Fic: A Time For Great Things - Chapter 8
FANDOM: Legends of Tomorrow
PAIRING: Len/Sara (eventually)
CHARACTERS: Mick Rory, Ray Palmer, Legends team
TEASER: That should have been it for Mick Rory, ironically killed in a fire he didn't even start.
NOTE: I have once again taken some liberties with history, portraying an event that may be more familiar to midwesterners than it was to me.
Chicago, December 30, 1903, 3:15 P.M.
Mick cursed as he looked at his escape route: A wooden plank stretched out like a makeshift catwalk, three stories above an alley. Two women had already climbed out of the window before him and were crawling across the plank to the building at the other end.
He cursed again as he looked back the way he’d come. He couldn’t see a damned thing. There was too much smoke now. The fire had spread quickly.
And with his comm out, he didn’t know where Haircut was.
“Snart was right,” he growled. “This is what happens when you go with Plan B.”
---
Three Hours Earlier
Haircut was babbling again. Mick didn’t know what he was babbling about; he’d already found that it was easier to tune the man out and just grunt or nod whenever he paused for air.
If Haircut knew that, he’d probably give Mick one of his wounded-puppy looks and go off on another babble. Most likely about Mick’s lack of social skills.
But Mick didn’t need to be sociable to do this job. In about three hours, they would plant another chronium shield on a catwalk above the stage of the Iroquois Theatre. They’d gotten themselves hired as stagehands in charge of raising and lowering the painted scenery flats hanging above the stage. It was a perfect set-up, putting them right where they’d need to leave their chronium…
Just before the place went up in flames, thanks to a sparking arc lamp and a cheap muslin curtain.
Haircut wasn’t happy to visit the site of another deadly fire. Even though Rip’s mother told him that what he did on the Morro Castle saved lives, he was still worried about being part of a mass murder.
But if there was any murder in the Iroquois fire, it was done by the theatre’s designer, who’d covered the emergency exits with flammable draperies and equipped them with complicated locks that the ushers still hadn’t figured out. There were vents up above the stage, but those were fastened shut. And the scenery flats brought in from the show’s original run in London? All canvas and plywood. Perfect fuel.
The theatre was nothing more than a giant tinderbox. Or maybe a barbecue, if he wanted to be crude about it.
This afternoon’s matinee was a sold-out show, even in the standing sections. An audience of 1,900 people, a cast of 250 and another 250 in the crew added up to a lot of people who’d be trying to figure a way out of the burning building.
Fire plus crowds plus panic… a recipe for disaster, and another perfect magnet for Jurgen’s Ridge.
This particular disaster was well documented, so they were able to plan their drop and their escape right down to the second. They’d leave the shield in place a few minutes into the second act, take the ladder down to the ground level just as the fire was starting, and escape through the theatre’s rear door, like most of the cast and crew. Fifteen minutes later, they’d meet Jax in the jump ship at Grant Park.
Simple.
Mick thought Snart might just be proud of his attention to detail in this job.
But then there was a complication.
Mick should’ve seen that coming.
--
“You! You’re on today. Get to wardrobe!”
Ray stopped and stared at the short, florid man who had stormed up to him and Mick. The man barked again, “I’m talking to you! Understudy!”
“I’m not an understudy!” Ray protested, belatedly recognizing the man as the show’s director, and realizing the man was barking at him. “I’m in the fly crew.”
“Good-lookin’ fella like you is a crew grunt?” the director responded in surprise. “Well, you’re an understudy now! I lost one of my men for the ‘Pale Moonlight’ number and you’re the right size for the costume, so get to wardrobe. Then you can get the sheet music from the music director and learn the part.” The director then glared at Mick, who had an amused grin on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”
“On my way, boss,” Mick replied mildly, striding off toward the stairway that would take him up to the fly gallery. “Break a leg, Haircut,” Ray heard him say over the comms.
The director was right: The costume fit. At least it wasn’t anything ridiculous; just a simple white suit. Unfortunately it didn’t have any pockets for the ATOM suit. Ray left the case in his street clothes.
It would mean an extra complication during their escape.
“Leave the watch too,” the costume master told him. Ray hesitated.
“It’s okay, Haircut,” Mick told him over the comms. “I’ve got mine. Just make sure you leave your stuff where you can get it back. Don’t want Rip complaining about leaving future tech behind.”
“Except for the chronium,” Ray muttered under his breath as he walked out of wardrobe, heading for the orchestra pit.
The part was easy enough, just promenading around the stage with one of the chorus girls. There was just one problem: It was a singing role, and Ray was definitely not a singer.
Eventually the music director threw up his hands. “All you need to do is look good. Pretend to sing but I don’t want to hear one lousy note outta your mouth!”
Ray winced to hear Mick snickering over the comms. “Gonna have to start calling you ‘Milli Vanilli,’ Haircut!”
---
3 P.M.
Mick chuckled at the antics of Eddie Foy far below on the stage of the Iroquois Theatre. Just minutes into the second act, the star of “Mr. Bluebeard” was sashaying across the boards for all he was worth in his wig and dress, delivering his lines in a shrill voice. Decades before anyone had ever heard of RuPaul, Foy cut quite a figure as “Sister Anne.”
“So where’s your friend?”
Mick turned to see a fairy standing on the catwalk. A fairy with tissue-paper wings, wearing a harness and carrying a basket full of pink carnations. “Hey, Nellie. Can you believe they’re putting him in the ‘Pale Moonlight’ number?”
The actress’ eyes widened. “You’re kiddin’ me.”
He shook his head. “Nope. He’s right down there.” Mick pointed toward the right stage wing, where Haircut was waiting for his cue to go on. “Director thought he was an understudy and told him to get into costume.”
Nellie shook her head. “Can you believe this business? A stagehand gets a chance to get on the boards without even an audition, while an experienced actress like me gets stuck flying over the house dropping flowers on the audience.”
“There’s no justice,” Mick agreed with a smile, deciding not to tell her about Haircut’s total lack of singing talent. “Aren’t you supposed to go get wired up?”
“I’m on my way. Just wanted to stop by and say hello. If I’d known you were alone up here, I’d’ve come by earlier, handsome.” She reached into her basket and took out one of her carnations, putting it into the buttonhole of his coat, just as she’d been doing every show since they started this gig a couple of days ago. Nellie was quite the flirt.
She batted her lashes at him. “See you later.”
Mick watched her stroll down the catwalk, heading to another one at the front of the stage. That was where she would be hooked to a trolley wire that would carry her out over the house, like Tinkerbell. He’d actually called her that the first day, to her confusion. Then Haircut whispered to him that Peter Pan wouldn’t debut in London until next year.
Nellie never would understand the Tinkerbell reference. She’d be dead in a few days, from injuries suffered in the fire.
Mick glanced down at his carnation, and then looked at his watch. “Haircut, two minutes.”
--
Ray looked up toward the fly gallery and nodded to let Mick know he’d heard. Then he felt a nudge from Vera, the chorus girl he was partnered with for “In The Pale Moonlight.”
“Nervous?”
“No,” Ray answered at first. Then, “Maybe. A little.”
She smiled and threaded her arm through his. “Stick with me and you’ll be fine, cutie.”
Eddie Foy finished his monologue and exited, stage right. He passed them on the way to his dressing room and greeted them with, “Break a leg.”
They heard the creaking of pulleys as the stage crew changed the scenery, then Vera was tugging on his arm. “Time to go, cutie.” Then she was pulling him out on stage.
Ray blinked under the spotlight shining on them. The rest of the stage and the house were dark. The only other light was an arc lamp, representing the moon. He let Vera lead him around the stage, mouthing the words the others were singing.
“The chronium’s in place,” Mick said through the comms. “I’m heading down.”
Ray nodded in response, still promenading to Vera’s lead. Then she froze and screamed, pointing above them at the “moon.”
The fire had started, and was spreading more quickly than Ray had imagined it would. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a stagehand striding in that direction with a canister labeled “KILFYRE” in large letters. He threw the flame-retardant powder in the air toward the blaze, but couldn’t throw it high enough. The powder fell uselessly to the floor, and the fire kept climbing.
Right up toward the fly gallery.
Screams and panic followed. Vera fainted dead away. Ray barely managed to catch her before she hit the stage.
“Mick?” he called, hoping the other man could hear him over the comms.
“Don’t worry about me, Haircut,” came the reply, with the sound of crackling flames in the background. “Get your stuff and get out of there.”
Then Ray heard a loud sound, like something large snapping, and the background sound from the comms was gone.
Dammit.
Ray hoisted Vera over his shoulder and ran offstage, passing Eddie Foy heading toward the footlights. Ray could hear the actor shouting to the audience to remain calm and not panic.
Too late for that.
Smoke was already billowing over the backstage area, where actors and crewmembers were rushing toward the back door. Ray found himself swept along by the human tide, unable to resist while carrying Vera. It only took a minute before they were outside, where the pushing and shoving suddenly stopped. Ray felt Vera stir, and set her down on her feet, holding her steady as she blinked her way back to awareness.
“You’re safe now,” he told her. He motioned to one of the other cast members to take charge of her, and turned back toward the theatre.
“Where are you going?” she called.
Ray looked back over his shoulder. “Time for me to be a hero.”
--
Mick pulled himself back to his feet and put a hand to his throbbing ear, feeling something wet there. Pulling his hand away, he saw it was blood.
And his earpiece was gone. Probably knocked out by the pulley that had clonked him on the side of the head. He was lucky he hadn’t been knocked off the catwalk to the stage below.
He took a breath and looked around. His original escape route was now a wall of flame, but the ladder at the other end of the catwalk was clear, so he headed that way, holding onto the railings to keep his otherwise unsteady balance.
A groaning sound, not made by the fire, stopped him in his tracks.
He knew what to expect, both from what the rest of the team had told him and from what he’d learned from the Time Masters. But the reality of Jurgen’s Ridge suddenly looming over the stage was something else: the dark vortex shot through with lightning flashes of images. Sara had said they were too fast to be seen, but Mick’s trained eye was able to pick out a few of them before the Ridge vanished.
“We’re getting you out of there, partner,” he growled before starting to climb down the ladder.
He only got about halfway down before flames blocked his path again. He looked around and focused on the lighting scaffold about ten feet away. If he could get to that, he could climb around it to the third-floor crew access, and from there, get out of the building before he became part of the barbecue.
It was too far for him to jump. But a chain from one of the pulley systems was just barely within reach. He leaned out, one hand holding the ladder, the other stretching out to grab the chain. He gave it a pull, and then another, to make sure it was secure.
“Time to make like Tarzan,” he muttered, grabbing the chain with both hands and pushing off the ladder to swing toward the scaffold. He landed with a grunt, then clambered around the structure to get to the crew passageway.
Once there, he could see smoke billowing up from one direction. He’d have to go to the third-floor dressing rooms and try to get out through one of those windows.
But he had no idea how he’d get down.
He started for the dressing rooms anyway. “Where the hell is Haircut when I need him?”
--
“Now I know what the salmon feel like when they’re swimming upstream,” Ray mumbled to himself as he finally got back to the wardrobe room. His clothes were still where he left them. More importantly, the ATOM suit and his Gideon-made watch were also still there. Within moments, he was in the suit, shrunken down and ready to find Mick.
He flew out of the wardrobe room, over the crowds of people stampeding toward the emergency exits. He knew there were about two dozen of them, but only two had been opened so far. Two men were struggling with the strange lock on the third door, a group of women and children hovering behind them.
Ray wrinkled his brow. Gideon’s records said a third emergency door had been forced open, but the records weren’t clear on how it had been done… the records said either by brute force or a blast of air.
Or maybe by ATOM power? “Time to be a hero,” Ray said to himself. He flew over the group and pointed his photon cannons at the door. The double blast blew the door open, and the frightened theatregoers were able to make their escape.
“Now, where are you, Mick?”
--
The third floor dressing room was starting to fill with smoke as Mick waited for his turn on the makeshift catwalk to safety.
Only one of the women who went out before him made it all the way across the plank. The other fell when her feet got tangled in her long skirts. She lay in the alley like a broken doll, visible only for a moment. Then thick smoke on the ground level obscured the sight.
Mick swallowed and climbed onto the windowsill. He gingerly inched out onto the plank on his hands and knees, testing its strength. He looked ahead to the pair of construction workers who were holding the plank in place. He took in a deep breath…
And began coughing violently from the smoke rising up around him. The plank began to shudder under him, and while it was held by two strong men at one end, there was nothing to secure it on the theatre side. That end of the plank began to shift… and slid right off the windowsill.
Mick and the plank both plunged into the smoke.
That should have been it for Mick Rory, ironically killed in a fire he didn’t even start. It would have been, if not for one Ray Palmer in his super suit.
Ray swooped in and intercepted Mick within the smoke, grabbing him by both hands to stop his fall and land him gently on the pavement. Mick’s arms felt a little pulled out by the sockets, but he figured it was better than being street pizza.
Or a broken doll. He turned away from the sight of the dead woman on the ground.
“Thanks, Haircut,” he said. “I’m not gonna let Snart call you ‘The Incredible Shrinking Schmuck’ any more.”
Ray grinned through his visor. “I always took that as a sign of affection.”
Mick grunted. “Let’s get out of here.”
--
Sara and Stein were already back from their own mission to a 19th century South African prison when the jump ship re-docked with the Waverider.
They were also both soaking wet.
“You got a fire, we got a flood,” Sara said as she began to pull off her wet dress. She threw it at Jax when he yelped and turned away. “Don’t be silly, Jax. I can peel off two more layers and still be more covered than I am in the Canary suit. But I won’t. Just wanted to get the worst off. Let me get rid of this damned corset and I’m done.”
“Whereas I will merely take off these boots for now and catch my breath,” Stein said, sitting down in one of the jump chairs to do just that. “Captain Hunter, I hope the results were worth hearing something that will likely give me nightmares for weeks?”
“That bad?” Ray asked.
The professor looked grim. “I don’t care what those prisoners did to get themselves chained up in the dungeon at the Castle of Good Hope. No one deserves to drown like that.”
Sara put a hand on the professor’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze before explaining, “The chronium had to go right outside the cell, just as the storm was starting. I’ve never seen rain come down like that, ever. The water rose something like three feet a minute. The dungeon got flooded before anyone could get the prisoners out.” She let out a sigh. “But I’m not sure the guards really even wanted to try.”
“The screams of those men were horrible,” Stein said darkly. “But when they stopped screaming…”
Rip came out of his study with a bottle and glass. He poured for Stein and handed him the glass. Then with a wry smile, he passed the bottle to Sara.
“The calculations show we are still on target for our intercept,” Rip told them. “I know this has been difficult for all of you. You’ve had to leave a bit of your humanity behind…” he exchanged a look with Sara, “to protect history. But it’s all part of our mission.”
“Saving my partner,” Mick said. He was staring down at a ragged pink carnation in his hand, and had declined Sara’s offer of the bottle.
“Yes,” Rip agreed. “But it’s not merely because Leonard Snart is our friend. The future version of him saved all of us in our pasts. He saved you on that rooftop in Star City, Sara.”
Jax added, “And we’d all have been killed when Savage’s death released that wave of Time Force in Central City if Future Snart hadn’t shown up to stop it.”
“Central City itself would have been destroyed,” Stein said.
Rip nodded. “Precisely.”
“Always looking at the big picture, aren’t you, Rip?” Ray asked.
Rip shrugged. “It’s how I was trained as a Time Master. We have to look at the big picture.” He took the bottle from Sara for a swig. “Two more stops, my friends. We’re almost there.”
FINAL NOTE: Looking like 2-3 more chapters.
PAIRING: Len/Sara (eventually)
CHARACTERS: Mick Rory, Ray Palmer, Legends team
TEASER: That should have been it for Mick Rory, ironically killed in a fire he didn't even start.
NOTE: I have once again taken some liberties with history, portraying an event that may be more familiar to midwesterners than it was to me.
Chicago, December 30, 1903, 3:15 P.M.
Mick cursed as he looked at his escape route: A wooden plank stretched out like a makeshift catwalk, three stories above an alley. Two women had already climbed out of the window before him and were crawling across the plank to the building at the other end.
He cursed again as he looked back the way he’d come. He couldn’t see a damned thing. There was too much smoke now. The fire had spread quickly.
And with his comm out, he didn’t know where Haircut was.
“Snart was right,” he growled. “This is what happens when you go with Plan B.”
---
Three Hours Earlier
Haircut was babbling again. Mick didn’t know what he was babbling about; he’d already found that it was easier to tune the man out and just grunt or nod whenever he paused for air.
If Haircut knew that, he’d probably give Mick one of his wounded-puppy looks and go off on another babble. Most likely about Mick’s lack of social skills.
But Mick didn’t need to be sociable to do this job. In about three hours, they would plant another chronium shield on a catwalk above the stage of the Iroquois Theatre. They’d gotten themselves hired as stagehands in charge of raising and lowering the painted scenery flats hanging above the stage. It was a perfect set-up, putting them right where they’d need to leave their chronium…
Just before the place went up in flames, thanks to a sparking arc lamp and a cheap muslin curtain.
Haircut wasn’t happy to visit the site of another deadly fire. Even though Rip’s mother told him that what he did on the Morro Castle saved lives, he was still worried about being part of a mass murder.
But if there was any murder in the Iroquois fire, it was done by the theatre’s designer, who’d covered the emergency exits with flammable draperies and equipped them with complicated locks that the ushers still hadn’t figured out. There were vents up above the stage, but those were fastened shut. And the scenery flats brought in from the show’s original run in London? All canvas and plywood. Perfect fuel.
The theatre was nothing more than a giant tinderbox. Or maybe a barbecue, if he wanted to be crude about it.
This afternoon’s matinee was a sold-out show, even in the standing sections. An audience of 1,900 people, a cast of 250 and another 250 in the crew added up to a lot of people who’d be trying to figure a way out of the burning building.
Fire plus crowds plus panic… a recipe for disaster, and another perfect magnet for Jurgen’s Ridge.
This particular disaster was well documented, so they were able to plan their drop and their escape right down to the second. They’d leave the shield in place a few minutes into the second act, take the ladder down to the ground level just as the fire was starting, and escape through the theatre’s rear door, like most of the cast and crew. Fifteen minutes later, they’d meet Jax in the jump ship at Grant Park.
Simple.
Mick thought Snart might just be proud of his attention to detail in this job.
But then there was a complication.
Mick should’ve seen that coming.
--
“You! You’re on today. Get to wardrobe!”
Ray stopped and stared at the short, florid man who had stormed up to him and Mick. The man barked again, “I’m talking to you! Understudy!”
“I’m not an understudy!” Ray protested, belatedly recognizing the man as the show’s director, and realizing the man was barking at him. “I’m in the fly crew.”
“Good-lookin’ fella like you is a crew grunt?” the director responded in surprise. “Well, you’re an understudy now! I lost one of my men for the ‘Pale Moonlight’ number and you’re the right size for the costume, so get to wardrobe. Then you can get the sheet music from the music director and learn the part.” The director then glared at Mick, who had an amused grin on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”
“On my way, boss,” Mick replied mildly, striding off toward the stairway that would take him up to the fly gallery. “Break a leg, Haircut,” Ray heard him say over the comms.
The director was right: The costume fit. At least it wasn’t anything ridiculous; just a simple white suit. Unfortunately it didn’t have any pockets for the ATOM suit. Ray left the case in his street clothes.
It would mean an extra complication during their escape.
“Leave the watch too,” the costume master told him. Ray hesitated.
“It’s okay, Haircut,” Mick told him over the comms. “I’ve got mine. Just make sure you leave your stuff where you can get it back. Don’t want Rip complaining about leaving future tech behind.”
“Except for the chronium,” Ray muttered under his breath as he walked out of wardrobe, heading for the orchestra pit.
The part was easy enough, just promenading around the stage with one of the chorus girls. There was just one problem: It was a singing role, and Ray was definitely not a singer.
Eventually the music director threw up his hands. “All you need to do is look good. Pretend to sing but I don’t want to hear one lousy note outta your mouth!”
Ray winced to hear Mick snickering over the comms. “Gonna have to start calling you ‘Milli Vanilli,’ Haircut!”
---
3 P.M.
Mick chuckled at the antics of Eddie Foy far below on the stage of the Iroquois Theatre. Just minutes into the second act, the star of “Mr. Bluebeard” was sashaying across the boards for all he was worth in his wig and dress, delivering his lines in a shrill voice. Decades before anyone had ever heard of RuPaul, Foy cut quite a figure as “Sister Anne.”
“So where’s your friend?”
Mick turned to see a fairy standing on the catwalk. A fairy with tissue-paper wings, wearing a harness and carrying a basket full of pink carnations. “Hey, Nellie. Can you believe they’re putting him in the ‘Pale Moonlight’ number?”
The actress’ eyes widened. “You’re kiddin’ me.”
He shook his head. “Nope. He’s right down there.” Mick pointed toward the right stage wing, where Haircut was waiting for his cue to go on. “Director thought he was an understudy and told him to get into costume.”
Nellie shook her head. “Can you believe this business? A stagehand gets a chance to get on the boards without even an audition, while an experienced actress like me gets stuck flying over the house dropping flowers on the audience.”
“There’s no justice,” Mick agreed with a smile, deciding not to tell her about Haircut’s total lack of singing talent. “Aren’t you supposed to go get wired up?”
“I’m on my way. Just wanted to stop by and say hello. If I’d known you were alone up here, I’d’ve come by earlier, handsome.” She reached into her basket and took out one of her carnations, putting it into the buttonhole of his coat, just as she’d been doing every show since they started this gig a couple of days ago. Nellie was quite the flirt.
She batted her lashes at him. “See you later.”
Mick watched her stroll down the catwalk, heading to another one at the front of the stage. That was where she would be hooked to a trolley wire that would carry her out over the house, like Tinkerbell. He’d actually called her that the first day, to her confusion. Then Haircut whispered to him that Peter Pan wouldn’t debut in London until next year.
Nellie never would understand the Tinkerbell reference. She’d be dead in a few days, from injuries suffered in the fire.
Mick glanced down at his carnation, and then looked at his watch. “Haircut, two minutes.”
--
Ray looked up toward the fly gallery and nodded to let Mick know he’d heard. Then he felt a nudge from Vera, the chorus girl he was partnered with for “In The Pale Moonlight.”
“Nervous?”
“No,” Ray answered at first. Then, “Maybe. A little.”
She smiled and threaded her arm through his. “Stick with me and you’ll be fine, cutie.”
Eddie Foy finished his monologue and exited, stage right. He passed them on the way to his dressing room and greeted them with, “Break a leg.”
They heard the creaking of pulleys as the stage crew changed the scenery, then Vera was tugging on his arm. “Time to go, cutie.” Then she was pulling him out on stage.
Ray blinked under the spotlight shining on them. The rest of the stage and the house were dark. The only other light was an arc lamp, representing the moon. He let Vera lead him around the stage, mouthing the words the others were singing.
“The chronium’s in place,” Mick said through the comms. “I’m heading down.”
Ray nodded in response, still promenading to Vera’s lead. Then she froze and screamed, pointing above them at the “moon.”
The fire had started, and was spreading more quickly than Ray had imagined it would. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a stagehand striding in that direction with a canister labeled “KILFYRE” in large letters. He threw the flame-retardant powder in the air toward the blaze, but couldn’t throw it high enough. The powder fell uselessly to the floor, and the fire kept climbing.
Right up toward the fly gallery.
Screams and panic followed. Vera fainted dead away. Ray barely managed to catch her before she hit the stage.
“Mick?” he called, hoping the other man could hear him over the comms.
“Don’t worry about me, Haircut,” came the reply, with the sound of crackling flames in the background. “Get your stuff and get out of there.”
Then Ray heard a loud sound, like something large snapping, and the background sound from the comms was gone.
Dammit.
Ray hoisted Vera over his shoulder and ran offstage, passing Eddie Foy heading toward the footlights. Ray could hear the actor shouting to the audience to remain calm and not panic.
Too late for that.
Smoke was already billowing over the backstage area, where actors and crewmembers were rushing toward the back door. Ray found himself swept along by the human tide, unable to resist while carrying Vera. It only took a minute before they were outside, where the pushing and shoving suddenly stopped. Ray felt Vera stir, and set her down on her feet, holding her steady as she blinked her way back to awareness.
“You’re safe now,” he told her. He motioned to one of the other cast members to take charge of her, and turned back toward the theatre.
“Where are you going?” she called.
Ray looked back over his shoulder. “Time for me to be a hero.”
--
Mick pulled himself back to his feet and put a hand to his throbbing ear, feeling something wet there. Pulling his hand away, he saw it was blood.
And his earpiece was gone. Probably knocked out by the pulley that had clonked him on the side of the head. He was lucky he hadn’t been knocked off the catwalk to the stage below.
He took a breath and looked around. His original escape route was now a wall of flame, but the ladder at the other end of the catwalk was clear, so he headed that way, holding onto the railings to keep his otherwise unsteady balance.
A groaning sound, not made by the fire, stopped him in his tracks.
He knew what to expect, both from what the rest of the team had told him and from what he’d learned from the Time Masters. But the reality of Jurgen’s Ridge suddenly looming over the stage was something else: the dark vortex shot through with lightning flashes of images. Sara had said they were too fast to be seen, but Mick’s trained eye was able to pick out a few of them before the Ridge vanished.
“We’re getting you out of there, partner,” he growled before starting to climb down the ladder.
He only got about halfway down before flames blocked his path again. He looked around and focused on the lighting scaffold about ten feet away. If he could get to that, he could climb around it to the third-floor crew access, and from there, get out of the building before he became part of the barbecue.
It was too far for him to jump. But a chain from one of the pulley systems was just barely within reach. He leaned out, one hand holding the ladder, the other stretching out to grab the chain. He gave it a pull, and then another, to make sure it was secure.
“Time to make like Tarzan,” he muttered, grabbing the chain with both hands and pushing off the ladder to swing toward the scaffold. He landed with a grunt, then clambered around the structure to get to the crew passageway.
Once there, he could see smoke billowing up from one direction. He’d have to go to the third-floor dressing rooms and try to get out through one of those windows.
But he had no idea how he’d get down.
He started for the dressing rooms anyway. “Where the hell is Haircut when I need him?”
--
“Now I know what the salmon feel like when they’re swimming upstream,” Ray mumbled to himself as he finally got back to the wardrobe room. His clothes were still where he left them. More importantly, the ATOM suit and his Gideon-made watch were also still there. Within moments, he was in the suit, shrunken down and ready to find Mick.
He flew out of the wardrobe room, over the crowds of people stampeding toward the emergency exits. He knew there were about two dozen of them, but only two had been opened so far. Two men were struggling with the strange lock on the third door, a group of women and children hovering behind them.
Ray wrinkled his brow. Gideon’s records said a third emergency door had been forced open, but the records weren’t clear on how it had been done… the records said either by brute force or a blast of air.
Or maybe by ATOM power? “Time to be a hero,” Ray said to himself. He flew over the group and pointed his photon cannons at the door. The double blast blew the door open, and the frightened theatregoers were able to make their escape.
“Now, where are you, Mick?”
--
The third floor dressing room was starting to fill with smoke as Mick waited for his turn on the makeshift catwalk to safety.
Only one of the women who went out before him made it all the way across the plank. The other fell when her feet got tangled in her long skirts. She lay in the alley like a broken doll, visible only for a moment. Then thick smoke on the ground level obscured the sight.
Mick swallowed and climbed onto the windowsill. He gingerly inched out onto the plank on his hands and knees, testing its strength. He looked ahead to the pair of construction workers who were holding the plank in place. He took in a deep breath…
And began coughing violently from the smoke rising up around him. The plank began to shudder under him, and while it was held by two strong men at one end, there was nothing to secure it on the theatre side. That end of the plank began to shift… and slid right off the windowsill.
Mick and the plank both plunged into the smoke.
That should have been it for Mick Rory, ironically killed in a fire he didn’t even start. It would have been, if not for one Ray Palmer in his super suit.
Ray swooped in and intercepted Mick within the smoke, grabbing him by both hands to stop his fall and land him gently on the pavement. Mick’s arms felt a little pulled out by the sockets, but he figured it was better than being street pizza.
Or a broken doll. He turned away from the sight of the dead woman on the ground.
“Thanks, Haircut,” he said. “I’m not gonna let Snart call you ‘The Incredible Shrinking Schmuck’ any more.”
Ray grinned through his visor. “I always took that as a sign of affection.”
Mick grunted. “Let’s get out of here.”
--
Sara and Stein were already back from their own mission to a 19th century South African prison when the jump ship re-docked with the Waverider.
They were also both soaking wet.
“You got a fire, we got a flood,” Sara said as she began to pull off her wet dress. She threw it at Jax when he yelped and turned away. “Don’t be silly, Jax. I can peel off two more layers and still be more covered than I am in the Canary suit. But I won’t. Just wanted to get the worst off. Let me get rid of this damned corset and I’m done.”
“Whereas I will merely take off these boots for now and catch my breath,” Stein said, sitting down in one of the jump chairs to do just that. “Captain Hunter, I hope the results were worth hearing something that will likely give me nightmares for weeks?”
“That bad?” Ray asked.
The professor looked grim. “I don’t care what those prisoners did to get themselves chained up in the dungeon at the Castle of Good Hope. No one deserves to drown like that.”
Sara put a hand on the professor’s shoulder, giving it a squeeze before explaining, “The chronium had to go right outside the cell, just as the storm was starting. I’ve never seen rain come down like that, ever. The water rose something like three feet a minute. The dungeon got flooded before anyone could get the prisoners out.” She let out a sigh. “But I’m not sure the guards really even wanted to try.”
“The screams of those men were horrible,” Stein said darkly. “But when they stopped screaming…”
Rip came out of his study with a bottle and glass. He poured for Stein and handed him the glass. Then with a wry smile, he passed the bottle to Sara.
“The calculations show we are still on target for our intercept,” Rip told them. “I know this has been difficult for all of you. You’ve had to leave a bit of your humanity behind…” he exchanged a look with Sara, “to protect history. But it’s all part of our mission.”
“Saving my partner,” Mick said. He was staring down at a ragged pink carnation in his hand, and had declined Sara’s offer of the bottle.
“Yes,” Rip agreed. “But it’s not merely because Leonard Snart is our friend. The future version of him saved all of us in our pasts. He saved you on that rooftop in Star City, Sara.”
Jax added, “And we’d all have been killed when Savage’s death released that wave of Time Force in Central City if Future Snart hadn’t shown up to stop it.”
“Central City itself would have been destroyed,” Stein said.
Rip nodded. “Precisely.”
“Always looking at the big picture, aren’t you, Rip?” Ray asked.
Rip shrugged. “It’s how I was trained as a Time Master. We have to look at the big picture.” He took the bottle from Sara for a swig. “Two more stops, my friends. We’re almost there.”
FINAL NOTE: Looking like 2-3 more chapters.