Second Chances: Arrow - Rough Draft

Chapter 19

Laurel was very annoyed when she entered the bunker due to Alena's constant texting her.

"Alena, what is so urgent I had to call my father in the middle of his shift and see if he could watch my daughter so that I could finally see what was so urgent." Laurel said to Alena, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

"Sorry, but I thought you might be interested to know that I might have found a solution for the one problem I heard you and Oliver talking about with the team." Alena said.

"What kind of solution?" Laurel asked.

"I think I might've found an inventor we can use, since I'm just a hacker, I can program and hack, but I can't build things. Not like this. But I think I found someone who can." Alena said as she pulled up a livestream.

"Kira Runk." Laurel said.

"Yeah, it looks like she's an up and coming young scientist fresh out of Star City University." Alena said as she pulled up Kira's file.

"Graduated from Star City University with a masters in engineering and a genius level intellect, among other things." Laurel said, since from what she was seeing, this girl was basically a younger, female Cisco.

"Not to mention the fact that she's resourceful. Check out her livestream. She literally turns trash into treasure." Alena said as she showed Laurel some of the videos on Kira's livestream page.

"You do remember that I don't understand science right?" Laurel asked.

"Right, but my point is, she's built some pretty impressive things out of stuff that people throw away. Imagine what she could do if she had access to our resources." Alena said.

"That much we agree on, but I'd still need to run this by Oliver and we'd need to run a background check on her, but considering how resourceful she is, I'd say she has a shot at it and in the meantime, I might have a way to test her skills if Oliver agrees. Which reminds me, while I'm annoyed that you called me here away from my daughter, I do have a job for you." Laurel said.

"What is it, but aren't you going to have to get used to not being around her once she starts school?" Alena asked.

"Spend 5 years needing to keep an eye on your kid at all times to keep her safe then talk to me about that." Laurel retorted.

"Fair point." Alena said.

"Anyways, Oliver called me about half an hour before you started blowing up my phone and told me that he got through to Tommy and in the process, learned that the mastermind behind what happened to Tommy is none other than his rat bastard father Malcolm Merlyn, who's planning to destroy the Glades in revenge for what happened to his wife." Laurel said, though she did pull some of that from memory.

"That seems like a bit of an overreaction." Alena said.

"Yeah, tell me about it. But more importantly, we know how he's going to do it. He's going to use a device powered by something called dwarf star particles, which his company has been working with." Laurel said and she could tell that alone panicked Alena.

"Is he insane? If those particles aren't utilized properly, he'll destroy a lot more than just the Glades. If something goes wrong." Alena said.

"He could wipe out the whole city?" Laurel asked.

"More like half the state. Dwarf Star is incredibly powerful, reducing it to particles is practically impossible since doing so makes it nearly 10 times more volatile. If he isn't sure about what he's doing, he could end up killing at least half of the state's population and that's the lowest estimated casualty rate if something goes wrong." Alena said.

"Okay, so we need to find and secure the device before he has a chance to attempt to test it." Laurel said and Alena nodded.

"I'm guessing that the schematics for this sort of thing would be in the Merlyn Global database?" Alena asked.

"Hopefully." Laurel said, hoping that Malcolm had made the same dumbass mistake in this reality that he had in the old one.

"I'll see if I can hack into the system and find the device's schematics and maybe a way to track it." Felicity said.

"Good, do it. And then once you find those plans, we'll test Kira by having her examine them and determine the best way to dismantle the device. And in the meantime, start working on a way to track the dwarf star particles. I'm assuming like most energy sources, they have some signature that can be tracked." Laurel asked.

"Yep and honestly, I'm beginning to understand why you're Team Arrow's second in command and not John." Alena said, since she'd missed the little standoff between Laurel and John, since it had been before she'd joined the team.

"Yep. After all, who do you think holds the reins in our relationship?" Laurel said with a chuckle, which Alena shared.

"I figured as much. After all, Oliver might be the Green Arrow, but you're the one who's really in charge here." Alena said.

"No, he's in charge of the team, I'm just in charge of him." Laurel said with a chuckle.

"I'll get to work." Alena said as she started working.

"Speaking of work, how are you liking your new job at Queen Consolidated?" Laurel asked.

"It would be better if I didn't have a chip in my wrist that monitored everything I did." Alena said and Laurel sighed.

"It's just for another few months and as long as you keep your nose clean, you'll be free and clear." Laurel said and Alena nodded as she got to work and Laurel moved to return to her daughter.