Arrow ~ All For Nothing ~ Part Two

***

When Curtis, Dinah, and Rene emerged from the elevator into the bunker, they were greeted by the sight of Oliver and Kara by the railing on the tech level, Mon-El on Kara's right, Dig leaning against the metal beam on Oliver's left, Imra behind them. Felicity and Querl were by their stations. And all of them were watching them enter. "Nice," Curtis smiled nervously, trying to ease the tension. "Love what you guys haven't done with the place."

"Because your approval is what we strive for." Kara's voice dripped with sarcasm, making Mon-El smirk.

"Let's get this over with," Dinah grumbled.

"We, uh, turned your room into a home gym because," Felicity began, a smile on her face, which began to fade because of the dubious looks given to her by the three others. "Because this extremely awkward situation needs to be masked with humor."

"Why?" Querl knitted his eyebrows in confusion.

"I think what she means to say is welcome back," Dig cut in.

"We have the inside man, you have the tech," Rene shrugged. "That's the only reason we're back, Hoss."

"You're down a few members," Curtis remarked, looking around.

"J'onn, Alex, and Winn are at the D.E.O. right now and are trying to make progress on another bigger problem," Oliver said. "Lena is . . . " He looked at Kara, watching her bite her lip and look down. "Similarly occupied," he went with, because while he didn't know what exactly Lena's plans were regarding Sam, he knew she would do what it took to try and get her friend cured of Reign.

"And your attack dogs?" Dinah asked snidely.

"Watch it," Kara's eyes narrowed to slits.

She would have barged forward if her fiancé hadn't put a calming hand on her arm. "Otherwise occupied," Oliver deflected. "But it's important to our situation."

"But it wouldn't surprise me if they simply wanted to avoid the room," Imra folded her arms.

Dinah bristled, looking at the woman who had barged in on their operation when Cayden's attacks just began. "Oh?" she asked. "And why's that?"

Imra just tapped the side of her head. "You're broadcasting," she answered simply. "I'm getting a headache just being in the same room with you lot, and I haven't gotten past your thoughts of . . . oh," she blinked innocently. "I probably shouldn't say that."

Mon-El's laughter turned into a coughing fit at the disturbed look on Curtis's face and the utterly stupefied looks on Rene's and Dinah's. "Ah, my wife," he grinned, rubbing his hands together. "Oh, I'm enjoying this."

"That makes one of us," Kara muttered, and Oliver squeezed her arm comfortingly.

"So you're reading our minds?" Dinah snapped.

"It's hard to ignore someone shouting at you," Imra raised an eyebrow coolly.

Dinah shut her mouth with a click, fuming. "Could we get back on topic before this gets any worse?" Dig looked between the two women.

"Is Vince on site?" Oliver changed the topic.

"Should be as of five minutes ago," Dinah nodded curtly. "That is if everything goes according to plan."

"You sound like it might not," Dig observed.

"Vince said he doesn't have access to the server room, so if anyone spots him in there, he's gonna have a lot of explaining to do," Dinah pointed out.

"We've got eyes," Felicity announced, and Querl pulled up the camera footage from Vincent onto the large screen.

"Can I talk to him?" Dinah asked.

"Yeah."

Dinah rushed to the screen, everyone else walking over to view the footage as well. "Hey, Vince," she took a deep breath. "You get any kind of bad feeling here at all, you abort. You hear me?"

"Don't worry," Vincent told her. "I'll see you soon."

"He's at the server," Felicity said as he arrived at a door.

They heard a rattle or two, then Vincent huffed. "The door to the server room's locked. You guys have a solve for this?"

"06141998," Querl answered promptly.

There was an incredulous pause as even Oliver and Kara looked at the Coluan in surprise. "You sure about that?" Vincent asked.

"By my calculations, there is a 95.872% chance that is the code," Querl nodded. "It is also his son's birthday, which is a typical human password to use."

"If you're wrong, he's dead," Rene frowned.

Querl turned around in his chair and gave him a bitch face that made Oliver smirk. "I won't be wrong."

Vincent typed in the numbers, then tried the door again. When it opened, both Vincent and Dinah sighed in relief. "Good work, Brainy," Mon-El smiled proudly.

"Thank you," Querl bowed his head in acknowledgement.

"OK, Vince, you're in the red zone," Felicity told Vincent. "Just let the sniffer do its thing."

Vincent plugged the sniffer in to start downloading, and Querl blinked as the bar came up. "Oh, my . . . eighty terabytes."

Felicity blew out her breath in a rush. "You guys can get comfortable. This is gonna take a minute."

***

Vincent sighed, tapping his foot impatiently, then froze when he heard a questioning voice behind him. "Mr. Sobel?"

Vincent slowly turned to come face to face with Cayden, hearing two swears simultaneously from his comms. "Frak!" Felicity seethed.

"Oh, Sprock," Querl sputtered.

"I think we need to talk," Cayden said coldly, narrowing his eyes. "All of my people have specific domains. I don't believe that I.T. is one of yours, which means you would not have a proper passcode to enter."

"How much data's been copied?" Oliver asked.

"Twenty percent," Curtis answered.

"No, but Mr. Sheck did," Vincent finally spoke to Cayden, trying to buy more time. "He was a little more loose-lipped than you'd like. Rest in peace."

Cayden frowned, walking closer. "Still doesn't explain what exactly you're doing in here."

"We got to pull him out," Dinah panicked.

"Dinah, not yet," Oliver began.

"Oliver!" she snapped.

"OK, wait," Felicity cut in. "Vince, if you want to stay alive, repeat exactly what I say."

Vincent took a deep breath, then did as Felicity told him. "You think just because I can handle a gun doesn't mean I know the difference between a trans-polymer hybrid and a fiber optic cable." Cayden blinked in surprise, and Vincent went on, gaining confidence as he went. "I'm just impressed. I wanted to know how you maximized the data throughput. Sorry. I should have asked first."