The night ended in Tim and Stephanie's bunker just outside Gotham University. Angel's armor was already more elaborate than her allies' due to the ballistic layers overlapping the lighter armor. Cassandra cringed with soreness as she pulled at the individual pieces. Stephanie had given her a ride back and shared a few of her pained expressions when Cassandra pulled off the undermost layer and revealed her bruises.
"I mean, I've seen you get beat up before, but you're usually outnumbered or they're hitting you with hammers and crowbars and stuff. Did that Odmi-jerk really do all that himself?"
"I fought Drakon first," Cassandra said. "Most of it was him."
"Well, you look pretty rough anyway. We've got a shower down here that isn't just that waterfall hanging over a chasm, so you can use it if you want."
"Thank you. What were you and Tim doing?"
"It was mostly boring for us, although there's one thing I'm really excited about. Follow me."
Stephanie led Cassandra past her and Tim's armory toward a door on the left side of the room. Stephanie rummaged for a ring of keys in her utility belt. "Bruce did a fantastic job getting this place running so fast, but still none of those handprint panels yet." She opened the door and flicked on the light, revealing a large room mostly taken up by four semi-transparent walls, a shiny object Cassandra didn't recognize in the center.
"After we fought off that guy from the other night, I nabbed his helmet before the police could get the rest of his suit. There's been all kinds of crazy stuff in there."
"Like what?"
"Here, I'll show you." Stephanie flicked off the light and led Cassandra back into the cave. At the central, oversized computer monitor, Stephanie opened a folder and enlarged the images within, giving them a look at four blurry but still distinguishable figures.
"I guess his helmet had some kind of camera running inside of it." She paused and pointed at the figure in black and white in the top left. "That one is that Slipstream guy we've already fought with." She pointed to the right at one in black and gold with oversized goggles. "We got a little of them talking to each other on record. They call her Harmony, she can cause sonic bursts and stuff." She lowered her finger to a giant in green. "I think they said he's Jabberwocky. We haven't seen him yet, so I don't know if he's got something else going for him or he's just really big." She ended the clockwise movement with a figure in neon pink. "I didn't get her name, but from the looks of the video, she can do that hard light, Green Lanterny stuff that Tim's physics teachers really hate."
"Are there more? What do they want?"
Don't know, it's good we gleaned as much as we did from the video," Stephanie said with a shrug. "It's weirder to think I probably go to school with all these guys. If we keep digging, our bases might bump into each other."
They laughed as a ding chimed in on the other side of the bunker. Tim had already pulled off his cape and mask when he stepped through and approached the two.
"Heard you had some trouble tonight, Cass," Tim said, stepping past to hang up his mantle. "But after all the horror stories Connor used to tell me about Drakon, I think you'd have to be Superman not to have."
"Did they find those two?" Cassandra asked. "Lipov and Odmience?"
"No, they just gave up the search, they'll be back here in a bit."
"Damn," Stephanie said with a sigh. "That's no good."
Cassandra frowned. "Is Connor leaving soon?"
"Probably," Tim said. "It'll be a shame. It was fun having him around." He looked to Stephanie. "You mind if I use the monitor for a minute?"
Stephanie closed the images of the four and stepped aside. "Was just letting Cassie in on a little of our master plan to beat them all at once."
"All at once?" Cassandra sounded suspicious. "How?"
"All in good time," Tim said. He searched through several different folders Cassandra didn't recognize before opening a single, several hundred page document. Tim paused a moment to look at his transmitter, then entered the phrase, "musas." A moment later, he attempted the phrase, "dozen musas." "As if there was ever any doubt," he said.
In the center of the screen under a highlight of yellow was the phrase, "DOZEN MUSCAS," directly across from the words, "DAVID CAIN" with what looked to be nonsense punctuation on the right.
Cassandra glared at the screen. "What does it mean?"
"Damian told me about what Lipov said to Drakon. This document is a rough translation of 'The Boesen Catalog of Spring Plants,' which has been an underground cover for America-centered assassins for years. But ever since Bruce started cracking down on them, they've become a lot more secretive and most of the catalogs are destroyed long before Bruce makes it to the scene."
"It's not like there's a contact number or anything," Stephanie said. "What good was this 'catalog' supposed to do?"
"Every individual assassin has their own code that correlates with a phone number, revolving around an occasion a person would buy flowers. It's a code in two-halves, each is useless without the other." Tim paused and turned to Cassandra. "You don't remember what kind of occasion Lipov asked Drakon about, do you?"
Cassandra shut her eyes tight and bit her lower lip for a moment. "A woman… quiet nights… on the town," she pieced together.
Tim punched the separate codes into the computer, leading after a few attempts to another set of nonsense punctuation. "Bruce had a codebreaker for this, but I know this catalog is a few years old."
Cassandra and Stephanie watched as Tim combed through files on the computer. After a few searches, he pulled up a generator application of some kind and entered the two nonsense phrases.
"Wait… damn it. Cassie, did Drakon say how many flowers should be ordered?"
"A… dozen?" Cassandra wasn't sure of herself, of course, having been so busy fighting the Odmience, but she was at least familiar with the term when it came to flowers.
Tim clicked the "generate" button twelve times, both girls shared uneasy looks as the nonsense slowly approached something readable until they were finally rendered as a ten digit phone number.
"I'm going to be really shocked if this works," Tim said. He set his transmitter on the counter before them, set it to speaker-phone and entered it. For a moment, the three held their breaths.
"The number you have dialed has been disconnected and is no longer in service."
Tim and Stephanie muttered, "Damn." Cassandra just sighed.
"Well, if Lipov gets anywhere it means he's a step ahead of us," Tim said. "As to where he managed to get a copy of the catalog before Bruce did, I have no idea. We might not have a chance to get to David before he does."
"… Someone else may know," Cassandra said. Tim and Stephanie both turned to her, the look on her face suggesting she didn't like what she was about to say. "Can I go to Blackgate myself?"
"They've been turning up security, both in and out," Tim said. "I've got its schematics and could probably hack their camera feeds if you give me a day or two. Why though, who's in Blackgate?"
Cassandra let out a long sigh, considering the only person she could think of turning to as a reluctant ally. Someone who might know where David was, a chance to warn him before he wandered into a trap.
"Shiva."
