Sighing, Thea tossed the pen in her hand aside and sent away yet another department head who had come "to report," but in reality was just here to show loyalty.
At this moment of transition between old and new leadership, problems came in droves. The old guard needed to be soothed, the new blood needed to feel valued. Backstabbing, undercutting, tripping each other up—those things were happening in her office almost every single day.
The Eye of Horus could distinguish good from evil, but the ancient concept of "good and evil" was very different from the modern one. Plenty of people who would've been deemed villains in ancient times were, within Queen Group, exactly the sort of hard-driving, highly capable talents she needed. Sorting these people out and placing them in key positions had burned through a lot of Thea's mental energy.
"I feel like I forgot something…"
She spun twice in her chair, and then it hit her.
"Crap! I forgot Oliver!"
She'd said she would bring him home. Now, because of the entire Diana situation, she'd delayed three full months. Was it too late? Of course it was… By now Oliver was probably already working under Amanda as a field agent, cutting a bloody path through the world.
With her relationship with Amanda, buying him back at some cost wouldn't be hard. But a version of Oliver who had fallen so deep into darkness… without all the trials and suffering of his original future, would he ever find his way back to the light?
Let him be.
Thea knew very well how tenacious Oliver's cockroach-like life was. So long as she didn't interfere, he'd claw his way back to the heights he was meant to reach.
That little trip through time had brought Thea huge gains, but there were still several things she hadn't gotten her hands on—things she would have to collect personally.
First on that list was Ra's al Ghul's demon sword. According to Lady Shangdu, that blade could siphon the magic from the Isis amulet. For Thea, who was chronically short on mana, that was like snow in winter suddenly getting handed firewood.
But the exact location of Nanda Parbat completely stumped her. Malcolm had gone off to Europe alone a month before she returned to Star City, leaving no contact information whatsoever.
Batman and Talia also knew how to get there, but if she told them she was going to pick a fight with their dear father, they weren't exactly likely to hand her the address.
Worse yet, Ra's al Ghul's boss was the Three-Palace Demon. Just thinking about that guy made Thea's liver tremble. Yes, that big demon was sealed, but better safe than sorry. Superman, Diana, and the Flash had ganged up on him and still couldn't break through his defenses. A monster like that probably could even go a few rounds with Darkseid. Thea genuinely did not believe she could win against something on that level.
The other thing that would be of tremendous help to her was the artificial intelligence hidden in the cutting-edge research facility in Central City—S.T.A.R. Labs, essentially. Thea might be walking the magic path now, but she hadn't forgotten the power of technology. She wasn't nearly reckless enough to stroll in cloaked and just try to steal it herself.
Through the Court of Owls, she hired an unrelated assassin to scout the way. When Thea saw the file on this woman—Alferis Stia—she was honestly impressed. Whether it was some sort of modification or a metahuman ability, Alferis fought with two daggers in her hands, while her hair could also control two more blades. According to her record, her success rate was a perfect one hundred percent. She had never failed a job.
Thea had the Court pay her retainer as agreed. The task was simple: all she wanted was for Alferis to probe S.T.A.R. Labs and map out its defenses.
But Thea still underestimated Eobard Thawne, the Reverse-Flash from the twenty-fifth century.
The moment the assassin stepped into the lab's perimeter, she was detected. Spectrometers, far-infrared sensors, vibration-sensing floors—every system started screaming at once. In under a minute, more than a dozen guards with rifles swarmed in.
To her credit, the assassin really was skilled. Even with three bullet wounds, she barely escaped with her life, returned the deposit, and adamantly refused to go back.
Thea had underestimated technology, and the woman's miserable experience was a slap in the face. She'd grown more and more reliant on magic, and this reminded her that she still needed to fear and respect science.
The advantages of that artificial intelligence were too great, though. Thea didn't want to give up. For her second attempt, she relied on Felicity's hacking skills to locate a security guard working inside the facility. After a deep-level subconscious brainwash, she manipulated him into going in to gather intel.
But three hours after the guard entered the lab, his abnormal mental fluctuations were detected. Thea rushed to restore his original personality, bringing all his metrics back to normal ranges. After a thorough examination, he was written off as "overly stressed," barely dodging disaster.
Thea knew she couldn't make any more sudden moves. Too many eyes were on S.T.A.R. Labs: various corporations, state governments, the military. Everyone had poured massive funding into the place; even Queen Group had thrown in a symbolic amount. With so much attention clustered there, Reverse-Flash wouldn't expose himself lightly, and she had no real opening.
What then—was she supposed to just wait for the particle accelerator to explode, for S.T.A.R. Labs to be reduced to a handful of survivors, and then make her move? Thea shook her head. That was too long. She was not willing.
Careful reflection reminded her that knowing the "script" of the future had its perks. Her gaze shifted to one of Reverse-Flash's most important future helpers: bio-engineering expert Dr. Caitlin Snow. At the moment, Caitlin hadn't joined S.T.A.R. Labs yet; she was still teaching at Princeton.
Thea's plan was to take a detour: apply to be Caitlin's grad student, then follow her into S.T.A.R. Labs later. In Western society, personal status lines were surprisingly flexible. A billionaire could be a superhero. A prince could serve in the military. Naturally, Thea could also be… an intern.
Originally she'd been dragging her feet, never going to campus to officially report in. The university had been threatening to expel her. But the moment they heard she was now the head of Queen Group, those threats died instantly. A "century-old prestigious institution"… all Thea could do was laugh dryly.
With her mind now enhanced by divinity, university-level coursework was child's play. Half a year to finish undergrad, one year for a master's, two for a PhD—easy.
That doctorate would invisibly boost her social standing. Bruce, after all, was a bona fide scholar who'd studied his way around the world, but with no official degrees on paper, there were still media outlets calling him an uneducated playboy. When she thought about it, Thea honestly felt bad for him.
Ra's al Ghul was a long-term objective. S.T.A.R. Labs was a mid-term goal. Thea's short-term goal, however, was very simple:
She was going to create a huge headline.
She wanted to do something that would be broadcast worldwide, something Diana would see no matter where on Earth she was.
If she couldn't find Diana, then she'd make Diana come find her.
But making truly global news was easier said than done. Her own mother had only just entered politics; it definitely couldn't be some scandal that splashed mud on her. That meant Thea had to pull off something spectacular but positive, something that would catch every eye on the planet.
She quickly pinpointed an event that met all the conditions—and would absolutely attract Diana.
She was going to rebuild the Temple of Artemis.
A pile of ruined stones out in the wilderness didn't sound like much. Level it and rebuild it—on paper, that seemed easy enough. With the political leverage Thea currently possessed, putting up a temple in Turkey was nothing more than a medium-sized project.
But that wasn't what she wanted.
She wanted global media attention.
The Artemis Temple she planned to tear down and rebuild was one of the Eight Wonders of the World. Her goal was to restore the ancient marvel on its original site with all its former glory.
She would be facing scholars and experts from around the globe, plus countless news outlets. The amount of resistance she'd encounter was hard to even imagine.
Her plan was to have the Court of Owls quietly buy off local Turkish parliamentarians and a few senior advisors close to the president.
On the surface, she would openly leverage her own identity, securing official approval from the U.S. government. One aboveboard, one from the shadows—two-pronged approach.
No matter what, she was going to turn this into a world-shaking headline in the shortest time possible.