"Who are you, exactly?"
It was the question Jude actually wanted to ask. So, after a brief internal debate, he asked it.
The woman's expression cycled through several stages of disbelief in quick succession. "Me. You don't recognize me? Did you lose your memory?"
"Apparently. So — who are you?"
"You've even forgotten my name — oh my God." She stared at him. "Do you at least remember Oliver?"
"Oliver, yes."
"Great! At least it's not total amnesia!"
The fog in the back of Jude's mind shifted, and something resolved. Fragments of a tv show, a face that matched the one in front of him, a name that went with the ponytail and the glasses and the slightly exhausted energy of someone who dealt with too much on a daily basis.
"…Felicity?"
"There we go! Not a complete brain injury after all!"
Jude's expression went flat. She's absolutely beautiful. Why does she have to have that mouth.
"Barry mentioned a few friends in Star City," he said, keeping his voice even. "Oliver Queen, and someone named Felicity. But honestly — I don't have any memory of actually meeting either of you."
Felicity's face did something complicated. Confusion, a little hurt, and the look of someone recalibrating very fast.
"None of it? None at all? What happened to you?"
"I don't know," Jude said. "I woke up in the city center about nine months ago with a food truck and no context. I've been here since."
"That actually tracks." Felicity frowned. "You dropped off the radar in Star City about a year ago."
"Huh."
Jude turned that over for a moment. Then the shape of it clicked into place.
Time travel. Obviously.
In this particular universe, "bizarre, inexplicable, and abrupt" covered a surprisingly large percentage of daily events — and most of them traced back to the same root cause. Speedsters. The Flash's world ran on a timeline so elastic that half the major crises on record were caused by someone going too fast in the wrong direction and casually unraveling three years of cause and effect. The other half were ordinary villainy, which at least had the decency to be linear.
From the shape of the evidence, it appeared that some future version of Jude had done something in that same category.
This is the system's fault.
SYSTEM NOTICE: Please refer to Clause 1326 of the User Agreement. This system does not make choices on behalf of the user — it only provides options. The final decision has always been, and remains, yours.
Jude stared at the notification.
"What disclaimer? I never signed any disclaimer."
[This clause was fabricated specifically to unsettle you. Final interpretive authority does, however, rest with the system.]
Jude closed the notification, took a breath, and handed Felicity her hamburger.
"Whatever happened between us in Star City — I can't access any of it right now. But as you can see, things here are relatively stable." He met her eyes. "Whatever our history was, it doesn't change anything. If you ever need help with something, you know where to find the truck."
"You could come back to Star City with me," Felicity pressed, still not quite ready to let go of it. "Familiar surroundings might bring something back—"
"I can't leave Central City. Not yet." He shook his head. "There are things I'm in the middle of here."
"What kind of things—" She stopped, took a bite of the hamburger, and briefly forgot what she was saying. "Okay, your cooking is still absurd, how are you doing this with a food truck." She refocused. "You've been here nine months? I honestly can't picture a villain in this city surviving nine months of whatever it is you do. Did aliens show up? Is that why you stayed?"
"Your impression of me is genuinely off." Jude said this without inflection. "I'm a cook. I make food. Please stop inventing a reputation for me."
"A cook who's punched his way in and out of gang territory seven times?"
Silence.
On the bright side, Jude thought, at least this means I never had to go a round with Deathstroke. A few street-level gangsters is fine. 'Play it safe' remains the operative principle going forward.
That was actually quite reassuring.
"I don't know what you're referring to," he said, face neutral. "I'm a cook. If you want me to be something else, the consultation fee is negotiable."
Felicity looked at him for a long moment. "He hasn't changed at all."
She'd come to Central City for Barry — running into Jude had been a detour she hadn't planned for. After it became clear he had no intention of leaving with her, she took her hamburger, made a noise that was somewhere between fond and exasperated, and went to find Barry.
On the other side of the city, Snart navigated a route that doubled back on itself three times through streets he'd chosen specifically for their limited sightlines. An old habit. Only once he was certain no one was behind him did he pull over, get out, and walk into the safehouse.
Midmorning, but the windows were sealed and boarded. The room ran on lamplight, thick with cigarette smoke and the smell of gun oil. Three men — one smoking, two working methodically through the contents of heavy backpacks.
A bullet rolled off one of their fingers and hit the floor.
Snart crouched, picked it up, and set the paper bag on the table.
"Focus." He looked at each of them in turn. "Go through the firearms again. Count the rounds, count the magazines. I don't want an equipment problem mid-operation."
Click. Click. Click.
Nobody argued. One man was field-stripping and reassembling a series of submachine guns with the calm precision of a technician running a diagnostic. The other was counting magazines in tight stacks, double-checking the load on each one.
"You're going to make us check again right before we move anyway," the third said, cigarette burning between his fingers. "It's a few mismatched rounds. I don't see how it matters that much."
"It affects my mood."
Snart gave him a look that closed the conversation, then checked his watch.
"Eight twenty. The armored truck moves in ninety minutes. Between now and then: finish the gear check, eat, and we move." He set the watch face-down on the table. "When the operation starts — everyone stays calm. No deviation from the plan. No improvisation. No emotional decisions."
He let the next part land with deliberate weight.
"And nobody kills a cop or a security guard unless there is absolutely no other option."
Three voices answered, prompt and clean. Whatever else could be said about Snart's outfit, they were disciplined — held to a standard that most crews in this business wouldn't recognize as criminal at all.
But then, Central City wasn't Gotham. The people here were different. Even the criminals seemed to understand, on some level, that there were lines.