“Hello, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to your main event! It’s Shock-and-Awe Night in Star City! Bad guys beware, drug dealers be scared. You can hide but you’d better not run, because—” Felicity rolled up the volume on the comms link, leaning into the microphone she had chosen over her normal ear bud unit. Her voice deepened in her closest impersonation of a movie trailer announcer.
“—We. Are. Bringing. The. Justice.”
The push of a button caused the sound effect of a bomb dropping to roll out over the comms. As it faded, Wild Dog’s voice replaced it.
“You are having way too much fun with this.”
“Hush,” White Canary’s voice said. “She’s adorable when she’s cute.”
In the Bunker, Felicity ignored them both as she started a playlist and cracked her knuckles. Frantic drumming under sleazy guitar chords came over the cave’s speakers where she could hear it, but it wouldn’t go over the comms to distract the teams as they worked.
As a bonus, it would help her ignore the danger they might face.
She brought up the appropriate screens and leaned into the microphone.
“First up, Team Wild Terrific is a go for launch.”
* * *
“Don’t call us that,” Wild Dog growled over the comms.
“I don’t mind it,” Mister Terrific said.
“You wouldn’t.”
They crouched beside a runny dumpster, the entire thing glistening black in the harsh sodium lights of the alley behind Wo Fat’s Chicken And Waffles. The stench was stifling, a combination of stale fat, old meat, and rotting vegetables. In the late summer heat, there was a shimmer in the air around it. And flies. Hundreds of flies.
“Okay,” Felicity’s voice said in their ears. “Fire alarm is disabled. Whenever you’re ready.”
“We’re going now.” Wild Dog stepped out. “This dumpster is killing me.”
“That’s excessive hyperbole,” Curtis said.
“Hyperbole my ass, you try having that smell trapped under your mask.”
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 factory 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.