Author Note: This takes place after the events of the Zeta Project. So, Ro is 17, Casey's 23, and Terry and Max are seniors in high school. It crosses over with Ghost in the Shell and (vaguely) with the greater D.C Universe. No main characters of GITS will be mentioned, but the tech and some of the events will. There will be some romance later on. (You have been warned.) All right, on with the show. Soundtrack: Rocky wa Doko.
Agent James Bennett tried to stretch in the uncomfortable chair. He hated waiting rooms. Hospitals weren't that bad; after they dug the bullets out, it was all over bar the shouting. Waiting rooms just existed to suck life and time away. A doctor came out. He knew immediately from her expression that it wasn't good news.
"I am very sorry, sir," she said. "Dr. Selig passed away during the night. He didn't have much of a chance. Given his injuries and his age, it would've taken a miracle to heal him."
"Did anyone come to the hospital with him?"
"Yes, a young man and a girl. She was burned too, and I think she's still in the hospital."
The doctor showed them to the room, but was unnerved when the only thing left there was a batarang and a note. West turned white. Lee bit her lip. She'd expected something like this, but it was still a shock.
Bennett examined the note.
"Rosalie Rowan no longer exists," he read. "Well, that's just fucking great."
Batman had either kidnapped her or stolen her body. Rowan had been a thorn in their side, but he was worried anyway. Zeta was long gone, and they didn't have any way to predict where he'd go now- or what he'd do. If Rowan had died, Zeta's resolution not to kill might not last very long.
"What now, sir?" West asked, as Eastman jogged up to them.
"We go back to Washington to face the music," Bennett said bitterly. "Sorry, Lee shouldn't have dragged you along."
"Sir, I asked to be reassigned. It's no one's fault but mine."
She cast a last regretful glance back. She'd hoped that she could protect Ro, but in the confusion of the fire, she'd lost track of the girl. A fatal mistake, she thought and grimaced at the pun.
00
Casey Rowan knew that he was on the path to his dream job. But for the past week, he'd felt hollow. He knew why; his little sister was dead.
He wondered if Shakespeare's Juliet had had any brothers, and if they'd hated Romeo. Ro's fate was worse than Juliet's- Zee couldn't love her back, after all. The depression was only accentuated by the early hours he kept. His co-workers had remarked that he looked like an Irish ghost; green eyes, red hair and pale as a sheet.
He walked into the station, wondering why his coworkers were milling around.
"What is it?" one of his coworkers asked.
"I dunno, looks like gibberish to me. God, there's nothing worse than hackers," the station manager, Katrina Pierce muttered.
"Terrorists?" Patrick Schwartz, the morning anchor, asked.
"Nah. Terrorists usually have some sort of agenda. This is just a nonsensical message about a sick bulldozer," Olivia Sebastian said. She was the meteorologist.
Casey shoved his way to the front. All the computers and the weather screen displayed the same message.
It read: bulldozer recovering, prog good. Tin man.
Casey smiled. The code words were enough to confirm his hunch.
"I think I know how to make the message go away," he said. "Can I borrow your laptop, ?"
"Go nuts," she said.
He typed in, this is Casey. Can I see her?"
The reply was surprisingly quick: 'not yet. will call soon.'
Where are you? Casey typed.
'safe with friends. knight/rook/bishop.'
Casey frowned at the screen.
Zee's designations were apparently random; he always referred to himself as 'Tin Man,' Ro was usually 'Dorothy,' and Batman was the 'knight.' There was some internal logic, he was sure, but he'd never figured it out.
He typed, 'are you with her?'
'of course. shouldn't stay.'
'Let me know when I can contact her.'
'yes.'
'And don't be so hard on yourself. Take care of her for me.'
'Goodbye, Caulfield,' the screen read, and everything blanked.
Casey chuckled as the screens came back to life. He was glad Ro was safe. Anything was better than dead. Still...why hadn't he heard from them until now? Where were they?
00
The team had parted ways in Washington; of the team leaders, only West and Eastman had been retained. They were young and could put the embarrassment behind them. Bennett, last she'd heard, had a position at the Smithsonian. Two weeks had gone by in a blur.
She'd been hired by a Bludhaven detective agency. Richard Grayson, who was the head of the agency, had some amazing sources; she'd barely been unemployed twenty-four hours before she was hired. She hadn't even applied to the job. And it came with an apartment in the least bad part of town. Someone must've pulled strings for her, but she didn't know who.
As usual, when she came home, she locked the doors, turned on the holovision and her computer and started cooking. When she was halfway through dinner, the computer chirruped. She'd never heard it make that sound before, so she immediately took a look. Lines of binary crossed the screen and then formed into words.
'i think, therefore am..finally understanding this, yes/no/maybe..'
'input improved, coherence not..is a lee? yes/no/maybe.'
Just for kicks she typed in, Yes, Lee.
'm lee? yes/no. spending too much time here..'
She typed 'yes' again.
'r alive.. hurt..too much, shouldn't let get hurt..'
She blinked. Ah. Zee was completely plugged into the system and was having some difficulty filtering his thoughts. She felt dirty.
She typed in 'likely to recover?' yes/no.'
' pain now, mostly sleep..failure.'
Lee breathed a sigh of relief. Ro was alive, though she clearly hadn't escaped without injury.
'Location?' she typed in.
'not stupid.' the computer informed her.'with friends.'
She deserved that. Of course Zee wouldn't tell her where they were. He was extraordinarily protective of Ro, especially when she was sick or injured. Lee wouldn't call it love, but it was something a lot like it.
"What now?" she typed in.
'wait for r..restrictions.. read more/want more/ tin man wants heart.'
She understood the first part- Zee planned to wait for Ro to recover. The other fragments didn't make much sense, except that he felt or was, somewhat restricted right now. And was that a reference to the Wizard of Oz?
'be human, override all.. will go. Goodbye, Lee."
00
Zee disconnected from the net, retracting his cable from the laptop. Max had recently upgraded and let him have her old laptop. He'd spent five days tinkering with it to make it match his needs.
Luckily, he had nothing but time. Working on (and in) the net kept him from missing Eli or worrying about Ro. Speaking of...he glanced guiltily at the bed in the little room.
Ro was still healing; the burns were gradually fading, under Wayne's doctor friend's care, but the scars would remain. Zee suspected that Wayne was giving her some home-brewed stuff on the side, since she was recovering very rapidly.
Zee consulted his inner clock. Three a.m. He scanned the house. Terry was in the East Wing, Max was in a nearby bedroom, and both were dead to the world. However, one resident was still awake.
Wayne had, hopefully managed to regain his temper after the massive argument at dinner. Ro and Terry hadn't appreciated having their future planned out, and Max had nearly gotten kicked out of the manor.
Terry hadn't planned on going to college or getting a business degree. Ro was annoyed to find that her new identity was sixteen, not seventeen. She was also sulking about having to go to school. The only thing she and Terry agreed on was that Wayne was nuts for expecting them to work together. Ro thought Terry was an arrogant twip and Terry thought she was an out-of-control brat.
Max just wanted to use the Batgirl suit, and lost her temper when she found out that Wayne didn't want her on the streets. Wayne had worn all three teens down, eventually. Zee'd decided to wait to discuss his plan until everyone calmed down and Ro was off the pain killers.
Wayne was reading in the library. He closed the book he was reading as Zee approached. Ace sat by Wayne's feet and growled. Zee laced his hands behind his back and waited for Wayne to acknowledge him. (Old programming died hard.)
Not for the first time, Wayne wondered why Zee chose that look; he often mistook Zee for Terry. They both had black hair, light eyes and fair skin.
"What is it, Zeta?"
"I have had an idea. Do you know anything about cybernetics?"
Wayne shook his head. "To be honest, it wasn't a field that interested me. I used some of the research on external augments, but I only barely understood the basics."
"It occurred to me that the NSA might be satisfied by recovering my body. I could transfer into a prosthetic body and leave the shell for them. I've done some research, but I don't know of anyone who'd be able to help me."
"There is someone who might be willing. He was a friend of Richard's, not mine, but I'll contact him. Is the NSA your only reason for considering that course?"
"Why?" Zee asked, honestly puzzled.
"You care for Rosalie, don't you?"
"Well, yes, but why are you changing the subject?"
"I didn't think I was."
"I care for Max, and Terry and Dr. Selig, too... and you."
Wayne smiled slightly. "I keep forgetting you've only lived three years."
"Technically speaking, I have never 'lived' at all."
Wayne shrugged. He wasn't interested in a debate over semantics.
"I am surprised though. I'd thought you'd make use of me, rather than Ro."
"Batman has never been anything but human. I don't plan to change that. Rosalie is free to refuse, but I don't think she will."
Zee considered it. "You're right, but Terry's also right. It's very risky."
"Compared to what she's been doing for the last couple of years? If Rosalie valued her safety, she'd have left you a long time ago. Anyway, I've been meaning to ask...what do you want to do now."
"I have never thought about it," Zee said. "All that mattered was finding Selig. I had no plans beyond that. I suppose... if I could I'd like to work in the medical field."
He squashed down a quick mental image of a mini-Ro, all blonde hair and bright blue eyes, on a bike with training wheels. He had to run that anti-virus software again; he'd been feeling quite odd for the last few weeks. Considering all the time he'd spent hooked up to the mainframe, the odds of some bug corrupting his processors was quite high.
"You want to be a doctor?" Wayne asked.
"No. Med-tech. I recognize my limits."
"There's not much demand for medtech among the civilian population- at least, not in the States. But I'm sure you'll manage. Anything else?"
He'd suggested that Zee leave the country once. Zee's refusal had been emphatic.
"Is it normal to hurt without having a physical cause for the pain?" Zee asked.
"That's sympathy or heartache," Wayne said. He almost felt sorry for Zee sometimes.
"I don't think it's supposed to be in my software."
"Good luck finding an anti-viral program for that."
"It is odd," Zee mused. "I always knew that I should leave Ro behind; simple logic dictated that she'd be better off with her adoptive family, with Casey or with you. Instead, I kept her with me, and she kept getting hurt."
"Rosalie did have options, but she chose to stay with you," Wayne pointed out. "If she'd wanted to, she could have walked away. I meant every word of that offer I made."
"But the NSA..."
"They were only after her because of you. If she'd left, they would've stopped pursuing her."
"I see. It still doesn't make sense," Zee said.
"As a rule, humans don't," Wayne replied, yawning. "I'm going to bed. Help yourself to the library. Ace, come on."
Ace gave one last growl and followed Wayne out.
To be continued.. Reviews and helpful feedback are welcome.