These Prison Walls (An Arrow: Season 7 Fanfiction)

Chapter 8: Discoveries

Star City. 2040. 

'We're close. Should be just up here,' William said as the five of us walked into the room.

'All these years, and you're still that boy who hates not knowing stuff,' Zoe remarked, coming up to walk beside William, as Roy, Dinah and I took the rear. 

'Are you still that girl who loves getting into trouble?' he shot back. 

'You know it. It's good seeing you,' she remarked as the group rounded a corner. 'I tried to keep in touch after everything.' 

'Yeah, I know. Guess it was just easier for me to move on than to hold on, you know?' 

'Wish I could do the same sometimes.' The two rounded a corner, leaving the three of us to converse as we trailed behind them. 

'I cannot believe that they're full-grown adults,' Roy remarked to Dinah. 

'Which means we're old,' Dinah said. 'I never thought I'd see you again.' I laughed. 

'If you guys are old, I'm Stone Age,' I chimed in. 'With all that's been going on lately, I didn't think I'd last this long.' 

'This is the last place I ever thought I'd come back to,' Roy said. 'I wanted William to leave me on Lian Yu.' The three of us stopped at the bend. 

'How did he convince you?' Dinah asked, turning to him. 

'I found a message inside of Oliver's bow, the Mark of Four.' 

'That's impossible,' Dinah said, taking a sharp breath inward of surprise. 'Who could have put it there?' I frowned. 

'Are you sure, Roy?' 

'Yeah, I'm sure. I don't know, but I think it's best if we keep this between us three.' 

'None of us has seen William for years,' Dinah replied. 'You sure we can trust him?' 

'I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell would not like to lie to my nephew,' I said, pulling a small flask from my pocket and pouring the contents into my mouth.

'He's Oliver's son, and Evelyn's nephew,' Roy replied. 

'That is exactly what worries me.' I scoffed, walking past the two of them. 

'Please, Dinah, William is nothing like his father. I've known him longer than you have; been around him the same amount of time too. He's been lied to on a lot of things, and his father was the most guilty of it. And I took the last part of that statement as an insult, by the way.' Just then Zoe came around the corner. 

'Hey,' she said, making us turn towards her. 'According to the map, it's only a few hundred more feet this way.' She walked off down the hall, and the three of us looked at each other, and I walked away first, leaving the other two to catch up. 

We walked into another room with a desk, a computer, and some other benches around the area. It was a lot tidier than the last room they'd been in, the only exception being the plant on the desk that looked so old, that it seemed almost ancient. 

'This has to be where Felicity was hiding out,' I said as the five of us stepped into the room. 

'Yeah,' Dinah replied, 'but doing what?' 

'Uh, guys,' Zoe said with a hint of apprehension. We all turned to see the door shut behind us, trapping us in the room. 

'You have triggered security protocols,' a female voice over the PA in the room said. 'If you do not provide access credentials in 30 minutes,' and at this, the screen came to life and showed a clock for 30 minutes, 'you will be terminated.' Laser dots appeared on each of our chests as Dinah's and Zoe's weapons were ripped from their hands and stuck to the wall of the room. 

'All our weapons were targeted,' Dinah said as my daggers were ripped from my hands, as well as Zoe's gun. 

'Please say you can hack this,' Zoe exclaimed. 

'Hack Felicity? Yeah, right!' William sat down at the desk and began to type. 

'Keystroke denied,' the female said over the PA again. 

'She wouldn't lead us here without access,' William said. 

'What are those?' Zoe asked. We stopped to look at the wall, seeing imaginary tennis balls bouncing around on the wall ahead of us, and then we looked over at the arrow rack. 

'No freakin' way,' I said. 'Get the bow.' The PA system started counting down. 

'Remember how my dad used to train?' William asked. Roy pulled an arrow and fired. It landed on the first ball. Then he fired another. Hit again. Then the third, with one second to go. It hit successfully, and the system righted itself. 

'Access granted,' the PA system said. 

'You'd think Felicity would have made that a lot easier,' Roy remarked. He put the bow back as a series of holographic screens came down from the ceiling. 

'She's obviously trying to protect something,' Dinah replied. 

'I'll bring up the last files she accessed,' William said, typing on another keyboard at another desk as the holographic screens came to life. 

'These are structural maps of all the buildings throughout Star City,' Dinah replied. 

'City Hall, Central Library, old Rockets arena...' Zoe said, listing them off as she went through the list, ' - all areas outside the Glades.' 

'Yeah, along with schematics to build explosives and the money to fund it,' Roy remarked. Just then there was a beep and the table in front of us came alight with a similar map from the Rubik's cube, only this one started coming to life with explosions around the whole map, the buildings falling like Legos. 

'This is a plan to level all of Star City,' I said, as the imaginary buildings kept falling, coming to rest all-around one spot: the Glades. 

'Doesn't make any sense. She wouldn't do this.' 

'Like we said,' Dinah replied, 'she changed.' William turned to her. 

'Okay, let's just say you're right and Felicity somehow became Overwatch of Evil. Why lead us here?' 

'Maybe she had a change of heart,' Roy offered, 'tried to back out last second.' 

'It'd explain why someone would want her dead, right?' William hissed. 

'Not to state the obvious,' Zoe chimed in, 'but if we start poking around, it's gonna make us targets, too.' 

'None of us have any idea what Felicity's intentions were,' I said, 'or why she reached out to you. Following this lead means taking a risk.' 

'I don't know what happened to Felicity these past few years,' William replied, 'but what I do know is there was a time when all of us loved her. Isn't finding out what really happened worth the risk?' Dinah looked down, then looked back up at William and spoke again. 

'Fine. We'll start by tracking down whoever she contacted last.' William typed on the keyboard again. 

'Okay,' he said. 'Last call-out was to someone named... Blackstar.'  

'That doesn't sound ominous at all,' Zoe said. 'I swear to God,' she added, looking over at William, 'if this gets me killed, I'm gonna murder you.' 

'Noted,' William replied.