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He felt the air bubble travel up his esophagus and out his mouth. The belch that escaped reeked of alcohol and refused to dissipate because of the cloth mask covering his face. The mask didn’t stop him from trying to run from the smell. He usually swiped at the air in front of him. He stumbled backwards into one of the torch basins. The basin fell off it’s perch and shattered across the cold cement floor.
“Ha,” He said humorlessly at himself. “At least you’re not lit yet.” He slowly turned his words over in his head. His laugh became more genuine and he joked, “Unlike me. Lit is still a term kids use, right?”
His laughter echoed off the empty warehouse walls but it didn’t answer back. He was moderately grateful for that, but it reminded him of how alone he was.
One more word was all he had left to write in lighter fluid. It was a bigger job than he had initially thought. The letters had to be big enough to see them from standing on the ground.
He held the bottle of lighter fluid in between his legs and bent over to write the last word. His walk was staggered and keeping a straight line was proving to be too great a challenge. He should have just typed it, printed it out, and tape the paper to the floor. These overly dramatic stunts took too much time and planning.
His stomach rumbled and he could feel the whiskey sloshing around in it. Stopping on the third letter, he tried to remember when he last ate. He couldn’t remember. He bent back down to finish the word when suddenly, and with a vengeance, his bladder made him aware that it also needed attention.
Frustrated, he walked away to find an outside wall he could relieve himself on. “Shit,” he cursed. It was always hell trying to unzip his pants. Especially with gloves, limited sight through his mask, and a lighter fluid bottle in his hand. Staring at the nearly empty bottle in his right hand, he furrowed his brow.
“I don’t need you anymore. I’m done.”
He set it down next to the wall he was about to claim as his, outside the warehouse. He hoped no one would see him. Trying to explain his getup would be difficult. Of course, these docks and warehouses were famous for being abandoned, so it probably didn’t matter.
After he relieved himself he sighed, thankful his bladder stopped yelling at him. As he walked around the warehouse, a cold gust of wind hit his eyes and made them water. He blinked rapidly but realized he would have to get out of the wind if he wanted to see. Both drunk and nearly blind, he careened into several cars while walking the two blocks where he parked his car.
Once there he opened the trunk and changed out of his Prometheus outfit. He finally had his own goddamn costume, he thought with a smile. That’ll show ‘em.
His pants were tight and clingy. He usually had to pull them off by the ankles. Looking around for something to lean on, he didn’t find anything. He finally decided to sit down on the dirt and mud. Once he was completely out of the outfit, and only in his tighty-whiteys, he turned over and crawled back over to his trunk. He pulled himself up using the bumper and fumbled to put on his brown suit. The mud on his legs, hands, and underwear would at least match the suit.
He finally got himself behind the wheel and drove to Big Belly Burger below the speed limit. There was no way he was going to get caught from a stupid traffic stop. Now all he had to do was wait for the alarm to trip. He didn’t imagine it would take Felicity long to find the phone.
At the booth he was seated at, he put his burner phone on the table and got out his notebook. He had names of dead people to match up with living people (at least living as of now). He looked down at the letters and tried to make sense of them. Adam Hunt had a ‘t’ in his name, so a Tina could be his victim. But Hunt didn’t have any ‘i’s in his name. It was more difficult than he thought it was going to be. It didn’t help that the letters appeared to dance in front of him. Oh well, he thought. I’ll just have to plan my next victim later.
“What’s the status of Church’s cell phone?” Oliver said in his low, gruff voice through the comms.
Felicity focused her attention from the voice in her ear back to the screen in front of her , “Holding still. This is one well-traveled cell phone considering its owner was killed a week ago on the other side of town.”
“Prometheus is trying to bait me,” Oliver answered. He swiveled around to ensure there was no one coming in behind him.
“Yeah, that was the general idea I was trying to convey. And this is probably a trap,” Felicity responded. Why did have to be so stubborn? It was as if he were contractually obligated to be stubborn. And obstinate. And sexy. With sexy abs. Snd strong arms that could lift her-NOPE! Not going there. She forced herself to focus on the stupidly understaffed mission. “You should have let me call in the rest of the team.”
“No”
“Why”
Diggle joined Oliver at this side, as John was finished with his sweep of the area. Oliver had missed having John by his side. It surprised him how much he depended on John’s knowledge and skill. The kids required a lot of Oliver’s attention out in the field. He couldn’t baby-proof every mission though. Oliver threw her own answer back at her, “Because it is probably a trap.”
The Green Arrow and Spartan turned a corner in the warehouse and flames came to life in cement basins to the sides of the walkway. Oliver looked down at their feet and saw the trip wire they had just broken.
Oliver turned his head and looked at John. With a slight nod, Oliver knew they were on the same page. John said over the comm, “We got this, Overwatch.”
It was better that John reassured Felicity, because they both knew she wouldn’t believe Oliver. He had said he was fine when he hadn’t been, by her standards, a thousand times too many. They walked slowly forward and he could see in his peripheral vision John pointed his gun out, ready for anything they would encounter.
As they continued to walk slowly, a phone rang. Oliver and John walked faster toward the sound. Oliver almost wished it was a wrong number. It would lower the chances of this being a trap., he was knew the chances unfortunately of the caller being a random innocent person calling a dead crime lord’s cell phone were nearly zero.
The phone was positioned in the center of an open area. When they got to it, Oliver reached down and picked it up. The caller id showed an Unknown Caller. So the caller wasn’t programed as Prometheus into Church’s phone. That made sense since Prometheus was the one who killed Church. Though Oliver could hear Felicity’s voice say that around 325 percent of murder victims knew their murderer.
Oliver answered the call and put it on speaker. In his deepest Green Arrow voice, he asked, “Who is this?” He hoped that sounded menacing enough.
Only the sound of heavy breathing answered back until, a clearly recorded voice cried out, “Whaaaat’s uuuuuuuuup?”
John and Oliver jumped back in surprised and then looked at each other. Oliver’s heart rate went through the warehouse’s holey roof. The line went dead. John commented, “It’s a lot of trouble to go to just for a prank.”
Oliver nodded his head in agreement. A stupid prank at that. And old.
All the torches went out all at once and sparks flew up from the floor and blinded both the vigilantes. Once the firework show stopped, a squiggly and barely readable message appeared in fire at their feet.
SO IT BEG
“So it beg?” Felicity asked as the trio walked out of the elevator. “What does that mean.”
“I don’t know,” Oliver responded. They continued toward the costume area of the bunker. Oliver placed his bow down in it’s usual place. “Maybe he’s talking about a dog?” Felicity and John gave him dubious looks. “What? Dogs beg.” They continued to look at Oliver with blank faces. “Okay, no.”
“I guess I could go through classic literature and see if it’s part of quote. All I can think of right now is the musical Oliver. The whole 'Please, sir, can I have some more?' But that would mean Prometheus knows who you are. And that would be bad. Let's hope this guy is not a musical theatre nerd.”
Oliver scoffed.
“It’s better than your dog theory,” Felicity shot back. Oliver nodded and conceded the point. She went on, “We could go back to the story of Prometheus. Him fighting Zeus. Oliver obviously being Zeus in this scenario. Oh god, don’t let that go to your head. Please?”
A smile formed on Oliver’s face and he puffed out his chest. Felicity rolled her eyes then continued, “In that story, Zeus chains Prometheus to a rock or the Earth or something, and a crow, at least I think it’s a crow. It’s a bird of some sort. I’m pretty sure it’s a crow. Anyway, the bird eats Prometheus’ liver all day long. And then at night the liver regenerates, because Prometheus is immortal. Another thing to hope that isn’t true. Then the bird comes back, the cycle starts over, etc., etc., you get the gist.”
“Am I supposed to attack his liver?” Oliver asked.
“I don’t think he named himself to give you a clue to his Achilles’ heel. No criminal is that stupid. Right?”
Oliver and John raised their eyebrows in doubt. Oliver suggested, “Maybe he’s an alcoholic and his liver is bad?”
Felicity scrunched up her nose.
“So no liver attacking,” John said, barely withholding a smile.
“Why did Zeus and Prometheus fight anyway?” Oliver asked.
“It depends on what story you listen to. A recurring detail in the stories is Prometheus brought fire to the humans without Zeus’ knowledge or permission. Maybe we're looking for a firefighter.”
“A begging firefighter is killing all these people?” John asked.
“Probably not.”
“A begging arsonist?” Oliver suggested.
“All right,” Felicity said. “It’s probably not that literal. So it beg...So it begs the question? That’s a common phrase. But what question. I mean besides the question of what the hell his message is. Maybe it’s a red herring and it is keeping us distracted from finding and stopping him. Or it also could be some kind of code.”
“Like each letter is representative of a number?” John asked.
“Maybe. But then what do the number represent? Maybe a date or coordinates.” Felicity said, her voice became softer as she continued to talk, losing confidence in her theory.
“But you’ll be able to break it, right?” Oliver asked.
“Dammit, Oliver. I’m a hacker, not a code breaker.” Felicity then looked up and bit her lip. “I could feed it into a code breaking algorithm. I could hack into the CIA and see what they have.”
“Do it,” Oliver said.
“You know I don’t have a computer magic wand, right? I don’t just type in a sentence and whoooooosh.” The guys looked at her with uncertain glances. “What? That’s my hack sound effect. You don’t have sound effects for your weapons of choice?”
“It’s difficult to make a convincing bang sound,” John answered.
Felicity turned to Oliver as she waited for his answer. Oliver licked his lips in and then replied, “When would I ever need to make a thunk noise?”
“Right now,” Felicity answered hopefully.
“No,” Oliver shook his head
Felicity’s shoulder slumped in disappointment. She changed the subject, “Anyway I could use some help if I’m hacking the CIA and going through all of literature to find the phrase, ‘So it beg’. Maybe that help could come from the recruits?”
“No, I don’t want to get them into something too dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Since when is searching books for a phrase dangerous?” Felicity asked.
“Since they won’t stop there. They’ll insist on going out in the field after you find out what the phrase means. I’ll help you.”
“Don’t you have mayoring to do?” Spending the night with Oliver, alone, in the bunker, would not be a good idea for Felicity. She would be too tempted to screw the research and screw Oliver instead. She couldn’t help if her current boyfriend didn’t come close to what Oliver had in the way of endowments. At the point she’d settle for average. But she knew too well Oliver was way above average. Felicity really should have considered the size of Billy’s hand more before agreeing to date him. Subconsciously her gaze went down to Oliver’s hands and cursed internally when she saw what she knew she would find. Hands that were, of course, huge. His fingers long and dexterous. Felicity started a trip down memory lane, remembering all the things those fingers had done to her body.
“Not tonight,” Oliver interrupted her mental vacation to the past of better sex days, “And Thea and Quentin can handle things without me in the morning.” Oliver gave Felicity a smoldering look that almost melted the clothes right off of her. It was as if he knew where her mind had gone. A blush spread across her cheeks.
“You too have fun,” John said with a smile, reminding Oliver and Felicity he was still there. “I will see you later.”
John walked out of the bunker and Oliver winked at Felicity, stood closer to her, and asked, “Where do we begin?”