Chapter Seven
Drake typed boredly on a laptop that Robin was kind enough to supply him with. Of course, everyone was more than a little wary when Drake had requested time to check his e-mails, but Drake had been insistent. He was not a prisoner... at least, not entirely. Red Tornado had been assigned to keep careful watch on the mercenary and was surprised at the content of Drake's inbox.
Drake was clearly married to his work. There were 25 unread e-mails, all containing job offers. Not one personal message. "'Please fix my problems for me.' 'Please kill this guy, I really want him dead.'" Drake read aloud, making his boredom clear as he deleted several messages in quick succession. "Lovely job I have, don't you think?" Red Tornado was unsure of what to say.
Drake decided to take Red Tornado's silence as an invitation to continue. "I mean, it's not like I'm complaining! I get interesting jobs too. Sometimes I even get to work with the police!" He smiled grimly. "Precious few times, though. Understandable."
Drake's rambling was cut short by an incoming e-mail. Drake clicked it and ran his eyes over the one line of digits. Red Tornado observed as the expressions on Drake's face varied from confusion, curiosity, and then to horror. The mercenary jumped up, startling him. "Shit!" Drake turned to Red Tornado, eyes wide in panic. "Call Batman, tell him I'm leaving Happy Harbor and that I'm on my way to Gotham."
Drake shrugged on his jacket, ignoring Red Tornado's protests and walked out of the infirmary just in time to crash face first into Superboy and Wonder Girl. "What's going on?" Wonder Girl demanded warily.
"An emergency came up. I need to get to Gotham immediately." Drake murmured, pushing past them.
"You're going nowhere in that condition!" Superboy grabbed Drake's shoulder, turning him around.
Drake moved both arms and twisted his torso. "Look! Full range body movement! I'm fine, Superboy." He turned on his heel and began walking away again.
"What's in Gotham that the Bat's can't handle?" Superboy called out after him, following quickly after the mercenary.
Drake stopped in his tracks, spun around to face the three heroes and placed both hands on his hips. "Digging up Kryptonite for Lex Luthor is just a job. Traveling with, and occasionally fighting with Lady Shiva? That's fun. Being exploded, breaking several bones, bleeding to death, buried underground in Gotham's sewers? That's just an annoying setback. This? This is a bloody emergency!" He exploded. Making his point clear, he turned and jogged the rest of the way to the debriefing room where he knew Robin would be.
"What's going on?" Robin asked when Drake stalked in.
"Drake said it's an emergency." Red Tornado piped up, moving into the room and bringing Drake's laptop. "Something about this message informed him of that." Robin ran his eyes over the line of numbers.
"What does this mean?" Robin asked Drake. Everybody knew that Robin would be able to decode the encryption easily, but if Drake was talking about a serious emergency, they'd probably need all the time they could get.
"It's a sort of code I use often with people I'm... associated with occasionally. The numbers stand for a letter in the alphabet, 1 would indicate 'a', 2 would indicate 'b' and so forth, just... backward." Drake explained. "This code is usually short and used only to tell the receiver of the message where they would be. In this case, Gotham."
Robin narrowed his eyes at the fidgety mercenary. "And, what business would this person have in Gotham?"
"Look, there's a sort of unofficial rule amongst mercenaries and assassins. You just don't target a fellow mercenary or assassin. It's too dangerous. Because there will always be someone else who will come after you even if you carry out the hit, be it associate, rival, or enemy." Drake trailed off.
"And this person is coming after Lady Shiva?"
"My associate thinks I'm dead."
"And what are you trying to achieve, going to Gotham? To warn your associate not to fight Lady Shiva?"
"It's not my associate I'm worried about." Drake rubbed his forehead in agitation. "Look, Robin, imagine how much damage Lady Shiva could inflict on Gotham." Robin nodded soberly. "Now imagine a Lady Shiva who frequently uses weapons like explosives, knives, guns, and poison. And, on top of that, that person thinks I'm dead."
Superboy, Wonder Girl, and Red Tornado exchanged nervous glances. "That person could single-handedly destroy Gotham. And he'd do it without a second thought."
Robin sighed. "Alright, I'll contact Batman."
"I don't get it." Batman heard Nightwing saying to Robin. "How did Drake's 'associate' find out Lady Shiva was in Gotham, in the first place?" The comm link buzzed in their ears.
"He's... sort of like Batman. He just knows things and he doesn't bother telling how, or why, he does." Drake told them from the clock tower where he was waiting with Oracle.
"Is your associate the 'Custodian' character you talked about before?" Batman asked, there was a brief silence on the other end.
"Yes. He goes by the name 'Logan'." Drake replied.
"That makes alot of difference." Batman grumbled.
"How so?" Nightwing asked curiously. "And who is this 'Custodian'?"
Batman was silent, deciding that it was best for Nightwing, Robin, and Oracle to hear it from Drake himself. "Logan's my not-really-Dad." Drake responded slowly, cautiously. "He raised me, and trained me, so if you think I made a mess in Gotham when I first came around..." Drake let the threat hang.
"And he thinks you're dead." Robin chimed in almost despairingly. "Why can't you just send him back a mail telling him you're alive?"
"We don't really have good memories with that course of action." Drake replied sourly. "Some guy kidnapped me for information once, and hacked my computer to continue sending Logan messages so that he wouldn't sense that anything was wrong."
"And what happened?" Nightwing asked anxiously.
"Didn't fool him for a second. Naturally, I had already escaped by the time Logan came around for a house-call, never saw my kidnapper again. Logan beat him half to death and now he's on death row, for what crime, I don't know." Nightwing gulped.
"Wow, that's a bit overboard, don't you think?"
"Yeah, tell that to him, would you?" Drake challenged.
"Nah, I'm not suicidal."
Oracle finally joined in the conversation. "I've got several alarms going off in a hotel across the neighborhood from you. Boys, I think it's time to make your entrance."
"Please, if they're fighting, don't get involved." Drake's voice pleaded through their earpiece.
