Chapter 25: The Undertaking's Timeline
POV: Felicity
Felicity's algorithm flagged it at 3 AM—a pattern in Merlyn Global's construction contracts that made her blood run cold and her hands shake reaching for the phone.
She'd been running data correlation analysis on the intelligence Ben had gathered from his infiltration of Merlyn Global, cross-referencing financial flows with construction permits, when her pattern recognition software started screaming alerts. What she found buried in layers of shell companies and falsified permits made her stomach drop into her shoes.
Industrial equipment purchases that made no sense for legitimate construction. Seismic monitoring devices ordered in quantities that suggested area-wide installation. Most damning of all, engineering specifications for machines designed to generate targeted vibrations at frequencies that could destabilize geological formations.
"This isn't urban renewal. This isn't even demolition. This is weaponized geology—machines designed to create earthquakes on command. Malcolm Merlyn isn't planning to buy the Glades at reduced prices after economic downturn. He's planning to level it completely and rebuild from scratch."
Felicity pulled up geological surveys of the Glades, overlaying them with the construction sites her analysis had identified. The pattern was unmistakable—strategic placement of seismic devices along fault lines that would amplify any artificial tremors into catastrophic structural failure across the entire neighborhood.
Her hands trembled as she reached for her secure phone to call an emergency Team Arrow meeting. The horror of what she'd discovered was still sinking in: they weren't trying to stop a conspiracy or even a terrorist attack. They were trying to prevent genocide disguised as natural disaster.
"Thousands of people. Families, children, elderly residents who can't evacuate quickly. All of them marked for death by a man who thinks he's saving the city by destroying the parts of it he considers expendable. And according to these timelines, it's happening soon. Very soon."
Two hours later, the Foundry felt like a war room as Felicity presented her findings to grim faces illuminated by holographic displays showing the scope of Malcolm's plan.
"Earthquake machines," she said, her voice steady despite the magnitude of what she was revealing. "Seventeen devices placed along geological stress points beneath the Glades, designed to generate coordinated seismic events that would simulate natural disaster while actually being targeted mass murder."
Oliver studied the technical specifications with the cold focus that had kept him alive for five years of impossible situations. "How many casualties?"
"Conservative estimate? Twelve to fifteen thousand immediate deaths from structural collapse. Another eight to ten thousand from secondary effects—fires, medical emergencies, infrastructure failure." Felicity's voice cracked slightly. "The entire Glades would be uninhabitable. Complete destruction masked as geological tragedy."
Diggle leaned back in his chair, processing numbers that represented neighbors, friends, the people he'd sworn to protect. "Motive?"
"Urban renewal taken to its logical extreme. Destroy the neighborhood entirely, rebuild it as high-end commercial and residential development. Classic disaster capitalism—create the crisis, then profit from the solution."
POV: Ben
Ben watched the revelation unfold with an expression of grim confirmation rather than shock, and he could feel Oliver's attention sharpening on his lack of surprise. His Prescience had been showing him fragments of this moment for weeks—the discovery, the horror, the terrible understanding that they were racing against mass murder rather than just corruption.
"I should be reacting with appropriate shock and dismay. Instead, I'm sitting here like someone who already knew exactly what Felicity would find. Oliver's going to notice the discrepancy, and I can't explain it without revealing knowledge I shouldn't possess."
"Ben," Oliver said, his voice carrying the weight of someone who'd learned to read deception as a survival skill. "You don't look surprised."
"I've suspected something catastrophic was coming," Ben replied carefully. "Malcolm's behavior, the accelerated timeline, the way he's been moving resources and personnel. The pieces pointed toward something bigger than financial corruption, but I couldn't prove it."
"Technically true. I did suspect something catastrophic was coming because I've known about the Undertaking since I arrived here. But I can't say 'I knew all along because I'm from the future and I watched this story play out on television.' The Spoiler Curse would scramble it into gibberish anyway."
Oliver's eyes narrowed. "What kind of behavior? What pieces?"
Ben felt the familiar frustration of the cosmic gag order pressing against his attempts to explain. Every time he tried to reference specific foreknowledge, the words twisted into nonsense before they could leave his mouth.
"Pattern recognition. The way he talks about the Glades, the timing of his movements, the—banana hammock penguin disco ball earthquake machine!"
Ben's mouth snapped shut in horror as the Spoiler Curse mangled his attempt to directly reference the Undertaking. Oliver and Diggle exchanged glances while Felicity looked up from her computers with confused concern.
"Are you having some kind of medical episode?" Diggle asked.
"Sorry. Stress reaction. What I meant was—" Ben tried again, choosing his words more carefully. "Malcolm's been positioning himself to benefit from any disaster that hits the Glades. The financial preparation, the contingency planning, the way he talks about necessary sacrifices for the greater good. It felt like someone preparing for an outcome he'd already decided was inevitable."
POV: Oliver
Oliver studied Ben's explanation while cataloguing the obvious tells that suggested incomplete honesty. The strange verbal slip, the way Ben seemed to be choosing words carefully to avoid saying something specific, the expression of someone fighting against limitations he couldn't explain.
"He knows more than he's saying. Has known more than he's been saying for weeks, possibly since we first met. The question is whether he's hiding intelligence sources that could compromise operational security, or whether there's something else—something bigger—that he can't share for reasons I don't understand."
"We'll revisit your intelligence sources later," Oliver said, filing the conversation away for future investigation. "Right now, we need to focus on timeline. How long do we have before Malcolm activates this system?"
Felicity pulled up construction schedules and financial projections. "Based on the equipment delivery timelines and the coordination required for simultaneous activation, I estimate two to three weeks maximum. Possibly less if he's been accelerating the schedule."
"Why would he accelerate?"
Ben shifted uncomfortably. "Because he knows someone's investigating. My infiltration of Merlyn Global, our operations against his associates, the fact that you've been systematically dismantling the corruption network that supported his plan. Malcolm's not stupid—he can see the walls closing in."
Oliver processed this with growing understanding of the tactical situation. Malcolm Merlyn had infinite resources, League of Assassins training, and a head start measured in years. Team Arrow had superior intelligence and moral authority, but they were racing against an opponent who could simply advance his timeline if he felt threatened.
"We created this urgency through our own success. Every name we crossed off the List, every operation we completed, every piece of evidence we gathered—all of it told Malcolm that his conspiracy was being exposed. Now he's abandoning subtlety for speed, which means we have days instead of weeks to prevent mass murder."
"Emergency protocols," Oliver decided. "We mobilize every resource we have, call in every favor, recruit anyone who might be useful. This isn't about stopping corruption anymore—this is about preventing genocide."
"What about local authorities? FBI? Someone with actual legal jurisdiction?"
"With what evidence? Malcolm's covered his tracks too well, and the scale is too large for anyone to believe without proof we can't provide without revealing our methods." Oliver moved to the weapons rack where he kept his backup equipment. "We handle this ourselves, or it doesn't get handled at all."
Diggle nodded with the grim acceptance of someone who'd learned that sometimes the system failed and individuals had to fill the gap. "What do you need from us?"
"Everything. Full commitment, total operational focus, and Ben's pattern recognition working overtime because conventional investigation isn't going to move fast enough."
Ben felt the weight of impossible expectations settling on his shoulders. His team was counting on his "intuitive insights" to guide them toward stopping a plot he already knew about in complete detail, but his knowledge came from sources he could never explain or reveal.
"They need me to be their tactical oracle, predicting Malcolm's moves and identifying his weaknesses through 'pattern recognition' and 'enhanced intuition.' But every prediction I make based on show knowledge risks exposing the transmigration. Every insight that's too accurate makes Oliver more suspicious about my intelligence sources."
Ben's Prescience activated, showing him branching futures that split from this moment like a river delta. Some timelines showed Team Arrow successfully locating and disabling the earthquake machines. Others showed the Glades in ruins, thousands dead, Malcolm's plan succeeding despite their efforts to stop it.
The uncertainty terrified him more than any specific threat. For the first time since his arrival, his knowledge of canon wasn't enough to guarantee the outcome. His presence had changed too many variables, accelerated too many timelines, created too many butterfly effects for his foreknowledge to remain reliable.
"I know how this story was supposed to end in the show I watched. But this isn't that story anymore—this is the story I'm living, and my choices have fundamentally altered its trajectory. The timeline is mine to save or destroy, and I won't know which until it's too late to choose differently."
"Two weeks," Ben said, his voice carrying the weight of someone who understood that failure meant watching thousands of innocent people die. "We have two weeks to stop Malcolm Merlyn from committing the largest mass murder in Starling City's history."
Team Arrow mobilized with the efficiency of people who'd learned that impossible deadlines were just another kind of enemy to defeat through preparation, determination, and willingness to sacrifice everything for the people who couldn't protect themselves.
But as they dispersed to begin the most important mission of their lives, Ben stared at branching future-visions and wondered if knowing the ending was a gift or a curse when the ending kept changing every time he tried to see it.
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