Author's Note: Last instalment in the story. Not great by usual standards, but at least it's finished. Hopefully I'll finish others too. Enjoy.
Robin 4
It has been just over forty-eight hours since Alex Deacon was taken into police custody. In that period, he has attempted suicide twice and been successfully resuscitated both times. He is presently sedated and restrained in the infirmary of Gotham County Jail under the security of an armed guard. It would appear he is too indoctrinated by the Talon to supply any useful information: all efforts to engage him in conversation either in the interview process or interrogation have been met with silence. I have therefore decided to devote the majority of my energies into examining the Bird-Schwarz Award Scheme supposedly based out of Gotham City College. The next planned assassination is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I must find a lead before then. I have less than eighteen hours.
The scheme was introduced less than three years ago as a means for those aspiring for a career in politics to intern for the city's government bodies, namely the deputy mayor and his staff. So far, there have only been two individuals to have profited from the scheme's introduction, Samuel Fitzpatrick and Alex Deacon. Fitzpatrick is currently employed by the mayor's office as a junior aide to the department of public transport and is an entirely respectable and unremarkable young man. With that in mind, I focus on the actual persons behind the scheme's introduction. There is only one man fronting this scheme. His name is Witney Andrews and is a known benefactor on the fundraising circuit come election time. I delve deeper.
There are a distinct lack of links between Andrews and any of the targets to credibly identify him as the Black Talon. Despite this absence of evidence to the contrary, I sense Andrews is the man I need to investigate. All public photographs of him show clear symptoms of a deeply troubled soul hiding behind a veneer of contentment. It is the same mask of normality I adopt myself when in the scrutiny of the media. That his scheme has bankrolled a brain-washed would-be assassin is also something I cannot overlook as coincidental. So I press on.
It is ninety minutes later. The boy has returned from patrol duties in the city. In my efforts to identify the Talon, I have disseminated all routine patrols to Robin. I know he can handle them. Although somewhat consumed with my research, I have also been monitoring the boy's progress closely throughout the night. From listening to the police scanners and radio frequencies I have noted twelve separate instances in which the boy's participation was instrumental to success. These instances included four attempted rapes, two counts of burglary and six counts of physical assault and petty crime. It is an impressive tally for a solo effort, especially when taking into account that he tackled a total of forty-one individual assailants in thwarting these crimes. I believe on his final physical assault intervention he faced down thirteen combatants and overcame them all handily.
"So, progress?" The boy asks as he leaves his bike and begins climbing up to the command centre.
"I have made some." I respond whilst gesturing to the intelligence profile I have compiled on Andrews in the last hour, "We need to investigate this man." Robin draws up alongside me and regards the expanded picture of Andrews filling most of the screen.
"I thought the hit was tomorrow."
"It is."
"Well that means there's not enough time to investigate this guy before the next assassination happens."
"Unless we go now." I say already getting to my feet. "I have an address." The boy's expression is one of exasperation. I understand he is tired.
"Do you really need me for this?" He says as I begin to head for the armoury.
"Only if I am proven correct that Andrews is the Talon." I say whilst shedding my civilian clothes. I begin to put on my survival suit as the boy appears in the doorway.
"And how sure are you that this is the guy?" He asks. I finish putting on the survival suit base layer before turning to face him.
"I have uncovered evidence that he is the man funding Marghetta's apartment through an assumed name of Connor Black. It took substantial digging to determine that Connor Black is an alias for Andrews. The difficulty alone of finding the link is more than enough to suspect he is hiding something untoward. That Connor Black is a known criminal associate of Marghetta and has a fabricated record in the GCPD database compels me to believe he is the Black Talon. The moniker Black possesses, 'the Condor' is also too much of a coincidence. In short, I am almost certain Andrews is the Black Talon." I tell him having managed to put on my combat suit, boots, gloves and gauntlets during my explanation. The boy sighs and nods.
"Then let's go, big guy, while I've still got some wind." He says wandering in and replacing his used equipment with fresh weapons and projectiles. I take a freshly stocked and fully laden utility belt from the wall racks and fasten it around my waist. The boy exits the armoury. I know tonight is taxing for him but I also know he is capable of handling one long night. He will be fine. I attach my cape and cowl whilst transiting from the armoury to the vehicle park. By the time I am at the car, I am ready to confirm my theories.
"Have you sustained injuries?" I ask as we drive towards Andrews listed residence. The boy shrugs his shoulders.
"Just the usual bumps and bruises. I'll be fine. How long do we have?"
"We have a little under fifteen hours before the next scheduled assassination."
"So what if we come up empty here?"
"Then we will have to begin again."
"Do we have time for that?"
"No."
We arrive at Andrews home, a newly-built sprawling mansion on the outskirts of West Gotham, shortly before midnight. As expected in a residence of this size, the security measures are tighter and more encompassing than the majority of museums and art galleries. There is an armed contingent of security personnel stationed at both the perimeter fence of the property and the main entrance of the house as well as two roaming patrols of a minimum of two personnel per detail. There are also free-moving CCTV cameras on all four corners of the mansion, likely infrared capabilities and the standard burglar alarms on all doors and windows. In spite of all these precautions and measures put in place specifically to counter what we are about to do, it is far easier than it appears.
We leave the car in a secluded area shrouded under trees and reach the perimeter fence. I have counted twelve men on the security contingent. This means four are patrolling and the remaining eight are stationary targets with a narrow field of vision. With two on the front entrance to the house, that leaves six men positioned around the fence line. Their distribution around the fence is even with equal spacing between each man giving them roughly fifty metres to guard before their area intersects with another man. The CCTV cameras may be free moving, but they only possess a field of vision of one-hundred-and-eighty degrees. Their fields also intersect with one another. This means there is a moment when both pairs of cameras are facing one another and at least four guards on the fence are facing one another. Due to the trees in the courtyard, guards on one side of the fence cannot see the opposite side or their opposite number. The cameras too cannot see all stationary guards. Working on this principal, I instruct the boy to eliminate the innermost pair of guards on our side of the fence. We will then work outwards and take down the following two pairs before moving on to the house.
We scale the fence and barbed wire without any difficulty and then drop down into the grounds. Fortunately, the guards are not tight against the fence line and are relatively simple to locate and then silent incapacitate with one well-placed strike. The boy provides perfect symmetry by simultaneously taking his selected target down as well. We keep close to the fence and hidden in the shadows in rendering the remaining four perimeter guards unconscious. As we deal with the final pair, a roaming patrol begins to cross our path. With virtually no time to plan, we react spontaneously and uppercut them to the ground. We now only have four guards to overcome.
They are dispatched with the same efficiency as the others as we graduate to the front of the house and out of the range of the cameras. With all the guards eliminated and their likely recovery time to be hours, we are free to conduct our investigation into Andrews without interruption. We gain entry to the house using one of the guards' set of keys to limit possible damage to the property.
The interior of the house is dark. We tread carefully before dividing at the staircase. I begin to climb to the first floor while the boy sweeps the ground floor. We maintain radio silence until warning is necessary. I am met with a dark corridor, one that I note has been made deliberately dark by breaking all the light bulbs. Shattered glass carpets the floor. It suggests I am stepping into an area in which Andrews wishes to lead me. Our arrival has been expected. I can only assume our host has begun his descent into madness if he wishes for a confrontation with me. Regardless of the implications, I do not break radio silence. The Talon may be listening. I elect not to take the route before me, knowing the hallway is too wide to simply use the walls to manoeuvre above the shards and use of my zip wire will make too much noise to allow me to avoid detection. Instead, I turn the opposite way and begin to walk slowly down the opposite hallway, which is dark but not carpeted in glass. I am aware I am being funnelled.
The corridor has six doors, three on either side. All of them are slightly ajar. Thermal imaging scans reveal nothing. Listening closely to the ambience of the corridor itself reveals nothing untoward. I am tempted to drop a smoke pellet, but find myself convinced the Talon is in possession of technology similar to my own and would surmount such a challenge. Regardless, I don my respirator in case anything toxic is in the air.
"Remarkable." A voice says over my communication frequency. It does not belong to Robin despite originating from his transmitter. "Usually with children, a cloth soaked in ether produces an instant reaction. Your boy managed to fight it and me for almost a minute before succumbing. He is very well-bred." I do not move immediately. The voice is seeming to speak from experience, a disturbing thought. The Talon is downstairs with Robin's equipment that much I know as fact. I do not know if the boy is actually hurt. My initial conclusion would be, not yet. Andrews wishes him as leverage to engineer an escape. He will keep him alive until then. I direct my thermal imaging to the floor below me. There is only one heat signature registering. I am certain it is Robin. The Talon is employing some type of stealth technology, one that can disperse his body's own heat signature to the environment. "The deal is quite simple. Let me walk out of here, or Robin dies. If you do not issue a verbal agreement in the next ten seconds, I will kill him anyway."
"You don't seem the type to kill children, Andrews."
"Is that so?" A gunshot echoes around the building. There is a pause.
"Bluffing." I tell him whilst beginning to creep downstairs.
"That was just to test whether you do have ice in your veins like everybody says. The next shot you hear will be the real thing." Andrews says with a delight in his voice I find both informative and sickening. He will kill the boy if I do not act. Letting him walk free is not an option. I am back in the parlour and already negotiating my way towards the source of the heat signature. I am confronted with two closed doors on either side of an Italian side table. The heat signature lies beyond them.
"Do you really expect me to let you go, Andrews? You've murdered enough people."
"Arguing semantics is an admirable stalling tactic, but unless you move away from those two doors immediately, I'll put a slug right in the kid's skull. You won't even be able to say goodbye."
"How is it a man with the resources that you have is not already in a non-extraditing country? Why have you deliberately led me to you and allowed yourself to be boxed into your own home?"
"I don't turn my back on a half-finished job, Batman. My hit list is incomplete. I won't leave Gotham until it has been finished."
"You don't have to leave Gotham. There's always space in Blackgate."
"You really are a cold-hearted bastard, aren't you? Does this boy's life mean so little to you?"
"You have no idea what he is to me…or what he's capable of. Omega. Omega. Omega."
There is a scream down the link before I drop the flash bang and charge through the door. As the blinding white flash floods the room, overloading the Talon's thermal imaging lenses, I rush forward and tackle him into the wall behind us. The crunch heard in the aftermath tells me several of his ribs have been broken and that I may have also dislocated my right shoulder. I thwart his attempt to fight back with a right cross, parry another wild haymaker courtesy of his left hand and then deliver a head-butt to his jaw with enough force to fracture it. Andrews slumps down against the wall. He lethargically reaches for his still holstered pistol. I drive a knee into the side of his head to put an end to his resistance. I then turn my attentions to the boy. Dick is up on one elbow with the compact Taser gun still clutched in his hand. He appears disorientated but otherwise unharmed.
"Are you alright?" I inquire crouching down at his side. He manages to grin at me.
"Omega's an old plan, big guy. Last time I did that drill was in training." The boy is referring to the phase of his training dealing with narcotic influence. It was a very minor section at the time but has since seen many revisions and expansions following the rise of the Scarecrow and Mad Hatter's hallucinogens. It consisted of hitting him with a small dose of ether and then running through a series of simple reaction drills, the names of which were a NATO-standard phonetic character in triplicate. Alfred was always in attendance and Dick was never given more than was required. I lift him up before setting him down on the sofa nearby. The pain in my shoulder is excruciating. "I knew you'd remember the drill. You are exceedingly bright."
"Is that why I let some vigilante loon dose me with ether on a standard sweep?" The boy says trying to rouse himself back to a state of lucidity by rubbing his eyes and vigorously shaking his head. I cross over to the doorway which I intend to use as a brace to force my shoulder back into alignment.
"You have been working very hard. Mistakes happen to us all." I tell him whilst readying my mind for the sudden shock.
"So, what's this guy's beef?" Dick asks gesturing to Andrews who has yet to move. There is an uncomfortable crunch, similar in sound to the initial collision with the Talon, and a sharp pain followed by a burning sensation. My shoulder is back in place. Alfred can attend to it later. I flick on the lights and turn back to Andrews.
"Let's ask him."
We call the GCPD only after thoroughly interrogating Andrews for gaps in our information. The boy's Monte Cristo analogy of the Black Talon is more pertinent than either of us realised. Although resistant to giving us any information whatsoever, and confident of acquittal based on the lack of evidence against him, Andrews eventually caves. This is almost entirely due to Dick successfully portraying Alex Deacon as a good boy corrupted by an evil man. By making Andrews see himself as the perpetrator instead of the victim, enforced by Dick pointing out how easily the man was willing to kill him just to escape his own home, the Talon tells us all we need to know. The boy has clearly been reading psychology papers behind my back. Impressive.
Witney Andrews is not Witney Andrews at all. His real name is Brendan Coates and his parents were the victims of Alexander Fitch's reign of blood, despite working at the DMV and secretarial pool in City Hall respectively. Foster care, resentment and reinvention for vengeance followed shortly after. The award scheme was a front for him to plot his revenge against Fitch's confederates in government. Everything was geared towards assassinating those eight individuals and nothing else. His last stand in his own home seems to have been his final break with reality, with the illusion of normality. He was ready to fall into the abyss it seems, all in the name of vengeance against a dead man. I am not ignorant of the echoes such a story has in my own life. By the time the GCPD arrive on scene, Andrews is a willing confessor. Despite his descent into obsession, there seems to be relief that he has finally been freed of choice. He is no longer a slave to his inner demons. Perhaps, in time, he can be forgiven. I take Dick home shortly after Andrews' arrest.
"Andrews was a real idiot, huh?" The boy remarks as he lays sprawled across the sofa in his pyjamas, spooning popcorn from the bowl on his stomach. It is just after nine in the morning. Alfred has attended to our injuries and we have slept almost six hours each. We are currently lounging on the sofa watching media coverage of Witney Andrews arrest on the morning news. A pair of sockless teenage feet have taken up residence in my lap. I find myself staring at them as they rest there, marvelling at how such small appendages could break so many teeth.
"You think he should've brought his targets down legitimately?" I ask without taking my eyes off his feet. I can't remember the last time I saw them so still: he is normally always in motion.
"Either that or be a big enough man to move on with his own life and not get stuck in the past."
"Like I am?" I suggest looking over at him. The boy's green eyes look from the television broadcast to mine. He grins at me.
"Pull on my toes."
"Excuse me?"
"You're not deaf, Bruce. Do it." I comply and lightly pull his toes. He puts his hands on his chest. "See? I'm real, not a figment of your imagination. You actually did adopt an orphan and you did make his life a lot better. Know how? Because you could see past your own agenda. You could see past the crusade and see that I needed someone to help me pick up the pieces. Andrews couldn't. Guy brainwashed an orphan who needed someone to help him pick up the pieces and sent him on a suicide mission to ice a mayoral candidate. Because that candidate knew the man responsible for killing his parents. And that's all. The guy was willing to make a kid kill and ruin his whole life just to get revenge. That's what I mean by stuck in the past. You're not stuck in the past. You've got me." He finishes whilst gesturing to the bowl. I take a handful to show I agree with his analysis.
"You've really studied the Count of Monte Cristo very thoroughly, haven't you?"
"You're a lot like Edmond Dantès. He's not a total badass though. That's where you've got the edge." Dick states whilst adjusting the cushion behind his head. I smile.
"And who would you be in this adaptation?"
Like almost everybody else the Count ever allied himself with. You have to admit, I play a lot of roles for you to bounce off." The boy replies before flicking pieces of popcorn at my chest and making his own sound effects every time they hit. I believe he is saying 'boing', perhaps giving a visual representation of our relationship in doing so. I brush the bits off my dressing gown and nod.
"Yes you do and I am forever grateful."
"Grateful enough to let me have Monday off from school?" Dick asks with a sheepish smile.
"It's Saturday morning, Dick. You have the whole weekend to recover. So the answer is no." I say pinching his big toe on the word 'no' to make him flinch and cover himself in spilt popcorn. The speed of his reflexes tell me the ether's effects have fully worn off since our return home. He stares at me with a sour expression for less than a second before laughing it off.
"You can be fun when you want to be, big man. Did you know I have sensitive toes?"
"I do now. But I will make you a deal: you stop with the rubber ball analogies and I'll not abuse my newfound knowledge. Deal?"
"Deal. Popcorn?" Dick says scooping a handful off his chest and sitting up to offer me it. I take it with an incline of my head. The boy shovels the wayward popcorn back into the bowl and resumes his reclined position. He turns his head back to the television. "I'm going to get you back later, you know." I grin before also returning my gaze to the broadcast.
"I hope so."