Technical Assistance

Chapter 41: Software Patching

Roy Harper awakens in a jolt, startled and uncertain of his surroundings. The last thing he remembers is clear in his mind: some crazy dude with an axe to grind tried to make an example of him. Then the Vigilante had charged in to save the day with an impressive speech and an arrow that had sailed right through Señor Psychopath's arm.

It's only then that he remembers the bullet, and he immediately sits upright in a panic.

Or tries to, but two hands press against his chest, holding him down. ''And just where do you think you're going?" a sharp female voice asks of him. It takes him a long moment to recognize it as Felicity’s, and his eyes open immediately when he does.

Roy expects to find himself staring at the ceiling of a hospital room, but instead finds himself faced with the dark interior of a panel van. Again, he tries to sit up, but she pushes him back down. “Take it easy—you’ve had a rough day,” she states, with an edge of concern to her voice. “I’ll help you sit up, but only if you do it slowly. You’re still seeping a little, and I don’t want you bleeding out in the van. It's horrible to get bloodstains out of this carpeting.”

He takes it for the joke it’s meant to be, chuckling a little before he finds that the action makes him hurt. Then he feels a hand on his left arm, gently urging him upward. Her face appears in his vision, her eyebrows knitted together slightly in concern.

Finally upright, he leans against the seat, examining his surroundings again. “Where the hell am I?” he asks her. It makes her smile, and for the first time he realizes that there’s a Bluetooth headset over her ear. Her coat is draped across the bench seating on the other side of the van, draped over some sort of laptop. Wherever it is, she’s comfortable here. That counts for something—Felicity doesn’t strike him as the kind of person who gets accustomed to things quickly. “I remember getting shot and the Vigilante trying to untie me, but after that…” He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“You passed out. He carried you off the subway and brought you here,” she answers, and Roy gets the sneaking suspicion that she acts as some sort of informant for the Vigilante. “You were bleeding and we stopped it mostly, but we can’t do much more than that if you want to go to a hospital—the police will be all over that, and he can’t be involved. But that doesn’t do a damn thing for the nine-millimeter still in your shoulder.” She studies Roy in a way that makes him a little uncomfortable, as though she can see right through the hardened exterior. “But I seem to remember that you don’t like hospitals. We can fix you up here, too, but it will probably hurt a whole lot more.”

She remembers correctly. “If you can do it here,” Roy insists, “do it.” The last thing he wants is to have random people poking needles into him again—too many trips to the hospital as a kid still make him nervous.

Felicity nods once before standing, pulling over a rolling tray of looks like medical supplies before waving to an empty space in the corner. Roy studies it for a moment in confusion, but he can’t do much more than stare when the Vigilante seems to appear out of nothing but darkness.

With the Savior and nearly being killed, Roy didn’t get a good look at the man who half of Starling City fears, but now he does. The van is dark and most of his face is shadowed by the hood or hidden under the mask, but the Vigilante looks like he stepped right out of an urban legend. It’s almost surreal, as though he’s not human, but something else entirely.

Ignoring Roy’s wide-eyed staring, the Vigilante walks over to Felicity, putting a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. Surprisingly, she doesn’t flinch or jump at the contact, almost ignoring him. “I can take care of this, Felicity,” the he says to her in a deep, nearly robotic voice, using some sort of device to alter the sound.