Chapter 10

The Physical Bat Signal But Titles Can't be Images

The next afternoon, Black Mask had Ed brought before him. The goons shoved Ed to his knees and, angrily, he allowed it. He didn't know if they'd start chopping fingers from Link if he fought back, and Link's wellbeing was the first thing on his list of priorities. He spent the last twenty four hours trying to figure out where they were keeping him, but he'd had little luck.

"What do you want?"

"Ready for your first job?" Black Mask asked, not even looking at Ed.

"Screw you!" Ed snapped habitually.

Black Mask backhanded him without hesitation. "There's a jewelry store under my protection that hasn't been keeping up with their payments. You and Jonny's gang are gonna go down there and find out why. And you'll also be emptying their safe, of course. Destroy all of it."

"You don't want to keep it?"

"Power is worth more than wealth, boy," Black Mask snarled. "If they won't respect that, then they'll lose everything. And if you don't respect me, it will be your brother who loses. You know what will happen to him if you don't do as I say."

"Yeah, sure," Ed glared at the floor, angry at himself and angry at Black Mask. But mostly he was pissed at the Doctor for not even checking to make sure they were in the right place before leaving them behind.

Ed felt horrible. The jewelry store was a small, family owned business. When five of Black Mask's goons walked in with their assault rifles, strutting like peacocks, Ed could have sworn he saw an elderly woman carry a small child out the back in a panic. The man at the counter stiffened, and began stuttering.

"W-w-w-welcome, gentle… gentlemen. H-how can I be of service?"

"You're late on your payment, old man," the lead crony, Jonny, said, resting an arm on the counter while the other four goons looked around and the expensive merchandise.

"Look, I-I-I don't have… have the money right now. But I'll get it to you, I promise! Just give me some more time too…"

"Take us to the safe," Jonny snapped.

He grabbed Ed by the shoulder of his coat and dragged him into the back office of the store. The owner, flustered, followed them, insisting he only had one key and it took two to open. They wouldn't be able to get to the merchandise. Jonny practically threw Ed at the safe.

"Lose the door," he ordered.

Ed answered with a glare. "Make me," he snarled.

Jonny cocked his gun and shot the owner in the foot. The old man fell to the ground, screaming in pain, desperately trying to staunch the bleeding. Ed tried to make a move against Jonny, but Jonny's next act was to slam the butt of the gun into Ed's stomach, winding him and sending him to his knees. He pressed the barrel to Ed's head and snarled, "The door, now. I won't ask a third time."

Not dropping his glare, Ed stubbornly got back to his feet and disintegrated the safe door. Jonny shoved Ed into the safe. Most of the jewelry in the safe was in smaller boxes that lined the walls, but a good deal of it was still in the display boxes on a wheeled cart in the middle of the room.

"Boys," Jonny whistled for the rest of his gang to get in the safe. "Pile the goods on the cart."

"No, please," the poor old man cried, still in a great deal of pain. "This store, it's all I have!"

The goons ignored him and dumped all of the jewelry onto the cart in one big pile, tangling the necklaces while the rings and loose gems tumbled into the jumbled mess, disappearing in the mountain of gold and silver chains and pear strings.

"Why don't we liquidate the good man's assets?" Ed didn't move. Jonny slapped the back of Ed's head. "I said, liquidate it, you little shit!"

"This business, it's the only thing keeping my family off the streets!" The owner pleaded. "Please!"

"Shut up!" Jonny turned his gun back to the old man, who cowered and sobbed. "You," he grabbed Ed's sleeve and shook him. "The boss told you to do what I say, so do what I say, or the next person who gets shot in the foot will be your little baby brother, got it?"

Ed did his best to block out the old man's sobbing and begging, closed his eyes, and, painfully, forced himself to turn the entire pile of jewelry into gray mush; all of the different precious metals, gems, diamonds, and pearls amalgamated into a puddle of gray, worthless matter that dripped off the edges of the cart and onto the floor. When the deed was done, the goons flipped the cart over, sending the goop everywhere against the walls of the safe.

The owner wailed in grief. Ed felt horrible. This wasn't what alchemy was for, but Link was worth more to Ed than gold, silver, and diamonds. He just wished it didn't have to also be the livelihood of the jeweler's family.

"We're done here, let's go," Jonny grabbed Ed by his sleeve once more and dragged him out of the safe. He paused after stepping over the old man, then, before Ed could stop him, he shot the old man in the chest.

"Why did you do that!" Ed screamed, struggling against his captor. "You said we were done! You…"

Jonny slammed the butt of his gun into Ed's head, knocking the sense out of him. Two of the other goons rushed to restrain him, one on each arm, before he had time to recover from the blow. "Don't you ever talk to me like that, you little bitch."

"You killed him, you bastard!" Ed snarled as soon as his head stopped spinning. "You killed him!" He kicked out, trying to break free from the men holding him back.

Jonny pulled out the remote for the meta-restraint on Ed's wrist and flipped the switch, cutting Ed off from his alchemy.

"Can we let him go now?" One goon asked.

"Let's get him back to Black Mask first," Jonny said.

Ed spit on him, earning a swift backhand. The goons dragged him out of the store, still fighting, and when they got him back into the car, they had to handcuff him to the door to stop him from trying to strangle their leader. Ed rested his head against the cold glass of the window and closed his eyes, trying to quell his anger and stop from crying.

Gordon didn't usually respond to possible homicide calls anymore, but his office was starting to feel stale and if he had to be honest, he was mostly trying to get away from the papers that had piled up on his desk. And he hadn't worked a normal case in a while, it'd be nice to work a case that didn't require the use of the Bat-Signal.

The report came from a shaken old woman with a small child crying in the background. She claimed six members of the Black Mask gang had entered their jewelry store and she had taken their granddaughter out the back to keep her from experiencing something a three year old shouldn't have to, but while she waited for her husband to come out and tell her the men had left, she heard gunfire and feared the worst. She didn't go back in to the scene and dispatch hadn't seen any sign of activity in the store when they went to check it out, but the door was unlocked and the lights were on.

When Gordon and Bullock arrived at the scene, the two dispatch officers had the old woman and her granddaughter outside the front of the store, but no one had gone in to check it out because of the possibility that the thugs were still in the store.

"Any signs of the robbers?" Bullock asked the officers.

"No, sir," one answered. "It's been dead quite in there."

"Well, then, there's no harm in you two going in there check, is there?"

"Well, no, sir, but…" the officer stammered.

"What's the matter, Harvey, afraid they're still in there?" Gordon teased.

"I don't know!" Bullock snapped. "Maybe a little."

"Ma'am," Gordon went to the old woman. "You said there was a back entrance to the building?"

"Yes, through the office," the old woman said.

"Do you think it's possible the intruders went out through the back?"

The two dispatch officers fidgeted sheepishly, obviously having forgotten to cover the back entrance of the store.

"But they came in with a van and now the van in gone," the woman said.

"Did you catch the plate number?"

"No, I only saw it through the window."

"You two, take her statement on the car," Gordon said to the two officers. "Harv," he nodded towards the shop.

"At least they're probably not in there," Bullock sighed, following Gordon into the store.

Nothing looked out of place in the main shop except for a few missing trays of jewelry, but it was late and no glass had been broken, so it was likely due to the store closing shop and the old couple putting the jewelry back into the safe in the back. Strict to protocol, Gordon drew his gun and checked the room, despite not expecting there to be any threat.

"Dammit," he hissed.

"What? What is it?" Bullock said, cautiously hiding behind the wall.

Gordon stood straight, holstering his gun and rubbing his eyes under his glasses. "We have a body."

"Damn," Bullock hissed. "I'll call it in," he said, holstering his own gun and going off to speak on his radio.

Once the body situation was taken care of, Gordon gave the room a better look over. There was something off, but he hadn't put his finger on it yet. When he noticed what was wrong, he cursed his old age that it hadn't been the first thing he noticed after the body. The door of the safe was completely gone. It hadn't been removed from the safe, blown to pieces, or even welded off. It was just gone.

Inside the safe was another story. Gordon avoided going inside the safe so as not to disturb the crime scene. There wasn't a single piece of merchandise in the safe, but a strange, pasty substance was splattered on the walls and floor. The only other signs of disturbance were the empty boxes on the ground in a messy heap and the overturned cart, both also covered in the foreign goop, and six sets of footprints leading out of the safe, petering off as the slop was lost to the ground.

Gordon stood there and contemplated the odd scene in silence until Bullock returned, informing him that a full team was on its way to case the crime scene.

"Why can't there ever be a normal homicide in this god forsaken city?" Gordon sighed.

"What?" Bullock asked. "Looks like a normal…" he looked into the safe… "robbery…" and in bewilderment, tried to make sense of the odd scene… "to me…" but he couldn't think of an explanation that wasn't nonsensical. "Well, shit, man," he rubbed his week old, graying stubble. "Where's the door?"

"Gone," Gordon answered.

"And what is that?"

"I have no idea."

"Should we call in our dark consultant?"

"Not quite yet. Just once, I'd like to do my job without outsourcing."

"Security footage?"

"Security footage," Gordon agreed.

To their luck, the security system wasn't password locked, so all they had to do was rewind it to when the robbers entered the store and hit play. It looked like a standard stick up at first, with five big men in black suits with black shirts, all holding guns. They fit Black Mask's MO perfectly.

The sixth one, and the odd one out, was a boy, not dressed like his companions, and was the only one not holding a firearm. It was hard to tell from a computer screen, but the boy didn't look older than sixteen and was on the shorter end of the spectrum. And even with the low resolution of the cameras, the vivid bruising on his face was evident. He'd been given a good thrashing, which also fit Black Mask's MO.

The old woman grabbed the girl, like she said, and left out the back entrance, closing the safe as she went. Four of the thugs scattered around the shop, perusing the jewelry that was still in it's case while the fifth and the boy went to harass the shop owner. They talked, the owner was visibly nervous, and then lead them back to the safe. The fifth thug dragged the boy by the sleeve. They stopped outside the closed safe, and talked some more.

The boy yelled something, and the thug shot the owner in the foot, hit the boy in the stomach with his gun, and then threatened him further, pointing to the safe. The boy reluctantly clapped his hands together, sparks flew through the room, and the door to the safe disintegrated into the air, turning into a fine dust.

"Holy shit!" Bullock cursed.

Gordon watched the tape in stoic silence. The robbers entered the safe and stayed there for a few minutes. Unfortunately, the camera inside the safe wasn't working, so they couldn't see what was going on in the inside, but the owner was protesting desperately. There was another flash of light and then the thugs exited the safe. The first thug to exit, the one who had hit the boy and shot the owner, had the boy by the sleeve again. He paused over the owner, then shot him in the chest.

The boy's reaction was immediate. He struggled against the thug, yelling in fury, and the shooter hit him in the head. Two more thugs grabbed the boys arms, holding him back. The boy was quickly back to yelling and kicking as soon as he recovered. The shooter grabbed a device from his coat and pressed a button on it, making a bracelet on the boy's arm glow. Gordon had thought it was a watch, but it looked like some sort of military device he'd seen used to restrain some of the more powerful criminals. The boy spit on the shooter, and the shooter hit him.

The thugs left, dragging the boy with them. Their getaway car wasn't in view of any of the showroom cameras, but the headlights of the car lit up the window display as they drove off.

"Something tells me he's not working with Black Mask's goons willingly," Bullock said. "Hey, I took a statement the other day from a nurse. Said she was driving two boys to the hospital when twelve men in five vans drove up and took them at gunpoint. I tried the traffic cam, but it was off. I didn't think I'd get any leads so I forgot about it. Looks like it was Sionis."

"Wait, there's two boys?"

"Yeah, I don't remember what they looked like, but I have the sketches of them on my desk. One was about ten or twelve, the other was sixteen or so. This could be the older one."

"Good, I want clear photos and identifications on all perps and I want those and the sketches on my desk with a picture of the boy in the security footage. And I want two copies of everything."

"Think we should call…"

"I'll light the Signal."

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