Pipe Bomb

Two: TERROR pt. II

As the loud, disruptive boom rocked the neighborhood to the core, the residents down below automatically ducked and dropped or ran in any and every direction before realizing the disastrous explosion hadn't occurred down where they were. Glass suddenly came plummeting onto the streets and sidewalk in what felt like a wave of death. Mothers sheltered their children and ran across the road to the safety of the small park as others who were not so lucky were pelted by the falling debris of glass, building material, and more; the force of gravity causing their wounds to become severe and – for some unfortunate few – fatal. The ground was covered in building materials, blood, and bodies that either writhed in agony or remained motionless, their suffering already long ended. Screams rang out below, but all seemed dwarfed by the shout of terror that flooded from above.

The residents' eyes looked upward in absolute horror at the sight of two bodies dangling on a ledge beneath the entire floor now engulfed in flames from the explosion's fire spreading.

Above the chaos below, Terry groaned strenuously as his right arm clung to an overhanging ledge from an apartment's balcony. His left arm was extended down…and the dangling Max clung to it for absolute life. "MAX!" he yelled between grit teeth. "HANG ON!"

Easier said than done. Max's manicured nails had torn through the fabric of McGinnis' favorite brown jacket, acting as hooks that momentarily had her stabilized. But, the grip was not solid, and already Max could feel the strength leaving from her fingers. "TERRY!" she screamed fearfully. "DON'T LET ME GO!" She was positive right after the explosion and flying through the window that the next thing she would have felt was the agonizing strike of concrete before meeting absolute darkness. But somehow in the midst of that chaos, Terry had been able to adjust his position and grip on her, extend a hand, and by some bat-y miracle catch hold of the ledge of the apartment beneath hers. Death had been cheated…for now.

"JUST HANG ON, MAX!" Terry urged her. "I'M GOING TO PULL YOU UP." The secret hero of Gotham tugged upward; McGinnis hollering as slowly his left arm raised, struggling under Max's weight plus the harsh gravity that threatened to snap his arm and stop the heroic attempt. But, thanks to the work he'd put in developing his strength as the city's non-caped crusader, he was stronger than ever before…he could do it. "Max! Take the ledge!" A faint glimmer of hope surged between the both of them as sanctuary of the ledge grew closer. It was going to work! They were going to be okay! She was almost there. She was literally right there. With a laborious whine, Max extended trembling fingertips for the balcony, literally inches from safety, when a secondary explosion shook the building – causing McGinnis to flinch and Max to plummet downwards, just managing to catch his left arm again with a scream. "SHIT!" yelled McGinnis out of both the pain in his arm and disappointment in not getting Max to the elevated position. But that wasn't the worst of it: by now both of their strengths were completely sapped, and death loomed over once more.

"TERRY!" the young genius screamed, legs flailing madly as her hands struggled to maintain a grip on his jacket. "TERRY I'M SLIPPING! I'M SLIPPING!" Max's eyes instinctively faced down to the street far below where people were gathered in terror. Flashing lights from emergency vehicles danced across the area like Christmas lights as unintelligible words over a megaphone tried to reach them. She looked back up at her best friend with unspoken and unimaginable dread.

Oh God. He was losing her. Terrence felt his soul turn to ice as he looked down in absolute, mind shattering, strength depleting terror. Somehow he knew she was going to go. "Max!" McGinnis urged, an emotional crack making itself evident in his voice. "MAX! DON'T LET GO!"

Manicured fingertips struggled to gain hold onto his jacket as an icy chill ripped through both teens' very bones. "TERRY!" she screamed, bracing against the wind.

Terry's own fingers searched for some part of his best friend to latch on to – each passing second to no avail. "MAX!"

There was so much that Gibson had never seen or never done. So many things that she wanted to say to the people she cared about and the ones she didn't. All of those opportunities and possibilities melted away from the girl in a manner that revealed her true level of insignificance to this brutal world. Max's eyes widened and glazed over as she whispered with a newfound, heartbreaking and frightened realization: "I'm slipping…" Her grip slacked and she dropped further down McGinnis's arm to the very cuff of his sleeve.

"NO!" Oh God, please don't do this, Terrence thought to himself in an agonizing plea.

"I'M SLIPPING!"

And then, he remembered! He remembered that he still had on his person an object that could save them…if there was still time left. McGinnis raises his chin and slaps it repeatedly against his jacket collar, struggling to find the intricate device there frantically. After a few seconds of this, he feels a pressure and a click, and the small, practically invisible com-link within his ear rings just two times before a voice on the other end of the line answers gruffly, "Yes?"

"Bruce!" practically screeched the Batman protégé in more desperation than relief. "Send the jet to my coordinates!"

Wayne immediately sits up and grows rigid at the beyond noticeable panic in his young apprentice's voice. Without the slightest thought, the old man begins typing command codes into the Bat Cave's super computer – causing an immediate chain of automated reactions within the cave as sounds and hums whistle throughout, drowning out the soft cries of the residential bats. "What's going on?"

"JUST DO IT!" growls the teen as he tries to maneuver his legs to clamp onto Max as a second means of preventative measure to keep her from plummeting to what would only be certain death.

Bruce hears the sounds of screaming and sirens in the background and slams a fist against a red button in the corner. "Just hang on, Terry."

"HANG ON MAX!" He feels her grip drop from the cuff of the jacket into his very palm. The horror of the crowd raises in degree as McGinnis clenches his grip around her own, trying yet again to pull her up to the ledge; but his body was exhausted and not reacting to his attempts. He was spent. And that could only mean—. "Bruce!"

Wayne narrows his nearly white-aged brows. "30 seconds." He touches a key on the computer pad as video surveillance appears on the screen. The old man grabs his jaw in suspense, almost ripping off the very skin as his heart gallops with anxiety. Would it make it in time? A dark resolve begins to overwhelm the original Batman that he fought diligently to ignore…in vain.

This was it: the end. Max stopped struggling. She looked her best friend dead in his beautiful blue eyes as a loud approaching sound blots out her words…words of goodbye. But Terry could read what she was saying. He knew what she was doing. He knew she had accepted the end. He knew it was the end. "MAAAAX!"

Maxine Gibson's hands fell, catching nothing but air as she slipped away from Terrence McGinnis and dropped towards the waiting ground. The cries of the crowd welcomed her as Max gave one final scream of farewell.

"BRUCE!"

The Batmobile dashes from the distance at Mach speed, its top open expectantly as it pushes its safest limits to reach her in time, whizzing by with such speed that the glass from passing buildings shatter. The vehicle nosedives and accelerates after its plummeting quarry, swooping in just a few floors from the ground. Just at the last minute, just when it seemed as if all that would remain of the teen was a horrendous splatter of carcass and concrete, Max crashes back first into the super speed jet as Terry watches with anxious relief. He managed to get a final look at Max just as the top closed and the jet zoomed off into the autumn distance. As the crowd below cheered, Terry sighs and tells his predecessor via the com-link attached to his jacket collar: "Thanks, old man…"

"I still got it."

Alongside a groan of wearied exertion, Terry swings his opposite hand upward and pulls himself over the ledge and balcony just as a group of firemen kick down the door and help him finish the climb safely. Through the open door the vigilante could see countless firefighters dashing back and forth within the complex halls; some escorting residents down to safety, while others were rushing to complete the battle of the explosions' now dying blaze. With a heavy sigh, McGinnis looks down into the gathered crowd, not even believing that he could have been looking at what remained of his best friend splattered below. But the hero's silent prayers of thanks are cut off at the sight of a man at the edge of the park. The man wore a large trench coat (making himself MORE obvious) and had been looking up at the building with what appeared to be a painted face. Terry didn't have the best sight in the world, but he was positive by the way the figure turned from the chaos that it was far from happy at how things turned out. McGinnis narrowed his brows, watching the figure finally disappear through the trees altogether. When sure that no one noticed, Terry touched the com once again and added in a tight voice, "Bruce? Get Max somewhere safe. I'll meet you."

Tempted as the previous Dark Knight may have been to ask his protégé why, he could tell from the teen's voice that there was far more going on than he currently knew, and that whatever it was, was on the verge of dangerous escalation if McGinnis's suspicions were correct. So, rather than give the kid a hard time, Wayne merely narrowed his brows and altered the directive he'd previously inputted into the jet's navigation system. "Acknowledged."

Barbara Gordon was walking out of her office doors surrounded by a platoon of Gotham PD Officers to head to an apartment complex explosion, when the new, advanced Batmobile descended at the edge of the office's front steps. Gordon raised a brow, wondering to what she owed an unexpected visit from Batman as her officers raised their guns defensively to protect their Commissioner. Gordon rolled her eyes – jumpy little bastards, weren't they? But rather than coming face to face with Gotham's notorious vigilante, instead they were all shocked to the see the top of the black vehicle pull back and reveal a young African American female with pink hair curled up inside and looking at her surroundings as if she were stupefied.

As Barbara approached, the past Batgirl recognized the inhabitant to be none other than the female who was friends with McGinnis and the Dark Knight. In fact, Barbara was pretty sure that this child was the futuristic equivalent of her old role as the Oracle. Still, vigilante assistant or not, the fear on the teen's face wiped away all other disputes, and Gordon immediately rushed to her aid. "Hey, kid!" Barbara called out as Max struggled to climb out of the vehicle and drop into the arms of the awaiting officers. "GET A MEDIC OVER HERE, NOW!" hollered the Commissioner as she noted Max covered in cuts, burns, and bleeding all over the sidewalk. "Kid," she cooed gently, giving Max's cheek a light slap to keep her awake once she'd been brought down to the safety of the concrete. "Stay with me. Help is on the way."

Max groaned, finally starting to feel every burn and fragment of glass. "Terry…" she whispered.

"You gotta tell me what happened. Where did you come from?"

Max sighed, exhausted from the ordeal altogether as she matched eyes with the Commissioner – thinking to herself that this was the original Batgirl, and admiring everything she'd done in the past and was doing even right now. Guess old habits were hard to kill, after all. "My apartment…it exploded. Someone put a bomb in my closet."

Gordon furrowed her forehead. So she was related to the apartment explosion. "Who would do that to you, kid?"

"I don't know!" cried out Max, the confusion hitting the absolute fuck out of her at the question. "Why would someone put a bomb in my closet? Why would someone try to kill me?!"

Barbara stroked the girl's hair to calm her as she looked impatiently down the street for the ambulance that had yet to arrive. But her focus was on more than medical personnel's arrival. Something about this situation had the senior woman's mind working, figuring, remembering. Somehow the Gotham Commissioner knew that this wasn't some freak accident or isolated incident. Barbara had the distinct feeling that what happened to this girl today did so for a reason…and that this wouldn't be the only attempt. But why? Why did she think that?

Finally the ambulance arrived and the emergency technicians loaded the victim onto the gurney for transport. Gordon directed a few of her officers for the ambulance. "I want this girl to have a police escort and security detail at the hospital. I'll make sure to get the proper paperwork filed so when she's released, she's put immediately in police custody."

One of the lieutenants scratched the back of his head. "You think there's a motive behind this, Commish?"

Barbara hummed. She followed the gurney up to the ambulance as Max was carried inside. One of the tech's looked down at an electronic chart and began asking all the necessary questions as the driver jumped out and prepared to make a mad dash for the wheel while two police cars pulled up – one in front of the ambulance and the other behind. The tech typed something onto the touch screen pad and asked, "Do you know your name, miss?"

His passenger nodded. "M-Max. Maxine Gibson."

Barbara froze. Maxine Gibson. That's why she had a feeling there was something more going on…because her name was on the chart Gordon had gotten last week. Maxine Gibson's unfortunate attack wasn't an accident – not when it involved damn bombs placed in her closet. What happened today was perfectly intentional. Maxine Gibson's life was in danger, and the one who did this would surely strike again. Barbara knew he wouldn't stop until he was satisfied – and judging from his psych evaluation, he wouldn't be satisfied until Gibson was dead.

He wouldn't stop…

He was going: Terminal…

To be continued…