Aspen sat in the Arrowcave, reading through old mission reports from the Team on her laptop. For a covert-ops team, they sure did break their cover a lot. And explosively at that. She clicked to another file and skimmed the details but stopped as the Arrowcave's system read out Artemis's designation.

"Recognized: Artemis, B08."

She waved to the archer as she materialized onto the Zeta platform. The blonde walked over to Aspen and looked over her shoulder at the computer screen.

"Case files?"

"Yep"

Artemis nodded. "Cool. Which one are you looking at?"

"August 8th, 2010. You guys were protecting a scientist from—"

"Cheshire and Black Spider," Artemis finished. "Yeah, I remember that one. It was my first mission with the Team." Her face scrunched up. "Well technically my second, but my first 'official' mission."

"Oh?"

"I saved them from AMAZO."

"Wait, but the mission report never mentioned anything about that," Aspen said, looking between her screen and the archer.

"It was an android made by Professor Ivo a few years ago," Artemis explained. "Long story short, before I was an official member of the Team, I shot an arrow at AMAZO to distracted his while the Team beat him and disassembled him."

"Cool," Aspen said, trying to wrap her head around the idea of an android that could mimic the powers of the League. "So, what are you here for?"

"Training."

"Cool, want me to get out the targets?"

"You can shoot?"

"Not well, but I could always use some practice."

Aspen and Artemis grabbed the targets from a corner and set them up on the other side of the room. While Artemis started her target practice, Aspen grabbed one of the extra bows that was laying around the Arrowcave. She inspected it and pulled it back a few times to see how stiff the string was. Not too bad.

She looked around for a specific quiver of Oliver's trick arrows. When she was sure Artemis wasn't looking, Aspen grabbed one of them and went back over to the targets.

She lined up next to Artemis, who's arrows had almost all hit the red bullseye.

"Wow, thanks for setting the standard," Aspen said as she let out a laugh. She nocked an arrow, pressing a small button on the shaft before pulling the string back to her cheek.

"I don't expect you to be able to—"

Aspen let the arrow go. It glided through the air and hit dead center on the bullseye.

Aspen looked over at a speechless Artemis and gave her a smile. "What," she said, "didn't think I'd hit it?"

Artemis looked between Aspen and the target multiple times. "No, I just wasn't expecting you to get a perfect shot like that one a first try. Like I get that Green Arrow is you dad, but..." she trailed off, looking once again at the arrow stuck in the center of the target.

"Don't worry, I didn't actually hit the center," Aspen said. "Well, the arrow itself hit the center but I didn't make it do that," Aspen explained to a bewildered Artemis as she walked towards the target. She pulled out the arrow and showed it to the archer. "It's a prototype trick arrow Oliver got a while ago. I think he planned to use it for extreme weather conditions, but he hasn't touched it since. But it's fun to prank people with it sometimes. Oliver forgets that he has these at times."

Artemis shook her head and laughed. "So what would have happened if you actually shot a normal arrow without any special modifications?"

"It might hit the outer edge of the target if I'm lucky," Aspen admitted. "Four years of no practicing probably doesn't help either."

"C'mon, I want to see you try."

"Fine," Aspen sighed. She went to go get another arrow but Artemis stopped her.

"Nice try. Use one of my arrows so I know you're not tricking me again."

----

Aspen sat at her laptop, coding with her wet hair pulled into a towel atop her head. She wrote line after line of code before finishing and she decided to see if it worked.

"Okay," she mumbled as she typed a few more things, "time to see if Miss AVITA will work." Aspen opened up another program on the laptop so she could safely run the AVITA test without risking anything being harmed. "In 3, 2, 1." Aspen took a deep breath. "AVITA?"

"Yes, Miss LaFont?"

Aspen let out a loud squeal and threw her fists into the air. Yes! It worked! "Uh" she tried to think of an easy command. "Can you show me the last message I sent?"

"Of course."

Aspen moved back from the laptop and watched as the screen brought up her messages, the last one being to Margaret and Dylan. She squealed again, internally this time.

"This is so cool!"

"What's so cool?" Aspen spun around and saw Roy standing in her doorway, arms crossed. He looked slightly thinner than the last time she saw him, and he was starting to show bags under his eyes. A small stubble was growing on his chin, as well as a more messy style atop his head, kind of like he'd been neglecting it.

"Roy? What are you doing here?"

"I was in town and thought I'd swing by for a favor. Once again, what's so cool?"

"Well," Aspen started, turning her laptop towards him more and waving him over. "Remember the program I started writing a few mon—no," Aspen paused, realizing that it wasn't months ago, but years. "Sorry, a few years ago, I guess?"

"Vaguely," he said. "Didn't you want to expand it or something?"

"Exactly!" Aspen exclaimed. "My goal was to create an AI to help all of us on missions and in the Arrowcave."

"And you finished it?"

"No. Not yet. But I did come one step further to finishing it! Watch!" Aspen turned to her computer. "AVITA, uhh, show me... a picture."

Roy gave her an annoyed look and Aspen motioned for him to look back at the computer screen. He let out a huff and looked back over. Suddenly, Aspen's files opened up onto her screen and a random picture popped up: Her, Margaret, and Dylan at a science fair in 8th grade.

"So, your AI looks up pictures? That's cute."

Aspen slapped his arm and glared at him. "No, dummy. It's not fully functional so that's just a basic command. This is just the beginning! Just think of all the time we can save by using AVITA!"

Roy didn't look impressed. "Haven't you watched any sci-fi movies recently?"

"Not really. I've been too busy being missing and then trying to restore the memories of said state of being missing," Aspen deadpanned. "I'll add the rewatches to my list. In fact," she turned back to her screen, "AVITA, add 'rewatch sci-fi movies' to a list."

"Yes, Ms. LaFont."

Roy just stared at Aspen. He shook his head lightly and continued talking. "AI always becomes the bad guy."

"The Computer at the Cave hasn't gone rogue." Roy rolled his eyes and sighed. "What? It's true!"

Roy sighed again. After a pause, he spoke. "So, just out of curiosity, how long do you think it'll take to do everything you want to do?"

Aspen's face lit up and a warm buzz spread through her body. Aspen knew Roy was interested in it! "I don't know, anywhere's from a few months to a year? I can't be sure. I've never developed an AI before." Roy nodded. "So," Aspen started, "What's this favor you need?"

"Joseph Skeller. I need you to tell me where I can find him."

Aspen turned to her computer and opened up a database site that they used in the Arrowcave. She typed the name into the search bar and scanned the results that popped up. "Any hunch on an occupation?" she asked, looking back at Roy. "I've got a plumber in New York City, a teacher in Montreal, a geneticist in New York, a police officer in Scotland—"

"Wait, go back one."

"The geneticist?" she asked.

"Yes."

Aspen clicked on the name and it led her to a profile on the man. "Joseph Skeller, age 48, senior geneticist at Rockwell Laboratories for the past 10 years," she read aloud. "Wait, no. This isn't right."

"What's wrong?" Roy said over her shoulder.

Aspen pointed to where it listed his work history. "It has him listed as the senior geneticist, but there's no way he can do that without any experience."

"He got lucky?"

"No, this kind of job requires years of internships and shadowing. But this page just lists that he went straight from med school to a senior role."

"So you're saying someone changed his information?"

"Yeah, and they went through great lengths to do it, too. They had to have been a skilled hacker," Aspen paused.

"Ms. LaFont's previous experience with computers has proven to be a viable asset to our plans."

Aspen looked around the room for the source of the sudden voice. "Who said that?"

"Who said what?" Roy asked, following her gaze around the room.

"Yes, we were wise to not wipe such memories yet."

"Aspen? What's wrong?"

"Uh," Aspen paused as she tried to place the two voices in her memory. "Nothing, I'm fine."

"This database is only used by the League and a few high-ranking government agents. Most federal agents don't even know about this."

"Is there any way you can fix it, figure out what it's supposed to be?"

"Yeah, give me a second," Aspen said as she began to type feverishly on her keypad. Another window popped up above her current screen and she scrolled through it, looking for any discrepancies that would help her fix it. "Here we go!" She pressed one last key and the page refreshed, now showing a long list of internships and previous work experience for Skeller.

"Wait," Roy said as he pointed to a name on the screen, "does that say—"

"Cadmus Labs," Aspen finished. What was Roy looking into that led him to a former Cadmus scientist? Was this about the original Roy? "So he was a geneticist there up until a few years ago, and then took the senior position at Rockwell."

"Can you find out what he was working on?" Roy asked impatiently. Aspen looked at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring at the screen.

"Uh, yea," Aspen said as she focused back on the computer screen. "Give me a minute." She clicked on a few more things until another page popped up. A Cadmus Laboratories logo headed the top of the page and it looked like a report. She skimmed it for a second before telling Roy what it said. "It looks like he was working on cloning projects for Cadmus—"

"What projects?" Roy interrupted roughly. Aspen paused and looked back at him.

"If you didn't interrupt me I would have already told you."

Roy stayed silent as Aspen turned back to her computer screen and tried to find the information that Roy wanted, but to no avail. "It doesn't specify," she said as she shook her head. "It just mentions cloning projects."

"Is he still at Rockwell now?" Roy asked.

"According to this, yes. He lives a few miles away." Aspen grabbed a piece of paper next to her computer and wrote down the address, then handed it to Roy.

Roy nodded from beside Aspen and took the paper. "Alright then, thank you for your help. Tell Ollie I said hi." He ruffled Aspen's hair around before walking towards the door.

"Wait, you're leaving already? You just got here!"

"Like I said," Roy repeated as he stood in the doorway. "I'm only swinging in for a quick visit. I had to meet someone on a lead, and they gave me the name so I came here to get more information," Roy said before disappearing from the doorway.

"For you?" Aspen called out, getting up from her desk chair. She really didn't mean to bring it up, but it just kind of slipped out.

After a long silence, Roy reappeared. "So," he said. "Someone told you about that." He ran a hand through his messy hair and looked away from Aspen.

"Yeah, Artemis did. A while ago." Aspen folded her arms.

"Sorry I didn't tell you. I—"

"I get it, Roy. We all have secrets. I don't care," she said. "I spent almost as much time with you as I did with the other Roy. I care about you finding him, but you also need to take care of yourself." She took a breath. "Please don't get consumed by this."

"I'll try my best, but I need to find him."

As Roy walked down the hallway, Aspen's eyes drifted over to the flashdrive Jason gave her last week. She hadn't even tried to open it or break the decryption on it.

"AVITA."

"Yes, Miss LaFont?" Aspen grabbed the flash-drive and plugged it into the USB port.

"Run password-decryption."

"Error."

"What do you mean 'error'?" Aspen said as an error message popped up on the screen. "'Unknown command'? Really?" she said as she read the message. "Guess I'll have to work on you more before you're able to help me, then."

Sighing, Aspen pushed herself away from the desk and spun around in the chair as she looked up at the ceiling. She pulled the towel off of her head and shook out her hair. A stray piece of teal hair fell into her eyes and she blew it out of her face.

Suddenly her phone buzzed, vibrating the whole desk. Aspen scooted back over to look at her phone. She clicked the notifications and saw a message from Dylan and Margret that simply read: 'Look outside NOW'.

Aspen looked out the window, expecting to see a sunny landscape and possibly a large number of birds passing by. Dylan would always let them know when such events would occur.

She was not, however, expecting to see Star City covered in a fine layer of snow.

* * * * * *

What is UP ladies and gentlemen. I finished this chapter after literally 3 months and can FINALLY publish it. Quarantine really messed up my writing productivity and I've had writers block for EVER.

BUT, I digress.

This is part one of a three-part arc, hence the cliffhanger, and I plan to post the next two parts in the upcoming weeks.

So what did you think of this chapter? Any questions? Comments? Concerns?

Don't forget to comment, vote, and share this book with a friend!

I hope you enjoyed it!