Author's note; This chapter contains a few lines from Batman: Arkham Origins game, so I am herby acknowledging that. I only use it to tell the story, not take any of the credit. If anyone wants the specific lines I will tell them.
I wish to also clear a few things up. A guest commented on the last chapter that Barbara Gordon is in fact Jim Gordon's daughter. This is correct in some of the comics, especially the New 52's, and indeed the Arkham Universe games. This story is my own take on the best bits of all things Batman related so I tend to draw on material that is different to that in the games/New 52. The main one being about Barbara's parentage. In some older comics and those that are not in the New 52 universe, Barbara's father was Jim's brother. He and his wife (Rodger and Thelma) died in a car accident and Barbara was later adopted by Jim. As I have mentioned in the previous chapter and again in this chapter, Barbara's mother is still alive, and therefore has not yet been adopted by Jim. Sorry about taking up so much space, but seeing as the guest left no way to respond to their comment, I felt that this was the next best thing. I hope that my explanation clears that up.
Anyway, enjoy guys.
Christmas of the Bat
Chapter Two: Chaos at Blackgate
Seeing as her mother was working a double shift at Arkham Island so that she could have Christmas day off, Barbara stayed the night at her uncle's place, something which she had always loved doing. She was treated like a daughter by Jim and his wife Barbara, and she absolutely adored her younger cousin Jimmy.
So, as planned on Christmas Eve, once Barbara had arrived at the GCPD in Burnley she bid Jim farewell and headed down towards the sever rooms. As soon as she walked through the door, Barbara found Aaron Cash cursing angrily at one of the main computers.
"It can't be that bad," Barbara laughed as she made her way towards him.
"Thank God," Cash said as he turned to greet her in a thankful manner. "You have no idea of the grief that the Commissioner has been giving me this morning."
"Well, I'm here now," Barbara smiled, dropping her heavy backpack and moving to the main computer beside Cash that controlled the rest of the GCPD's system. "You did remind him that you aren't an IT expert, right?"
"I didn't have to." said Cash darkly. "He was the one who kept reminding me that I wasn't an IT expert.
"Then why –"
"Then why does he expect me to know what to do?" Cash finished Barbara's sentence for her, "No idea, but today isn't the best day to give him attitude."
"Why not?" asked Barbara.
"Calendar Man is being executed later today over at Blackgate," Cash reminded her.
"Oh yeah," Barbara said with a frown, Cash nodding slowly.
They got to work after this, Barbara attempting to find and fix the problem within the mainframe before restarting the severs to implement the changes. It wasn't an overly difficult task for her, it was more time consuming. It had only been half an hour when her uncle came rushing into the room.
"Cash," Jim said quickly, making both Barbara and Cash look over to him.
"Yes sir?" said Cash promptly.
"I need you up in the surveillance room," Jim ordered. "Are the severs back online?"
"Mostly," Cash told him as he stood up. "Barbara is finishing it all off now, but there are still going to be some kinks that we've missed."
"Nothing we can't fix," Barbara said, frowning slightly at her uncle. "Is everything okay?"
"No, there has been a break in at Blackgate." He said quickly. "Cash I need you to gain access to their video feed from here. I know you aren't an expert but until the cybercrime team get here you are the best we've got."
"A break in?" repeated Cash. "Who'd be mad enough to break into Blackgate?"
"It's Blackmask," Jim told him heavily.
"That doesn't sound like his MO," Barbara said out loud before she could stop herself, and her uncle gave her a how-the-hell-do-you-know-that kind of frown.
"Barb, you're going to have to finish up here and go and wait in my office while I am gone." Jim told her quickly.
"But –"
"No Barbara, no buts. Things are going to get chaotic in here very quickly." Jim said sternly, cutting her off before she could complain. "I can't believe I am telling you this, but just make sure the system is operational to basic levels then get to my office, understand?"
"Yes," Barbara said, attempting not to roll her eyes and Jim gave her an appreciative nod before turning and beginning to walk out with Cash.
"We really need a proper IT specialist," Barbara heard Jim say quietly as they walked out. "This is getting beyond a joke; Barbara is fourteen for God's sake!"
"I've tried to get one on a permanent basis, but the Commissioner wants to hear nothing about it." She heard Cash respond.
"Well maybe it's time that I had a proper chat with him." Jim said resolutely.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't appreciate it, Captain," Cash admitted quietly. "Although I will say that I'd miss working with Barbara."
Barbara gave a small smile, no longer able to hear their conversation any longer. She agreed with Cash; the GCPD definitely needed at least one technical support officer at all times, but she would miss the challenge it gave her when they'd ask her to help. She wondered if Aaron Cash would still let her help every now and then. Giving a slight shrug, Barbara got back to working on the servers, being interrupted a few minutes later by a put-out looking Branden
"For God's sake!" he exclaimed when his eyes fell onto Barbara. "Where the hell is Cash, I thought he was supposed to be the one fixing the computers?"
"He got called away," Barbara said, wishing that he hadn't of been now.
"I can't believe this," he said angrily shaking his head. "You don't even work here!"
"Well I wouldn't have needed to have been here in the first place if some idiot had of been more careful with their coffee!" Barbara reminded him with dignity, and Branden looked as though he was going to retort when an officer came into the room.
"Sir," said the young general duties officer.
"What is it?" snapped Branden impatiently.
"Sir, it seems that some evidence crates in the evidence room have gone missing."
"Missing?" repeated Branden. "I'm sure that they are here somewhere, you've probably just overlooked them."
"No sir, you misunderstand," the officer pressed rather bravely in Barbara's opinion considering the murderous look that Branden was now giving him. "Six crates that contained various controlled weaponry that was seized from Cobblepot's men yesterday have all been logged in, but they haven't been logged out –"
"Why are you telling me this?" snapped Branden. "It's not my problem,"
"It is your problem sir, because you were the officer who signed the evidence into the evidence locker." The officer said clearly and Barbara looked sharply across to Branden, whose left eye was twitching slightly.
"I would be very careful with what you are trying to insinuate here, officer." Branden said dangerously and Barbara bit her lip; braver men than this officer would have back-tracked by now, but incredibly, this guy seemed to be holding his ground.
"I'm not insinuating anything, sir, but you were the last person to see that evidence so you are going to have to come down to the evidence locker and make an official statement."
"Well it's going to have to wait," Branden said mockingly. "In case you haven't heard, there's been a break in at Blackgate."
Branden took one last threatening look at the young officer before walking out of the room, the officer bravely mumbling the word "arse" just as Branden was out of ear-shot, which made Barbara grin.
"You okay miss?" the officer asked.
"Yeah, fin thanks," Barbara nodded, giving him a smile. "Are you? I mean, not many people do what you just did and get to walk away, if you catch my meaning."
The young cop gave a slight chuckle.
"I'm fine," he admitted with a grin. "I didn't join the police to cover up some dirty cop's dirty laundry."
"Well, I think you're in the wrong police force," Barbara said in mock-seriousness. "I think the police force over in Metropolis would be more to your liking."
"You're Gordon's daughter, right?" he asked still smiling.
"His niece," Barbara corrected him. "Barbara,"
"Nice to finally meet you," he told her. "I've heard about you and all. The name's Dwight Morgan."
"New recruit?" she assumed.
"Yeah, just gone six months," Morgan answered.
"And they've got you in the evidence locker already?"
"They obviously thought I'd cause less trouble there," he grinned before waving goodbye, leaving Barbara alone again, this time with a small smile on her face still. Maybe the GCPD wasn't as corrupt as she thought, but then again, it may not take much for Officer Dwight Morgan to be persuaded otherwise after that little confrontation with Branden. Giving a small sigh, Barbara reached for her backpack and retrieved a police radio (that had once belonged to Branden but Barbara had commandeered it) and turned it on to listen to the events at Blackgate while she worked.
It wasn't long until it became evident that things weren't going so well for the police over at the prison. Black Mask's men had taken the warden, Martin Joseph, hostage and had begun to let some of the prisoners out. Barbara had begun to listen more attentively once there were mentions of a giant crocodile rampaging through the place before it sounded like the Police Commissioner himself had been taken hostage and she heard her uncle instructing every available officer to get to the prison. Barbara quickly finished off the main updates to the mainframe as the reports over the radio started to become much more serious and alarming, and it sounded as though Calendar Man had somehow escaped the gas chamber and that the Commissioner had been killed and because of this, absolute pandemonium had broken out.
Once back in her uncle's office, Barbara sat at Jim's desk, nervously bitting her nails as she waited with baited breath to get more information about what was going on, and most importantly, information about her uncle, whom she hadn't heard over the radio in almost twenty minutes. She relaxed a bit when she heard "We have site on the bat, I repeat, the Batman has been sighted!" No more than two minutes later came Jim's disgruntled voice saying that the Batman had gotten away. This fact made her smile.
- O -
After almost an hour of waiting, Jim finally walked through his office door to be met by Barbara's relieved hug.
"I was worried about you!" she said quickly, her arms still firmly wrapped around his neck, "Especially when they started talking about giant crocodiles! Is Commissioner Stevens really dead?"
"Yeah," Jim said solemnly, holding his niece tightly. "Black Mask locked him in the gas chamber and activated it."
Barbara gasped in shock, letting go of her uncle. Jim didn't have time to try and comfort her because Aaron Cash, followed by Branden, burst through the office door.
"Sir," Cash said, panting slightly as he grabbed hold of Barbara's police radio and began to tune it to another frequency. "We have a problem."
"What now?" asked Jim disbelievingly.
"Seems like we ain't the only ones after the Bat now," Branden said with a smile on his face. "Black Mask has put up a bounty of fifty million for the Bat's head and apparently a group of assassins have come to Gotham in order to deliver."
Jim swore under his breath, one hand resting on his hip, the other rubbing his forehead; a sign of stress.
"This will tear Gotham apart," he said darkly.
They all fell silent as they heard chatter on the new frequency that Cash had just tuned to and it sounded like radio chat between higher ranking thugs.
"So, Penguin wants us to kill the Bat, right?" said one voice.
"No, you idiot, the Bat doesn't exists, the Penguin wants us to find out what Black Mask is really up to." answered another gruff voice.
"Oh come on, if Black Mask is willing to pay fifty mill-"
"It's a cover, it has to be. Either that, or Black Mask is finally losing it!"
"But even the Electrocutioner has been roped in, I heard him telling Mr Cobblepot!"
"What was he saying?" asked the second voice, not sounding as sure of himself as before.
"Something about a group of assassins moving in to Gotham… a couple mercenaries, a few hired guns, that kind of thing. The Bat isn't going to know what's hit him!"
Barbara looked back up to her uncle, worried about what she was hearing via the radio. He remained silent for a while before looking determinedly to Branden.
"Get SWAT ready," he instructed. "We are going to have to bring this vigilante in before chaos breaks out in our city. The emergency curfew is going to work in our favour. You have half an hour to brief you men, Branden. I'll need a small team to continue to look for any sign of Sionis; everyone else will be on the lookout for this Batman and the assassins. Cash, get me Wertz and tell Bullock to get everyone assembled in the bullpen ASAP."
"Shoot to kill?" asked Branden.
"No," Jim answered sternly. "Under no circumstances will we kill him. He needs to answer for his crimes, do you understand?"
Branden gave a reluctant nod before he and Cash left the office, and after telling Barbara to stay in the room, Jim left too. She listened in silence through the door to her uncle's briefing; feeling as though he was making out that this whole fiasco was Batman's fault, which didn't sit right with her. Sure, the Batman was a vigilante who spent his nights beating bad guys to a pulp, but she didn't think it was right that he was to be arrested because someone else put a ridiculously large bounty on his head. As Barbara heard Jim dismiss his men, she moved back to the chair behind the desk.
"You make it sound like he's the one in the wrong tonight," Barbara said slowly as her uncle walked back into his office.
"He is," Jim said sounding exhausted.
"I bet he isn't too happy that he's got a fifty million dollar bounty on his head. I can't imagine anyone asking for that."
"Barbara, let's not get into the details," Jim told her after giving a sigh.
"Why not, I'm not blind; I can see what's going on here." Barbara said firmly, getting to her feet.
"And what is that?" asked Jim sceptically.
"Batman's out there catching the criminals that you let walk free!" Barbara argued, hating the fact that everyone, including her own uncle, seemed to dismiss her just because she was so young.
"He is the worst kind of criminal," Jim said, his own temper obviously flaring up now too. "He's the kind who thinks their actions are justified - who acts completely outside of the system - "
"The system is broken!" Barbara snapped. "We hardly have a system anymore and you know it! You work in one of the most corrupt building in the whole of Gotham City, surrounded by bent police officers who beat innocent homeless men and Commissioners doing shady deals with crime lords! If you actually take a minute to look at it, Batman always seems to turn up to stop a crime; he does what you wish you could to clean up this filthy city!"
"Barbara -" Jim attempted to say, but Barbara strode angrily out of the office, picking up her bag as she went.