Chapter Text
As soon as the liquid touched his lips, Mick knew something was wrong. He spat out his maltasting beer and peered at the brown bottle in his hand. “Gideon! What happened to my beer?” He shouted.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Rory,” came the AI’s metallic reply.
“Is Fake Snart back?” Mick growled, slamming his bottle on the table.
“No, why do you ask?” Sara answered as she entered the galley. The faint tone of concern in her voice made Mick wonder if his question reminded him of the Snart that teamed up with the Legion of Doom.
“This beer isn’t beer.” He explained. From the relief on the captain’s face, he guessed that it had reminded her.
“What do you mean? Let me see.” Sara asked. She snatched the beer bottle, took a swig, set it down and made a face. “Gideon, I think this is nonalcoholic.” She stated, glancing up at the ship’s speakers. She peered at the label, but it was just a plain beigish paper.
“Of course. The Waverider is a dry ship after all.” Came Gideon’s surprisinngly snarky reply. Mick grunted, snatched the beer bottle, and marched off towards the trash compactor.
“No, it’s not.” Sara stated, narrowing her eyebrows.
“Alcohol had been banned for centuries in both the United States and the UK by the time it was built. As a result, the food fabricators have been programed to be incapable of producing alcoholic beverages.” Gideon explained.
“Can you pull up any new anachronisms?” The captain requested, She turned away from the table and headed towards the bridge. Seeing her enter the room, Amaya and Zari set down the cards to the game they were playing and walked over.
“Did something happen?” Amaya asked.
“Gideon can’t make beer.” Sara reported. “Something must have changed history and extended Prohibition.”
“Look, I know you guys like your drinks, but is that such a big deal? There’s probably larger anachronisms going on right now” Zari said.
“Prohibition didn’t stop people from drinking alcohol. It just made it more dangerous. In order to prevent people from using industrial alcohols to make alcoholic drinks, the Treasury Department ordered them to be poisoned. Even in just the original timeline, at least ten thousand people died.” Nate explained.
“Wow” Zari remarked.
“Gideon, have you found the anachronism?” Sara asked.
“Affirmative, Captain. In 1928 it appears someone new began selling Moonshine in Boston and quickly became the city’s largest distributor. Unfortunately, the moonshine became infected with an unknown type of fungus, leading to a city-wide psychosis. As a result, enforcement of and urban support for prohibition grew on a massive scale, even spreading to other nations.” Gideon reported.
“Well it sounds like we have our mission.” Sara announced. “Gideon, do you have any information on where we can locate this anachronistic distributor?”
“One witness claimed they spotted bottles being loaded out of a manor known as Hill House”
~
The team stepped out of the Waverider onto the fields surrounding a large manor. Among its many windows, Ray noticed two large ones, the positions of which reminded him of eyes. “Its Neo-Gothic, a common architectural style for the 1920s” Nate commented as they walked towards the door. Wally looked enthralled with his outfit. The porch light flashed as they neared the door. It opened, slowly, once they were around eight feet away. Amaya raised her eyebrows and entered first, expecting to see a servant or someone holding the door open. There was nobody.
“This technology must be a part of the anachronism. Even when I come from, automatic doors hadn’t been invented yet.” she observed. The other Legends followed her in.
“I think the modern electric door was developed sometime in the 1950s.” Nate agreed.
“You don’t know the exact year or inventor?” Zari asked. She wandered past the others, looking around the front hall and gazing up the spiral staircase.
“I’m a historian. Not a trivia wizard.” Nate pointed out. Zari didn’t pay attention. Hearing commotion from a room upstairs, she ran up the metal steps. With every half-dozen steps, she caught a new glimpse of the rest of the team running to the stairs after her.
“I will not have you do this to her.” Came a woman’s shout from somewhere down a hall.
“Nothing’s going to change. Do you want her ragging on like this forever?” Asked a man. Zari followed the voices down the hall and turned into the room they were coming from.
A young girl lay on a bed. Her dark hair was cut into a short bob and she wore a simple dress with a red gingham print. Her mouth hung open as she noisily gulped for air. A red haired woman sat at her side, holding the girl’s hand but the young one inched away from her. The girl’s eyes flickered around the room in fear.
Zari cautiously approached the bedside. The red haired woman turned around and stared intently into her eyes. She was wearing a green flapper dress and headband. “Did he bring you here?” She demanded. “Did he bring you to kill my daughter?”
“Think of it like waking her from a nightmare.” The man insisted. He wore a stiff, white mask over the lower portion of his face.
“Well, I won’t watch.” The woman insisted. She let go of her daughter’s hand, got up, and left the room. A moment later, the rest of the Legends entered the room.
“What’s wrong with this girl?” asked Sara.
“Rosemary has some sort of fungal infection in her lungs. She’s been suffocating for weeks.” The man explained. Ray noticed that he didn’t seem upset or sympathetic about that. He almost seemed proud. Zari inched past him, touched a hand to her totem, and created a controlled channel of air. With it, she pushed and pulled air into Rosemary’s lungs in steady intervals. The girl seemed to relax somewhat. Zari sat where the girl’s mother had been sitting, concentrating on helping the girl to breath.
“You must be the Legends. I was wondering when you’d show.” The man commented. He turned away from the group and opened a small tin bottle. He pressed it beneath the girl’s nostrils.
Rosemary’s newly-contented expression shifted. Her pupils shrunk and she locked eyes with Zari. The man pulled back the bottle just as her limbs stiffened and she began to shake. The movements were large and violent. Even the bed began to shake from the force of Rosemary’s thrashing. Zari hopped up, startled.
The man reached out and gripped her waist as though to steady her, but something didn’t feel right about the smirk-like glint in his eyes.
“Don’t touch me”, “Hey, we’re not having any of that”, “Dude, that’s not ok to do” and “Let her go” came the calls of Zari, Sara, Wally, and Amaya, speaking in unison. Zari stepped out of the man’s grip. She folded her arms, facing him as she backed towards the group. Nobody noticed the small grey pellet of powder that now sat on her dress.
“Who are you, and how do you know us?” asked Sara.
“Why, I’m Dr. Jonathan Crane.” the man said with dramatic flourish, “And they talk of all kinds of heroes at Arkham.”
~
“Gideon, who is Jonathan Crane? And why was he at Arkham?” Sara asked, watching the man through the Brig’s glass door. Crane’s post-discussion apprehension had been easy. He allowed them to restrain his arms and walked willingly to the Waverider, and through to the Brig.
The Captain stood with her arms folded. Nate, Wally, and Ray stood huddled together on one side. Amaya and Zari on the other. Zari picked uncomfortably at her dress. Mick was in the galley getting a beer. Crane removed his mask and tossed it to the ground.
“Jonathan Crane, also known as the Scarecrow, was incarcerated following his apprehension by the Batman for using his fear toxin to make people hallucinate their worst nightmares.” Gideon explained.
“What if the moonshine is contaminated with fear toxin ?” Ray realized.
"That makes sense" Amaya remarked. Zari nodded in agreement, her face turning towards a thoughtful expression.
“I’ll go see if that’s possible” Wally said before speeding off to the library.
“Gideon, has the status of the anachronism changed?” Sara asked.
“Yes, Captain. It has gone from a level Eight to a level One.” Gideon answered, projecting a hologram of their anachronism map down from the ceiling. Ray and Nate fist-bumped. Amaya smiled approvingly. Zari yawned, nodding again.
“What changes are still present in the timeline?” Nate asked, peering at the hologram and zooming in on the Boston area.
“It appears that Hill House develops a reputation as the ‘most haunted place in America’” Gideon stated. The hologram changed, showing several tabloids and a book marked as a 'New York Times Bestseller'.
“Right. Until we figure out our next move, I’m gonna put my regular clothes back on.” Zari said, adding "This dress sucks." She turned around and walked off towards her bedroom.
Sara tapped at the panel at the side of the Brig Door. Once it opened, she slipped inside and closed it again. “You were going to put your fear toxin into the moonshine, weren’t you?” She prompted, stepping past the white mask sitting on the floor. Crane grinned.
“Naturally” he stated.
“And that girl, were you trying to kill her?”
“I was trying to wake her from her nightmare. Whether that resulted in her death was not my concern.” The team exchanged horrified glances. Amaya shivered. Crane’s cruel yet disinterested expression reminded her of her own when she had tracked down and murdered each of the Belgian men who had come to her village.
“I thought you created nightmares.” Sara said, “Isn't that the point of your fear toxin?” The captain watched the man's expression, trying to figure out what his goal had been and exactly how much damage he had already caused.
“Fear mold now.” Crane corrected. “And yes, but waking Rosemary was the price I had to pay if I wanted Poppy to let me keep working my operation.” He explained. Crane paused. His face shifted towards an exaggeratedly thoughtful expression, complete with a finger stroking a beard he didn't have. “But you know… I think I made an error” the man said, drawing out his words and grinning as he spoke. “I think I may have let my mold infect the house.” He put on an expression of fake horror before bursting out in laughter.
~
Zari picked her pre-mission clothes up from her sofa and turned them inside out as she prepared to change. Once she had finished and was back in her normal clothes, she noticed a faint gray powder on the floor by her discarded dress. She knelt down and peered at it, wondering how it had gotten there. She brushed a finger through it, bringing it close to her face to get a better look.
Zari’s pupils constricted.