I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't a tad bit shaken up by the Imperium's little love letter. I mean, if someone not-so-indirectly threatened your life for trying to get in the way of their operation, wouldn't you be a bit worried? Covering bases, thinking through it logically, I knew they had people following me, watching me. Hell, I'd known that since day one. But, evidently, they had a few more on my case now than they did before. And slipping the note into the file that was handed to me by, conveniently, none other than Ra's al Ghul himself? Yeah, I only saw two options there: 1) they had people in his organization, or 2) he took orders from them. And who's to say both weren't true? So, no matter where you took it from, I was screwed. They had me cornered.

But what kind of a detective would I be if I let that stop me?

The rest of the info seemed solid enough, so that was less work I'd have to do on my own. Plus, I'm not really afraid of much nowadays, so it's not like they could've scared me out of coming after them. Besides, I had a responsibility that I wasn't willing to overlook. The Imperium commanded most everything on the planet, including crime, and that didn't sit well with me. In fact, it set off all kinds of warning bells in my head. If their threats made me back down, who would protect everybody else from the things they were able to do to them?

When I read the file on Macbeth, I learned a few very interesting things. First off, it had to have been written by somebody who was either inside his inner circle or just a really good creeper. They'd gotten down on paper nearly everything he did in a typical day excepting bathroom breaks. He seemed to have some routines that he went through every day that I guess helped him feel secure in his empire, somehow. Every morning, he had a cup of hot coffee and a glass of cold vodka with his breakfast. At nine A.M., he would check up on Cassius' end to make sure his son was doing alright. He ate lunch at noon and was served by three young Asian girls who fed him not only food, but also the stats on drug and weapons sales. Every afternoon at three o'clock exactly, he handled his finances: bank accounts, stocks, etc. He would eat dinner at six. Then, he would work on a report for the Imperium until he went to bed at eleven o'clock. All very intriguing, and it was good information to have on hand. The most interesting thing, though, was actually not about him. It was about Silas Cranmer.

Cranmer was Macbeth's right-hand man, his personal bodyguard, the only person he really trusted with anything short of, and including, his life. He had a hand in everything that went down in Macbeth's operation, from sales to sending out the hit men. He had the kind of up-close and personal experience with his boss that made him the ideal source of info. If there was anything else I'd need to know about Macbeth, if there was any way to get a feel for the way he ran his business, Cranmer was the key.

The one thing I always loved about working with Bruce was ghosting a target. Basically, it meant one of us followed them around all day attempting to avoid being discovered. It was an effective tool, it gave me an excuse to roam the city, and it was just downright fun. And despite all the crap I'd been through in the past few years, nothing about that had really changed at all. Needless to say, then, I was excited to get the chance to ghost Cranmer. I told Pru that she could have a day to herself, to relax, and then I went out in Hook's car to begin a long day of de-stressing.

The file told me that Cranmer stopped by Macbeth's penthouse every morning at eight for a rundown of the day's agenda, so I headed there first. In the parking garage, I made sure to park a little ways down from his car before getting out and taking cover around the edge of the stairwell. After a good five-minute wait, he came up the stairs with a cup of coffee in hand, glancing habitually to both sides. I cringed and slid a little farther backward. He didn't seem to notice me there, thankfully, and he made his way to his car. Once he got in and started fiddling with something on the radio, I started over to Hook's car at my normal pace. Cranmer backed out of his parking spot as I was firing up the car, and then he drove off with me not too terribly far behind.

Now, if anybody ever tells you to "just act natural", you need to ask them, for me, what the hell brand of crack they're smoking and who sells it. The more you try to be invisible, the more people are going to notice you. Don't think about your appearance in order to blend in. That was one of the first lessons Batman ever taught me, and it came in extremely important during ghosting. However, that doesn't mean you just blatantly stalk your target. Every single one of my instincts was screaming at me to get right up on Cranmer's bumper, to follow him as closely as possible. But, since that wouldn't be very logical or effective (not to mention far from subtle), I stayed a couple of cars behind him, making sure I could still see him up ahead. Not that any of that was really too hard, anyway; driver's common sense made me wait for passing cars instead of pulling out in front of them, and Cranmer's car was probably the shiniest BMW on the road, perhaps in the entire Multiverse.

Now, I'll admit, I wasn't expecting him to pull into the public library's parking lot, but I followed him, anyway. I grabbed my backpack out from where I'd stashed it under the passenger seat and went inside just after him. It must've been obvious that I hadn't been inside a library for a while, or that I was at least in awe of this one, because the lady at the front desk, when she was through helping Cranmer, asked softly, "Excuse me, sir, can I help you with anything?"

She wasn't being at all unkind, but the question still somehow unbalanced me, like I'd been caught. Guilty conscience, I thought. But all I said was, in an equally quiet tone, "No, thanks, I think I can find what I'm looking for." I even managed to plaster a fake smile on my face for effect.

Staying a pace or two behind Cranmer proved one of the simplest parts. Never in my life had I been more grateful to be an ex-Bat than right then, as my footsteps were near-noiseless. The last thing I needed was a confrontation in a public place like this. My level of interest in the situation was climbing with each second spent on a journey towards the back room. Cranmer only turned around once, and I covered quickly, approaching a bookshelf directly in front of me and starting to look through the books, playing the college student looking for research material. I watched him discreetly from behind the cover of a biography as he verified that no one was looking before opening the back room door and slipping inside.

I put the book back and practically pounced at the door, jamming my hand between it and the doorframe at the last second. I stepped in and closed it soundlessly behind me, taking swift, silent steps in Cranmer's direction and hoping he couldn't hear my jackhammer of a heartbeat pounding in my chest. I hid as close to him as I could without being easily seen and observed as he moved a rack away from the wall, slid a white card through what looked like an alarm system's control panel, and walking into a room whose entryway had suddenly materialized before him. I dove underneath the door as it was coming down, making it inside, and then my curiosity piqued. It had to have been archives of some kind, with the sheer amount of bookshelves lining the room that were all stuffed full of binders marked with various letters of the alphabet. Handwritten notes were taped up all over the place, directing the way to the financial records, the project files, and…the history of the Imperium. I narrowed my eyes in spite of myself when I saw, at the very bottom of one note, an arrow pointing the way to target dossiers. Well…Cranmer had taken me to the information I really wanted. There was no reason to stay with him, and if I just lay low and kept quiet, I could hang around wherever I wanted to, grab whatever I thought I'd need. Checking to make sure nobody was in sight, I crept over to the target dossiers to take a peek.

It wasn't very impressive, just a bunch of file cabinets marked with different combinations of letters standing for, I assumed, beginnings of last names. But, it was well-hidden at the far left side of the room, and it would be pretty hard to notice I was there unless you were close, and that was all I was asking for. I looked the cabinets over for a minute or two, unsure of where to start, when my eyes fell on the section labeled "De—Dr." I slid it open carefully and sifted through the files inside until I came to a particularly thick one held shut with a paperclip and whose tab bore the name "Drake, Timothy J." Well, they were certainly serious about me being a threat.

I moved on quickly, unnerved a little, and found many more files of interest. They had dossiers on Dick, Bruce, Jason, and Damian, as well as Conner, Cassie, Bart, Rose, and most of the JLA. Pretty soon, I had a rather large stack of files tucked under my arm and was working to get my backpack open without drawing Cranmer's attention. Once I had the top open as far as I dared, I crammed the files in, closed it up, and made my way around to a good hiding spot near the door, just under a desk and shadowed enough that I wasn't too noticeable. After about twenty minutes, Cranmer came back, and I left with him.

I gave up on ghosting, apparently, because before I could stop myself, I had pulled into a parking garage and was walking inside Beverly Center with my full backpack slung over my shoulder. It was really a pretty awesome place, I'm sure. I wasn't really paying attention to any of that. All I was concerned with was finding the nearest place to sit down and look over those files. Somehow, I found myself seated at a table with the records spread out in front of me, trying to decide which to read first. And I'm not sure how long I spent there, poring over every file and circling every important detail, everything they shouldn't have been able to know, in black ink. By the time an employee came along and kindly informed me that they were closing in ten minutes and I'd have to leave, I was stuffing the thoroughly-read dossiers back into my backpack and walking out in a daze.

My breathing was a little quicker than it should've been as I made my way back to the hotel, and no amount of telling myself not to panic could slow it down, all because of the one thought that kept circulating itself through my mind. They know everything. Those dossiers had been complete. So complete, in fact, that they had to have been written by people who knew the subjects…people on the inside. How many of us are really working for them? The question made my heartbeat pick up its pace, brought a nervous, cold sweat to my skin.

I pulled into the parking garage with a heavy heart. Screw Macbeth, we couldn't stay in L.A. any longer. I practically started pounding on the elevator to make it go faster as I rode up to the rooms, bouncing on my toes. I had to tell Pru. I had to tell Pru so that we could get out fast and clean and relatively unharmed. That was all that mattered, right? Protect your assets, friends close and enemies closer, right?

As if I needed anything else to bolster my anxiety that night, I entered the room to the sound of…nothing going on. Absolute silence emanated from every wall, every doorway. The TVs were off. No sound of someone singing somewhat off-key to a song on their iPod, just quiet. I swallowed, attempting to force my apprehension down with my saliva, and called out, "Pru? Are you in here? This is urgent, like, deathly urgent."

My right side tingled with goosebumps as a shadow fell over me. I turned and threw out an elbow, aiming to hit the gut of my attacker, but they caught the blow, and then their knuckles were cracking across my cheekbone and forcing my head to the side. Someone else gripped my jaw, holding my head still, and before I could throw them off, a needle was sinking into my neck, emptying its contents into my veins. A heavy fog descended over me, clouding my brain, blurring my vision, making my eyelids suddenly feel like they weighed more than I did. As they released me, my body went limp, and I crumpled, lifelessly, gracelessly, to the floor, and then I just lay there, unable to get up and move or fight back.

The men were all standing around me, gazing down at me evenly, but not a one of them made a move to do anything to me. I was busily fighting the drug or whatever it was they'd given me to figure out why that was when I heard the sound of a door opening. Footsteps approached, light and leisurely, and a new figure entered my line of sight. I couldn't see them—whoever it was just appeared to be a big, pink-and-black blob—but I could hear them, and I recognized the voice.

"Is that a bruise?" Pru demanded, her voice taking on a commanding tone. "The Master instructed us not to harm him."

The tunnel of black fringing my vision closed up, and I didn't hear or feel anything after that.