. He shifted his position in the rafters of the warehouse.

  “God, please not Green Canary,” Sara groaned. “We have enough canaries out and about tonight.”

  “Fine, fine,” Felicity said. “Team Sourpuss, it’s all you now.”

  White Canary smiled. “She got you.”

  Green Arrow said nothing.

  “The doors are electronic,” Felicity said. “When I shut them you have to work fast, because those fumes will build up in less than four minutes.” The air already had the stringent, eye-glistening sting of chemical fumes, smelling like battery acid and candy.

  “We’ll be done before then.”

  “I’m going to move into position.” White Canary didn’t wait for a response before dropping down onto a rack of pallets. Green Arrow watched her until she disappeared, then turned his attention to the scene below.

  In the center of the warehouse was a large-scale drug lab in full production. Three men in dirty yellow coveralls moved around large flat pots filled with steaming chemicals. Propane tanks hooked to the burners underneath provided fuel that kept the pots bubbling. At the end were rows and rows of trays holding large crystallized chunks. To the left sat a group of fifty-gallon drums of different colors.

  Red for flammable.

  Blue for toxins.

  Yellow for oxidizers.

  White for corrosives.

  The whole enchilada of bad news. Chemicals that should never be stored in the same facility, much less next to one another. He had found that people cooking up drugs usually weren’t concerned about safety infractions, though.

  Two guards with shotguns leaned on the colorful barrels, surrounded by empty cans of energy drinks. Both were smoking from a shared vape, sending out large white clouds with each hit. They were cut from street-thug stock. Big by genetics and diet, but not exercise or training. The use of the shotguns indicated they probably weren’t marksmen, either.

  It didn’t make them not dangerous.

  Another one sat in a chair by the loading dock. He leaned back, either napping or blessed-out on the product being manufactured here. He wasn’t going to be a concern.

  The other men’s coveralls protected them head to toe from the hazardous chemicals they mixed. No weapons showed and if they wore them under their overalls then they wouldn’t be able to reach them in time anyway.

  They’d assumed this lab was safe from trouble because it was on the far edge of Star City, on the fringe where city began to disintegrate into country, and coverage by law enforcement began to thin dramatically. The warehouse was an old tire fac
tory that had closed its doors almost a decade ago, when the business secured a large account overseas and moved closer to the docks. Along the walls and all around the building outside were stacks of tires of various sizes. Some had toppled, spilling out onto the open floor, and a few had rolled clear.

  The electric hum of the door motors made a tiny vibration in the rafters.

  It was time to go to work.

  4

  The raw-boned man crashed into a stainless-steel prep table, knocking aside piles of vegetables and rocking it up onto two legs before he tumbled off the other side. He pulled himself up, using the table for support. Mister Terrific shoved it.

  The table screeched across the tile floor of the kitchen, slamming into the man, pinning him against the wall. He flailed out, trying to get ahold of the vigilante. Instead Mister Terrific pulled out his T-Spheres and let them fly. They zipped up, and then down, lining up next to the trapped criminal’s neck. They arced out a big zap of electricity, tasing the raw-boned man into a loose-limbed pile of humanity slumped over the table.

  The spheres flew back around, circling Mister Terrific as he stepped back and looked about. Wild Dog was pushing through the swinging door that led into the dining area, gun held out in front of him. Suddenly he dove back into the kitchen as a spray of bullets punched through the thin metal door. Scrambling on the tile, he put his back to the wall.

  Mister Terrific crouched and moved over beside him.

  “I think they know we’re here.”

  “Yeah, Hoss, I’d say so,” Wild Dog muttered. Into the comms he said, “Hey, Overwatch, think we could get some kind of distraction here, so we can get through this doorway?”

  “Let me see—” Felicity said. “Ah-ha! One distraction coming up. Sorry guys.”

  “Sorry?” Mister Terrific said.

  A loud rattle sounded overhead, the noise of pipes rumbling against each other. Wild Dog groaned behind his mask.

  “Oh, no.”

  The sprinklers burst forth with a shower of water and foam.

  On the other side of the door, men started yelling.

  “You wanted a distraction,” Mister Terrific said.

  “Shut up.”

  Wild Dog rolled and crashed through the door, gun out. In the center of the dining area stood three men around a group of square tables they had pushed together. One man stood sputtering, wiping water and foam off his face, his submachine gun hanging loosely from the strap on his shoulder. Noticing their arrival, he jerked his head up and scrambled for his weapon.

  Wild Dog dropped him with a double-tap.

  The other two men didn’t look up as the two costumed vigilantes came through the door. They were too busy trying to keep the open buckets of illegal pills from being ruined in the falling deluge of water and fire retardant foam.

  “Hands up!” Wild Dog moved closer to them.

  They jerked to a stop and both raised their hands, straightening and looking wet and miserable.

  “Okay, we’re in, you can knock it off with the distraction,” Wild Dog growled over the comms. Immediately the sprinklers shut off with another rattle-pipe gurgle.

  Mister Terrific moved around the two men. He zip tied the first one’s hands behind his back and pushed him to the floor. The man went down without a struggle, sitting on the floor with his head down.

  He stepped to the second man and grabbed his wrist to pull it down. Before he could, the man whirled around, flicking his hand out. A knife with a six-inch blade dropped down his sleeve and into his hand. He jabbed upward, trying to hook his captor under the ribs.

  Mister Terrific twisted away, the blade just skimming the front of his body. Using the wrist he still held for leverage, he drove his other hand into the man’s shoulder and rolled forward. The shift of his weight on the man’s back drove his assailant to the ground face-first.

  There was a wet celery sound of the criminal’s shoulder separating followed by a loose animal noise of pain.

  Mister Terrific put the zip ties on him, and stood.

  Wild Dog nodded. “That was quick, man. I didn’t even have time to do anything.”

  Mister Terrific’s chest swelled with pride at the acknowledgment. “He should’ve just let me cuff him.”

  Wild Dog spoke into the comms. “All wrapped up.”

  “Good job, Team Wild Terrific,” Felicity said in their ears. “SCPD is on its way, three minutes out. Now find me something to connect Cross to this, and hit the bricks.”

  “On it.”

  “We are not Team Wild Terrific,” Wild Dog said.

  “You know you like it.”

  “No.”

  “Not even a little?”

  “No.”

  Mister Terrific began looking for evidence, smiling to himself.

  “Team Wild Terrific for the win.”

  * * *

  Each punch sent a shock of pain that ran through the muscles of his forearm, liquid fire coursing from wrist to elbow.

  He had dropped one of the bodybuilders, slamming the guy’s face into the sink so hard that the basin came loose from the wall and hung to one side. Water leaked slowly onto the floor in a widening puddle, coming from pipes pulled loose but not completely separated. The puddle tinged pink around the bodybuilder lying under it, bleeding from the nose and mouth.

  The other guy was a problem.

  He was taller and thicker than Spartan, probably had forty pounds of extra muscle, and was younger by at least a decade. Worse, he wasn’t just a massive pile of muscles—he knew how to fight. Spartan traded blows with him for what felt like an hour. He got some hits in, but so did the thug. If it hadn’t been for his helmet and the reinforced uniform he wore, Spartan would have already been beaten down.

  The thug stood in a classic boxer’s stance, fists raised and elbows in. He was breathing hard, but to keep oxygenated, not sucking air because he was struggling. Spartan was going to have to get ruthless.

  With dead fingers he clawed his gun out of its holster. His arm felt like wood with hot embers lodged deep in the muscle. When he closed his fingers around the grip it caused the hand to begin trembling. He held the gun to his side to steady it.

  The bodybuilder’s mouth dropped open.

  “You’re gonna shoot me now, freak?”

  “Yeah,” Spartan said. “You’re too big a target to miss.” He raised the gun and pulled the trigger twice. Two darts took the bodybuilder in the stomach, knocking him down to land on his backside. He shook his head slowly as the tranquilizers began coursing through his system.

  “I thog we wuz fightttiin…” The words slurred out of his mouth as he slumped over, unconscious from the double dose of tranquilizer.

  Spartan had only meant to pull the trigger once.

  The second time had been a spasm.

  He almost lost his grip on the pistol as he put it back in the holster.

  It’s worse, he thought.

  The sound of a metallic clatter came around the corner from the back of the locker room. He began moving toward it.

  * * *

  The first one to notice the lowering steel doors was the guard sitting in the chair, outside on the dock. Even oiled they made a low drumming sound like an old-time thunder maker, the thinner-gauge sheet steel flexing as it vibrated on the way down. Jumping up, he craned his neck, foggily trying to locate the source.

  He didn’t see White Canary until she was on him. She swept low, her outstretched leg taking him at the knees. He dropped forward and she rose, her knee coming up as she did, catching him just under the chin and snapping his head back.

  Spinning, she saw that the door was about waist high. She dropped, tucked, and rolled under it.

  Green Arrow shot down on a grapple line, crashing into one of the two guards standing at the barrels of chemicals. He hit boots-first in the man’s chest, driving him back over the fifty-gallon drum. The henchman’s body acted as a cushion that prevented the archer from slamming into the hard steel of the barrel.


  Coming to his feet he kicked out, sending the man’s rifle spinning off across the warehouse floor in a clattering bounce of metal on concrete. Its user was already unconscious. An instant later he heard the distinctive clack-CLACK of a shotgun being racked. That sent him into a rolling dive behind a stack of tires, just ahead of the echoing boom.

  Pressed against the tires, he felt them rock as the blast struck the spot where he had been only a moment before. The top tire of the stack slid off, falling and hitting his shoulder in a thud of hurt before bouncing away. He shook his hand, trying to work out the pain so he could draw an arrow.

  The shotgun racked once more, and the henchman fired. The stack rocked again. One of the pellets made it through a gap in the tires, sending a line of sharp pain lancing through the bicep of his good arm. Blood welled and ran freely down his limb like a tiny river.

  The shotgun racked a third time.

  Green Arrow dove, rolling out and away from the tires. He grabbed an arrow from the quiver, pulled, and fired. The arrow sailed past, narrowly missing the man with the shotgun, but it made him spin to avoid it, jerking the gun upward.

  The archer pushed off, closing the distance in an instant. Using his carbon-fiber bow like a club, he knocked the shotgun from the henchman’s hands. It dropped straight to the ground underfoot. The henchman reached for it, but Green Arrow took him off his feet with a vicious uppercut that put him down for the count.

  Kicking the shotgun clear, he turned to find that White Canary had already zip tied the three drug cooks, their hands behind their backs. He walked over, blood still dripping from his arm.

  “They didn’t put up a fight?” he asked.

  “They were too busy watching you take out the shotgun brothers. I just walked up and they went docile as little lambs.” She glanced down at his wound. “Serious?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll go bind this.” He gestured toward his unconscious opponents. “Zip up those two over there while I do.”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  Green Arrow nodded, moving toward the door.

  “Open us back up,” he said into the comms.