15284/Phoenix Towers: What Lies In The Basement

Phoenix Towers: What Lies In The Basement
Date of Scene:	11 July 2023
Location:	Phoenix Towers
Synopsis:	Team Arrow, with an assist from the Black Widow, discover something unexpected in the basement beneath Phoenix Towers, the implications of which might make cleaning up the neighborhood considerably more challenging then expected.
Cast of Characters:	Oliver Queen, Natasha Romanoff, Emiko Queen, Felicity Smoak
Tinyplot:	Phoenix Towers

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Oliver Queen has posed:
Ownership of the Phoenix Towers Residential Complex has officially been transferred, with Queen Consolidated at its CEO Oliver Queen officially taking ownership of the building from it's previous owner.

If they can truly be called that. Slum lord would probably be a more accurate description.

Either way, the future for both the building and, more importantly, the tenants should hopefully be in much better hands now. Which is a good thing, given just how much work there is to be done. Elevators that don't work. Problems with the plumbing. Water damage in places. And air conditioning? Hah. Forget about that. The list of repairs and needed enhancements is considerable, and will not come either quickly or cheap.

And those aren't even the biggest problems. No, that would be the sheer amount of crime in the local neighborhood. The drug deals that go down on nearly every corner -- when they're not conducted right in the lobby of the residential complex -- or other nearby, similar buildings -- themselves. The general harassment and intimidation of the residents. The theft. The extortion. All of it a blight on the community. All of it which needs to be dealt with.

Which is why Team Arrow has temporarily relocated from Star City and set up shop in New York City itself. The last of the shipments from back west have finally arrived and it is finally time to get to work.

Step One? Setup an onsite depot where the team can quickly regroup and rearm as necessary. Before contractors can come in and get to work making repairs and enhancements, they need to make things safe. Having somewhere right in the neighborhood to run the field ops part of the mission just makes sense. And in this case they have the perfect location, right on site.

The basement of the Phoenix Towers has been sealed off for quite some time. Structural problems, the previous land lord reported. Maybe some mild flooding. Rats. The story kept changing. Either way, now that the building is theirs it is time to get to the bottom of things.

The hour is late, well past midnight and the lobby of the building has long since been abandonned. Soon there will be security cameras and a fully staffed, twenty-four hour security desk to help protect the tenants and cutdown on the level of crime in the building itself. But for tonight the lights flicker -- where they aren't burnt out entirely -- and Oliver Queen is one of the few actually present. Even then the customary business suit is missing in action, replaced instead by the dark green garb of Star City's protector. The Green Arrow.

The yellow tape that criss-crosses the stairwell leading down into the basement is casually broken and he starts down towards the heavy door with the padlocks on it at the very bottom.

Despite the late hour, Queen and his associates are not the only ones at play tonight. In a nearby alley, a parked car waits, it's headlights illuminating the narrow passage. A moment later a door opens and a figure wearing dark sunglasses and wielding both a briefcase in one hand and a white cane in the other is escorted out into the alley by a trio of rough looking men. All three wear jackets despite the warm, sultry evening and all three sport suspicious bulges that look suspiciously like automatic weapons, not so carefully concealled beneath those jackets...

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Normally street crime isn't the sort of thing that necessarily would be on the Avengers radar. Or necessarily SHIELD's. But with weapons on the loose from the failed coup that Hydra did some months ago, it's made for heightened alerts and a willingness to spread out. So thugs with heavy weapons have gotten the attention of Natasha Romanova while she's out tending to her own affairs. Said affairs include having left a body stuffed in a closet of a nearby motel and having pocketed a few data slides and a DNA sample. The body will be found in two days when it starts to turn into goo and a cleaning crew comes upon it.

But that story is neither here nor now. Now.. Now, Natasha Romanova is parking her motorcycle nearby, putting it into an 'idle' mode as she props it up against a wall near the alleyway to conceal it partially behind debris, and goes to dart along to a position of hopeful concealment. She's quiet, very quiet. And moving to try and get in a position for covert overwatch. Taking out some thugs will do very little of use. Even the middleman likely won't have much to offer. No.. Natasha's going to follow along and get as much intelligence as she can. Even as she reports in her side-op.

Emiko Queen has posed:
"Structural damage. Rats. Plumbing issues. Flooding," ticks off one of Green's companions. This one being the younger Arrow, clad in dark red and grey instead of green hues, hood pulled up so combined with the domino mask conceals the majority of her head and face. Just in case someone happens to stumble across them, because who knows what hooligans are polluting the crime ridden neighborhood at this hour. "The fact that he could not settle on one story only makes me more suspicious."

She was there when Oliver met with the scuzzy former owner. She didn't like him as soon as she laid eyes on him. And even if he is out of the picture his shinanigans are likely going to come back and bite them in the collective butts.

The caution tapes are cut, and she is ready to proceed down with little issue. The flickering and failing lightning isn't going to bother her. She's a former assassin, she's train to work in the dark and shadows.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
Felicity isn't there. Well.. she's there. She's just not /there/ there. She's sitting in a high-rise penthouse with a fantastic view of central park, but instead of relaxing on the balcony and enjoying the night air, she's sitting at her satellite Team Arrow command center...

...aka the Arrowsuite. Not that they call it that.

Okay, so, she might have. Once.

<< "Comms check. Everyone there? Hoping this frequently doesn't accidentally trigger any alarms or, you know, summon an army of killer robots. Stranger things have happened." >>

Four screens cast an eerie glow over her in the otherwise dim penthouse, a standard layout of monitoring dashboards spread out across them -- police dispatch, aerial and satellite imagery of the area, live video feeds, building plans of the twin Phoenix Towers.

<< "I'm got a steady up-link to the drone." >>

As if to demonstrate the fact, it zipped away from where Oliver had released it, flying up into darkness of the night.

She'd sent a done special with Oliver because the closest security cameras she had were a couple of streets away. And, while they might still provide useful in a pinch, they didn't really give her any 'eyes in the sky' beyond what she could get out of Oliver and Emiko's body cam feeds.

<< "Uhhhhhh.. were we expecting help from SHIELD on this and no one told me? I'm picking up chatter from an operator moving in the area. It might be a little.. jarring, but I can patch her in. Still, it might be less jarring than jumping out of the dark at her. Or.. you know. Vice-versa." >>

Oliver Queen has posed:
Walking what appears to be a blind courier to the waiting car, one of the armed men opens the rear door while another helps the man with the briefcase in. The door closes and the car springs forward, driving at a sedate pace out of the alley and onto the quiet streets of Hell's Kitchen. All nice and ordinary. Nothing that might draw the attention of the authorities.

The trio of armed men? They turn back to the waiting doorway with the solitary light that hangs above it giving the alley a small island of light in that sea of darkness. Beyond the open door a narrow hallways can be seen, running only a few feet before a staircase seems to lead downward.

Heading down the nearly blackened stairwell, Oliver grips a flashlight in one hand, one that can be clipped to his uniform or bow should the need arise. And while structural problems or rats don't usually require a solution involving arrows, a little preparedness can go a long way in situations like this. "It didn't exactly fill be with confidence either. I figure whatever it is, we can deal with it. I just want to make sure that we can properly seal off a section of the basement for our little depot," he replies to Emiko with a tight smile, pausing at that heavy door and it's numerous locks. "Convenient, that he didn't happen to leave us the keys. You'd almost think that he didn't want us going back there," he muses sardonically.

The end of the flashlight is gripped between his teeth as he pulls out a pair of lockpicks and goes to work, making relatively short work of the first padlock. Then the second. And a third.

They really didn't want anyone getting in there, now did they?

The last lock surrenders as well and Oliver jerks it free while plucking that flashlight back out, gripping it in one hand, finger going up to his ear for just a moment as he listens to Felicity in his ear. << We copy Overwatch, >> he offers back quietly, a faint smirk appearing on his face. << Don't tempt fate. If we get ambushed by a pack of kilelr robots down here, I'm blaming you, >> he warns drily.

Then he tries the door. While the locks might be gone, it doesn't so much as move. Brow furrows and a small frown worms its way onto Ollie's expression.

<< SHIELD is active in the area? No, not I. I mean, outside of the League I'm not really tuned into their activities. If Arsenal is online he might know something," he suggests as he tries the door once more. Again, nothing. The door remains stubbornly in place.

Well, that's just annoying isn't it? << If you think you can do it without getting in trouble, go for it. Just be careful. If they decide to run a trace on you, well, their tech is a little better then Queen Consolidated... >> he points out. This time when he tries to open the door he puts his shoulder into it, hitting it hard. Once. Again. The door gives way a few inches, enough to open it a crack.

"There's something blocking it on the far side," Ollie says with a scowl, glancing back at his sister. Taking a step back, he kicks hard at it and the sound of a number of heavy crates coming crashing down to the ground echoes in the otherwise silent stairwell, the door finally swinging open.

That doesn't bode well.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko Queen tilts her head, both watching Oliver struggle with the door, and listening to Felicity give additional situation rep. << Better to have them know we're not part of the potential problem they might also be investigating... Who knows how deep the criminal roots run in this district. >> Could Mr. Slumlord been into something high enough to have SHIELD's attention? Who knows. << We trust your discression. >>

Right now, they have the door to deal with. "Do I need to do the ventilation method to find a way i--" She stops as there's several thuds on the other side and the door finally opens. "-- Oh good, we can avoid that trope down. Hurrah," she deadpans sarcastically. Mostly because she knows darn well she's the only one of the two that would of fit into doing Die Hard style.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And Natasha is going to dart along after the men as they go down into the tunnel. She's taking another way in after them. The men are professional - they'll be looking back and forth, and if she tries to duck and use cover, then there's alwyas the risk that they might spot her from the movement - they're trained, the'll already be looking for any good places someone might spy on them.

So, Natasha goes to pull something more out of a Spider's book than her own normal modus operandi. She goes to take a quick jump up and over to land on the wall above where the men are going along that are escorting the seeming middle manager wiht hte briefcase. Natasha goes to cling to the wall - her gloves having a series of small suction capsules on them that would hold firm and latch while her boots would do the same at a quick press of a button, small spikes darting out to cling and hold her in place. So she's up above, out of immediate notice.. And hopefully that means that no one will be looking up. Normally wall crawlers have the reputation of being a bit snarkier after all which tends to not lend itself that greatly to sneaking. From her perch, Natasha goes to get a good position.. Then also goes to throw down a very small 'dart' to land quietly on the briefcase. The dart would land, and presuming it gets a solid grip on it would act as a homing beacon - the transponder 'pinging' if it was good and connected to give another way if things got chaotic to keep track of it. Always nice to have a secondary plan ahea dof time after all.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
<< "Did you /literally/ just insult my tech? And here I thought we had a good thing going..." >>

But Felicity's screens were already flashing and the drone was moving up out of the normal height for human ears to pick out, its nearly silent blades lost in the din of New York background noise. On it? A black-and-white FLIR picture of the alley below with heat dots of the three guards... and one wall-crawler.

Then the new tracking signal blinks on the map, and as the car starts to take off with the briefcase, the dot on the map starts to move, too.

Switching over to the SHIELD comms, Felicity patches the frequency she'd picked up while scanning with her own team's frequency so that everyone could hear each other. Meanwhile, she's doubling the rate at which she's bouncing between VPNs.

<< "SHIELD, this is Team Arrow Overwatch. Be advised, we've got operators moving inside Phoenix Towers -- codenames Green Arrow and Red Arrow. I've linked comms, and I've got eyes on you. Southwest. Seventy-five feet up." >>

If Nat looks up, the drone will briefly flash a red light that's nearly invisible, if you aren't looking for it. See how professional Felicity could sound when she needed to? She almost sounded like she'd been doing this for a few years across multiple teams.

Oliver Queen has posed:
With their charge off to who knows where, the three armed gunmen slip through that open door and back into the nearby building, chattering amongst themselves in Chinese. While they certainly seem competent enough for criminals, perhaps a little more training would have reminded them to look up before slipping through that door, though the shaded light no doubt all but steals whatever nightvision they might have.

As they pass through that threshold, the door slowly starts to swing shut behind them with a quiet, metallic squeal, clearly no better maintained then the rest of the neighborhood. Moments later the sound of steps taking those stairs can be heard echoing back towards the alley before the door can completely slide shut.

All in all, he could have done without the noise, the tumbling crates seeming to echo almost painfully loudly in the otherwise quiet stairwell and the Green Arrow can't help but wince -- just a little. Well, maybe it will have scared off any waiting rats. Instead he gives a small shrug of his shoulders and shoots a brief smile back towards Emiko. "Would I do that to you?" he asks, the corners of his mouth twitching.

Why yes, yes he probably would. "Can you imagine how filthy it probably is in there? Somehow I doubt cleaning the ducts was on the previous landlord's agenda," he points out drily. "But if you're volunteering..." he suggests slyly.

Well, the evening is not off to the best of starts on any number of fronts, is it? They're going creeping around a condemned basement, Oliver has just made a whole lot of unwelcome noise, and it looks like he might be in the doghouse.

Yup, the vacation is definitely over.

<<I'm just saying, they have an unlimited budget. And we don't,>> the green-themed archer hastens to defend himself as he steps through that now open doorway and into the passage beyond. The tipped over crates have sprawled everywhere, and at least one has broken up spilling what appear to be heavy stones out across the faded linoleum floor. "Interesting choice," Ollie says flatly, stepping around the debris and moving deeper into the hallway.

On one side an arch opens up and sets of ancient-looking washing and drying machines are stacked in the room, the few ground-level windows at the very top of the wall sealed over with boards. The laundry room them. Before he can move any further down the passage the new silence is suddenly broken by bursts of gunfire at the far end of the hall, bright muzzle flashes briefly illuminating a pair of men who rain down bullets towards the pair of archers.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And there is Natasha going to let out an internal sigh that no one would notice. And she moves to speak plainly over to her comm and gives a quick hand signal over to the drone to acknowledge that she had noticed it and was confirming her agreement. Then taking over a moment..

<<understood, Team Arrow. This is the Black Widow, SHIELD Operative. I'm not here after a primary objective, so how can I assist with your operation?>> They were here for a reason,she was just engaged in some.. Call it exploring. That meant that she had to make usre to be an asset to them and not mess up what thier own goals were. It was the professional way to be. Seh wasn't asking for a briefing or anything else. <<Keep me synced up with your comm-network>> Now she's going to get ready to dart after the others as soon as they signal her to go along.

The soundof the tumbling crates gets her attention.. And then the gunfire does several moments later. She doesn't bother cursing even as she sees the blasts of automatic rifle fire going down. She's not at a great angle where she can launch herself to aid the group and get shots off on their attackers.. Sos he goes to call along the comm <<Throwing smoke!>> She goes to take out two small smoke pellets, and moves to take them in her hand.. Then she goes to hurl them through the air! HOpefully they land somewhere in between the archers and the shooters, just enough to give them that extra edge needed to dodge the gunfire!

Emiko Queen has posed:
And old laundry room. Windows high to be at street level, and difficult to sneak in (or out) through. They're possibly not even clear on the outside, if they're in the alley or such. Room likely hasn't been used in some time.

<<Interesting time to be investigating this part of town Miss Wido-- >>

Then gunfire.

Highly trained reflexes and situation awareness kick in, Red Arrow dive-rolling to the side without even really thinking what she's doing. To come up against one end of the washer stack, convenient cover. The smoke bombs probably helped too.

It only takes her a moment to get up to speed. At which she leans around the edge of the machines, just far enough to have drawn her bow and firing an arrow in the direction of the gunfire.

<<Flare up>> But instead of hitting any one target it erupts midair into a blinding blast, after having given a comm warning just quick enough for her counterpart (and the drone) to not be looking directly into the flash as well.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
<< "Backup is always appreciated. They're cleaning out the basement." >>

Gunfire.

This was the part that no one liked, but Felicity particularly hated. She had cameras on both Oliver and Emiko's comm units, so the drone stayed outside, watching the street where she had /no/ cameras. But other than that? She was helpless. The best she could do was try to provide as much top-down intel as she possibly could to the room at large.

<< "There's cover on either side of the arch. Plans say the gunfire's coming from an L-shaped corridor that opens up to a large storage space." >>

Felicity's voice comes faster before, and while the stress can be heard, it's also obvious that this is just something that happens... routinely.

Oliver Queen has posed:
As Black Widow makes her way down the stairwell and deeper into the sub-basement the passage at the bottom of the stairs splits, one hall running away to Phoenix Towers and another in that same direction, despite being under another building entirely. Where the wall should seal off the two seperate buildings, it has been battered down, a gaping hole left in the foundation of both buildings to allow free access for those passing back and forth.

While Natasha can see the hallway where the pair of gunmen currently stand firing down towards the pair of archers, it is what is inbetween that might be a bit of a surprise. It would seem that the basement of the Phoenix Towers has been turned into a drug lab. Fluorescent lights hang from the ceiling offering a degree of illumination, letting the SHIELD operative see the two rows of tables where men and women all stand working, mixing, cutting and packing away an impressive amount of what would appear to be heroin. And all of the workers? All of them wear dark sunglasses, all of them move with a certain care that suggests that each and every one of them is blind.

A further half dozen armed men -- definitely not blind -- roam the room with automatic weapons slung across their shoulders. Though of them, four of them are swiftly moving to join the pair who fire down the hall -- definitely threatening to leave Team Arrow outnumbered.

Of course that just leaves a pair of guards to look over the rest of the operation and they seem more concerned with what's going over by the hall too. And it leaves them with their backs turned to the Black Widow as well.

Up the hall that gunfire is something of a surprise. And while he might not have been expecting anything of that nature down here, Green Arrow is not one to be caught standing in the line of fire for long. He is diving for the arch leading into the laundry room just like Red Arrow, landing in a roll that brings him back to his knees almost at once. "That is not rats, nor is it a structural problem," Ollie says grimly. Clearly something a whole lot more nefarious is going on down here. The former owner of the building has a lot to answer for, that's for certain.

Then Widow chimes over the comms and smoke fills the passageway outside the laundry room, offering them a degree of cover. <<Copy that. Thanks for the assist. What the hell are gunmen doing in the basement of my... of this building?>> Ollie asks rhetorically over the comm, unslinging his bow from his shoulder and creeping forward, making sure his camera gives Overwatch a look down that fog shrouded passage.

His own gaze peers through the mist, the periodic bursts of fire giving off flashes. Enough so that he can launch an arrow right back, drawing and firing in one smooth motion. Rather then aimming for either of the bursts, he aims high -- the reason for which becomes apparent a moment later when the arrowhead bursts open, right above the two gunmen -- and a heavy net explodes out, the weighted ends of it bringing it down overtop of them, leaving them tangled up and struggling to free themselves.

Without a word Green Arrow motions to his partner, and darts into the passage, racing through that cloud cover.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Well, this is a new one. Natasha's not seen this sort of.. Worker setup before. Something to review later if need be. But the reinforcements coming in do have her attention. Gunmen in along with civilians she doesn't know the status of means she has to hold back - she can't risk them being caught in a crossfire or things catching -on- fire. And drug labs can be very, very explosive. She can't use one of her Widow's Bites either as it risks misfiring and catching other things. In such an enclosed space, it puts too many at risk.

Natasha goes tos peak to the comms <<INtercepting reinforcements>> She gives her direction and the location of them and goes to charge in. Even if the men do shoot at her, her reflexes are good. She goes at a high angle, a double flip to try and get them to raise thier guns upwards to shoot at her. A motion that goes agaisnt normal training and instinct, so hopefully the men will be a bit slower on the draw. That gives her that extra hundredth of a second to land and close the gap. Where she's then swinging her reinforced titanium batons to hopefully smash her way through them. Her strikes are aiming for limbs - wrists, shoulders, knees, elbows. She's going for strikes to break bones, leave soemone immobile, and prevent them from fighting back if she can. She just wants to drop the guards present as quickly as possible so they can decide what to do with the civilians - who also may be willing.

Emiko Queen has posed:
<<There must be multiple entrances,>> Red Arrow murmurs over the comm. <<The way we came in was barricaded.>> She doesn't specify which way that was, as it would give a little too much suspicion out in the open air.

Not that the air is very open in the corridor. Between smoke, flashbang arrows, and a handy net the two gunmen didn't stand a chance. Green Arrow makes way into the smoke screen.

Red Arrow follows, though she pauses at the men tangled in the weighted net. "You won't be needing these." And kicks their guns away before they can recover, leaving them completely helpless in the binds before she follows after the elder archer.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
/What the hell are gunmen doing in the basement of my... of this building?/

<< "Maybe they couldn't afford the penthouse?" >>

Sometimes, worrying about the people you care about getting shot called for humor.

Actually, a lot of the time it called for humor.

/There must be multiple entrances./

<< "I went over the plans a dozen times. There's nothing on them. If there's access, it wasn't by design." >>

Of course, she couldn't see what Nat saw -- the wall had been battered down and a hole left in the foundation for her to get in through.

Oliver Queen has posed:
Fortunately Natasha has a big advantage. The gunmen lingering near her entry point are both distracted and entirely unaware of her presence. So as she leaps out to take them out, they don't even react, at least not until that titanium baton as taken the first of them in the knee, dropping his with a sharp yelp of pain, the next blow putting him down flat on the concrete floor with hardly any effort. His partner manages a 'What the fu--" and starts to swing around that gun in her direction before he is rapped across the wrist, dropping the weapon in a clatter on the ground, swinging clumsily at the Widow as he grimaces in pain.

Even with the disturbance around them, the blind workers just continue to work diligently, almost as if they are entirely indifferent to the gunfire around them. Packages of the heroin are neatly packaged and carefully laid into boxes beside each of them, the street value being packed away impressive to say the least.

Clearing the mist and finally able to take in the scene, Green Arrow spares a brief moment to glance around before drawing another arrow towards the quartet of guards that move to cut off him and Emiko, already bringing their weapons up. At least they're pointed away from the unarmed, blind workers.

<< They're running a drug lab down here Overwatch, >> Ollie reports, drawing a bead on the nearest of the charging thugs and shooting an arrow that takes the man in the shoulder before he can bring that gun to bear on them, half-spinning him around. Before he can follow up however the other three guards begin to spray automatic gunfire in bursts of three towards the two archers -- fortunately still unaware of the SHIELD agent coming up behind them.

It does mean that Oliver needs to dive out of the line of fire again though and he goes sprawling behind a collection of lockers that have all been pushed out of the center of the room to one side to make room for the operation. << Looks like the foundation wall has been breached from the next building over. That's why the basement access was sealed off. >> he reports over the comm, peeking around the lockers to try and get a bead on the last of the armed guards.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
And the guards are more than happy to let Natasha get up behind them. She goes to speak to the comms <<I presume that the workers are here voluntarily. I don't see signs of duress.>> They don't seem to be tied down, they don't seem to be hyperventilating and terrified.. Of course, they could also be drugged and conditioned in other ways, so that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The fact that they're continuing working even with gunfire scattering about is also testament to that as a possibility.

Natasha is amongst the guards hopefully before they can open fire extensively on the Arrows. Her strikes are for crippling ones once more. She doesn't want to leave the risk of them regaining mobility and going to try and use the workers as hostages or keep up the fire. So she's going to try and get in as many hard hits as she can to take their opposition down and make sure they won't be getting out of here in any other way than a gurney. They can incapacitate them all and then sort things out from there. <<Is the foundation still stable with the breach?>> Just what they all need is if the building's structure is disrupted from the digging and then the firefight if it went into a support beam. One panic and freakout at a time here after all.

Hopefully Natasha can take at least this group of guards down quickly and without too much of a risk to the others.

Emiko Queen has posed:
Emiko Queen too has to move quickly. This time they are expecting counter attacks though and she's already running the options in her head.

The red clad woman darts forward instead of sideways though, propelling herself down low and into a slide. Both to clear under the gun fire, and to drive her heel into the gunman's leg to throw him off balance. Specifically so he falls away from the blind bystanders.

As he goes down she twists up, grabbing an arrow from her quiver as she does.

Rather than load it in her bow though Emiko thrusts, spearing it through the man's weapon arm to pin him to the ground. The assassin training shows, as it is a brutal and efficient, but not lethal, take down to put one more enemy out of the fight.

Felicity Smoak has posed:
<< "I'll start checking if we have a good contact with NYPD narcotics. Be careful... of both explosions /and/ fumes." >>

Felicity was careful to offer reminders. Not orders. Oliver was the leader of this show, and she wasn't about to tell him to pull back out and regroup with gas masks and hazmat suits, but the concern is there in her voice, regardless.

/Is the foundation still stable with the breach?/

<< "I don't see any signs of abnormal settling since the last engineering study of the area. Long term, we'd need to have a structural engineer update the report to be sure. Adding it to the list." >>

Oliver Queen has posed:
Maybe if he hadn't been caught unaware, maybe the lone guard left to defend against the Widow's approach could put up something approaching a fight. As it is there really isn't much of a challenge, certainly not for a combatant of her training. The wild swing finds nothing but air of course, and when she counters with those crippling strikes he is swiftly taken down as well, leaving just the trio still standing.

Or is that a duo? There is something to be said for the direct approach and while Oliver might leap for cover, Emiko's decision to charge -- or slide -- ahead pays dividends with another of the guards down in a heap, the sharp stab of her heel followed by the arrow to pin him swiftly takes him out of commission as well.

Fortunately for all -- especially the unsuspecting tenants in the building above -- none of them use firearms, or at least choose not to use them. So far, they seem to have gotten lucky with the criminal's use of them as well. No fire, no explosions. But the sooner this is over with, the better, and with that in mind Green Arrow lunges out from behind the cover of those lockers, a blunt-end arrow let loose as he does, striking the closest of the pair right in the gut, doubling him over. He doesn't even slow down as he simply hurdles over that guard's back and lashes out with his bow, cracking the last standing guard across the chin, whipping his head around and sending him down to the floor before whirling and striking out at the doubled-over man just behind him, bringing a temporary silence to the concrete chamber they find themselves in.

Even now, the blind workers just obediently continue to work, package after package of the heroin wrapped and packed away. Business as usual.

<<Hopefully the NYPD has something,>> Green Arrow agrees over the comms before glancing over the nearby workers, sharing a nod of thanks with Natasha. "Something definitely eems off about them, doesn't it?" he agrees quietly, moving over behind the nearest one he lays a hand on the man's shouler. "Hey. It's okay. You're free," he says quietly.

The blind man turns slowly towards him and tilts his head as if considering his words. Finally he nods and starts to turn back to the table in front of him. But one hand darts down to his pocket, drawing out a vial and before Oliver can stop him he has downed it's contents. Almost at once he begins to foam at the mouth, to start to shake violently before collapsing.

Right about then they might begin to notice that the others in the line along the table have begun to reach for their pockets as well...

Emiko Queen has posed:
The fact that not one of the workers flinched, blind or not, at the fight going on is certianly off. "This is indeed not normal. It is like they have no will of their own beyond the work--"

The one Oliver tries to rostle out of it instead drinks some concotion and starts to froth. "Shit."

She proptly spins around, aiming to smack the vial out of the hands of anyone else near by. "That is -not- what he meant!" They are.. drugged? Brain washed? They can figure out specifics later.

But there is no way she can stop all of them at once, she's not -that- good.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
Natasha's eyes almost widen for an imperceptible moment. She can recognize the signs. That sign in particular. So when she notices virtually all of them going to do the same motion, the reaching for something in their pockets.. She reacts. She goes to yank along her Widow's Bite gauntlets. She charges it up, even as she goes to take out a half dozen of the small ones that sne can throw like darts. Those are launched onto the ground around each line of people. Then she goes to snap out with her Widow's Bite on a far too powerful charge as she has no time to estimate how much energy to use. She blasts along the network of energy that she's setup.. And from each person to the next, it's like a mobile taser being shot into each of them. As many as she can keep up in the network, at least. FOr however many people are being caught up in the massive blast of electricity that would give most of them seizures and drive them all unconscious hopefully, down to the ground spasming.. After a few too many seconds, Natasha stops the charge. Then she's barking orders.

"Restrain them. Hands behind backs. Ensure they're breathing and have clear air passages. As soon as they're all restrained, quickly search them in case they have other termination measures." Natasha is meanwhile going rapidly towards each of the guards in turn - she's going to try to hopefully disarm each of them - she's not wanting ot give them any chances to try to draw a weapon and fire into the mass of people. Presuming she can, of course.

It's a race in which seconds matter. If she put them through the network of electricity for too long, then they might have heart attacks or worse. If she didn't give them enough of a charge, they could still take the poison. If she didn't get to the guards fast enough, then they could crawl to get a weapon and open fire again. All of these things, seconds.

Oliver Queen has posed:
It is a shock, watching someone so casually kill themself for no apparent reason and then second person in that same line manages to down her poison cocktail as well to fall foaming to the ground before Emiko is leaping forwards to knock vials out of nearby hands. Oliver too starts to spring forward to try and prevent an even greater tragedy.

And that is when Natasha acts. While she might have been concerned about the Widow's Bite and the effect it could have earlier given the instability of drug labs, it is worth the risk now because no other method is going to take out the two dozen or so blind workers who are suddenly intent on suicide. As those darts fall, as that electric current runs through them and they drop there are fortunately no ill effects, No fires, no explosions. They're probably lucky they're not in a meth lab.

A look of relief passes over Oliver's features beneath that green hood, enough so that when Natasha starts barking orders he only spares a brief moment to shoot Emiko a sardonic smile before hastening to aid in that effort, ties appearing in his hands as if magic as he moves down one side of the table, binding hands and doing a quick search before moving on.

He's worked long enough with the Justice League and other allies now that he is a reasonably good team player. That was not always the case in the days and weeks and even months after first escaping Lian Yu.

In short order both down guards and stunned workers are bound, weapons and implements of harming themselves sitting in a pile in the middle of the room and a thoughtful Oliver Queen studies the gaping hole in the far wall that leads into the building beyond. "This is a little worse then I was expecting," he murmurs to his sister before raising his voice, << Overwatch, we have the situation under control if you can contact the local authorities and send them our way for pickup. >>

Emiko Queen has posed:
"That's an understatement. This is certainly deeper and darker than we expected."

Emiko turns to look around a bit. "I am going to go make sure there are no other unexpected egress points." With which she starts to walk away, wanting to examine the walls and such. They knew the blueprints they had of the building were... out of date, to keep it simple. But that this operation was going on down here, taking advantage of several blind and probably homeless people, was another matter.

There was a bigger force behind this. Bigger than that scummy former land lord. Someone pulling strings behind the stooges put out to be seen.

Natasha Romanoff has posed:
As soon as everyone is disarmed adn restrained, Natasha goes to add, "Ensure that the authorities keep them heavily sedated and under suicide watch. This goes beyond normal conditioning. It could be psionic or mystical in nature. This is more a hallmark of the Hand's or other groups." The types of things which your normal police/ER lockup might not be in the best position to deal with.

"As soon as they're coherent they're likely going to be trying to kill themselves once again." Her tone is matter of fact and casual on it. "Also they all likely have a similar point of origin. Some central network or registration." They're all blind. So someone needs a way to keep track of and recruit large numbers of blind people. An organization, a central database, a list.. All thsoe sorts of things which are possible for followup investigation and cross referencing.