"The next shift's here," Kaylee said, poking her head into the hallway. Reed rushed past me and grabbed his coat.
"Alright! See you two tomorrow," he called back as he exited.
"See you," I said, shaking my head. "Why's he in such a rush today?"
"Who's to know. He's an… odd one," Kaylee answered. "He's pretty flighty. Don't ever make an appointment without the promise of payment or at the least food. He won't show up," she said, laughing.
"well, I'd better get gone as well. I have an appointment. see you tomorrow," I said, grabbing my coat and nodding to the next shift as we traded places.
"And you're sure this is where you want to be?" The bus driver asked, looking at me skeptically. "This is the last round of the night. I'm not gonna pick you up again."
"Yeah. I don't live far," I lied. "I just like going to the beach at night." The bus driver still seemed skeptical, but he let me off with a shake of his head.
"Some people," I heard him mutter as I got off.
"Yeah, some people are strange," I mused as I walked off, reveling in the salty November air.
I opened the door to the warehouse and crept in carefully. I could see them sitting around the lantern and talking. It seemed that Jervis was there again, drinking tea and quietly chatting with Jonathan. Edward was writing on a piece of paper.
"Boo," I said as I got closer, sitting down across from all of them. "Hello again, Mr. tetch," I said. He grinned showing his buck teeth.
"Greetings. Would you like some tea?"
"No thanks," I declined. "Has catwoman come yet?"
"No...she hasn't. We expect to see her soon, but who knows," Edward said, rolling his eyes. "We don't even really know if she got in there yet or is done looking around."
"At least we're having a cat burgler do it. She won't give the whole operation up," I said, sighing. "I hope she comes soon, though. I don't want to stay up until all hours of the night."
"No needs to worry," A voice said from above. "I'm here."
A woman dropped from above, clothed all in black. She walked up closer to the light and tossed an envelope to Jonathan.
"I believe those are what you're after," she said, sitting down next to me. I scooted over to make more room.
"Yes… they are. Did you notice anything?" Jonathan asked as he opened the envelope and started to set out the photographs.
"The catwalks are an interesting place. A desk has been moved to a corner of them, and that was covered in papers. Other than that, the main room is pretty boring. There was a side room where I could hear The Joker and Harley, so I didn't go near there. I did, however, find a way into one of the three offices. There were about three tiny vats of substances and a bunch of papers in there too. You'll see some of them in the photos."
"Thank you," Jonathan said, laying out the last of the photos. There were fourteen of them. I reached for the one closest to me and tilted it toward the light for a better look.
"Is this an overview of the warehouse?" I asked. Catwoman nodded. I set it back down and looked over at the photo Jervis was holding.
"Oh my…" He said, his hand starting to tremble as he showed the picture to Jonathan.
"that's a prototype design for one of my canisters!" He said, snatching the photo and clenching his fist.
"It was sitting there on the desk on the catwalks. I didn't know what it was, but thought that it was important," Catwoman explained, examining her claws boredly.
"Do you think that The Joker is going to use that to distribute the poison?" I asked, gently taking the photo and looking at it myself. The device seemed to wrap around your wrist and have the ability to spray from a small canister locked into it.
"I guess this answers the question of whether or not he's going to flood the city," Edward said. "There's no way that thing could do much more than a very direct attack."
I sighed in relief. We weren't in danger. The whole thing was over. We were safe.
"But who are the targets?" Edward asked. He didn't seem to be wondering so much as questioning…
"Do you… know something about this Edward?" I asked, raising my eyebrows when he smirked.
"Do I now?" He held up a photograph for a split second before hiding it again. "Can you guess?"
Catwoman rolled her eyes and scoffed. "I think I know what you're talking about, and I don't like where you're going." She sounded a little… scared.
"Is it Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon? You know, city officials," I asked.
"Wrong. It's these people," Edward said, his expression turning grim as he handed me the photo.
It was of a piece of paper with a list of the rogues on them. Next to each one was an address.
"It's… you guys," I said, looking at the four people sitting next to me. "Why would…" I stopped and put my face in my hands.
We weren't done. Not by a long shot. Now it was worse. My friends were in immediate danger, and there wasn't much I could do about it.
"So.. if you guys are the targets, then what can we do?" I asked. "We can't just sit back and wait for this to happen. We can't just rely on the police either. They'd try to help us, but they'd also hurt you guys…" I said, trying to remain calm.
"I guess that we fight," Jonathan said. "It's normal for us to fight for our lives, but not against one of our own."
"This isn't normal," Catwoman said all of a sudden, slamming her fist against the floor. "Why is Joker doing this? It doesn't make sense!"
"Does anything he do make sense?" Edward asked. The three of them started to argue quietly, trying to come to any sort of conclusion on the matter. Jervis just quietly picked up another photo, obviously annoyed by the arguments. He looked at another one and nudged Jonathan.
"Boron and bromine." He said quietly, handing him the photo.
"That's what he's doing… Boron tribromide?" Jonathan sighed. "That's acidic enough to melt rubber."
"That recipe was up on the catwalk," Catwoman said, picking up another photo. "But I found this in the side room."
"This is for Arsine… it's a simpler poison, but just as deadly of one." Jonathan said. "Why do they have two different toxins?"
"I don't know, but this is the picture of the vats. Can you see enough to get what it is?" I said handing him the photo. The vats were pretty small, perhaps a quart in volume.
"Assuming that the last one is actually what is holding the poison, it's boron tribromide. See how it's an amber-colored liquid? Arsine would be a colorless gas."
"So… what do we do now?" I asked, staring at the photo. They already had the poison. They could attack any day.
"We'll try to destroy the poison. How do we do that?" Edward said, giving a pointed look at Jonathan.
"Water should decompose the poison if it is boron tribromide."
"Great then!" Edward smiled and pointed to Catwoman. "You can go back and take the three vats and dump them into the ocean. Then we'll be over and done with this for a while."
Catwoman shook her head and sighed. "I doubt I could do that. I was almost caught already and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a guard posted now. For any of us to go by tonight, or any night really, would be risking too much." She sighed.
"Then I'll go tomorrow," I said. "I don't have classes, so I'll have plenty of time to go and visit Harley. I might get a chance to at least question her about it," I said.
"But how are we supposed to get the poison out then?" Jervis asked nervously.
"We won't. I'll take a water bottle and dump it in," I said, smiling. "And nothing should go wrong. We should be able to pull this off."
Author's Note: Well, I'm off for a ten hour drive now. Yippee. I won't be able to update on Saturday, sadly, so I'll see you guys next Wednesday! Thanks for reading!