Chapter 29: Running Risks

"This place is a mess." I kicked a wad of wrapping paper. So much for a nice clean and new place.

"I've seen worse. We've had at least twelve people over for Christmas at the manor before." Dad said, starting to clean the living room mess. For having only seven people over, (Uncle Tim and Aunt Steph, the twins, Bruce, Ko, Dad, and me) it looked like a mob had come through.

"I'd say today was a success." I declared as I helped him clean.

"You and Ko did a wonderful job with dinner." he complimented, "Speaking of, where is she?"

"She went to call her parents. She wanted to know if her gift arrived on time." I stuffed more paper into an empty box.

"I think Bruce had a good time," I said after a minute, "But when was the last time he saw the twins?"

"Who knows." Dad shrugged.

I finished cleaning up and took out the trash, while Dad went to make us hot cocoa. When I came back inside, my cocoa mug was sitting on top of a piece of paper. I picked it up and read it. It was a train ticket home! For New Year's!

I ran out of the kitchen and into Dad's bedroom were he was waiting. I gave him a hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" I squeezed him.

"You're welcome Little Bird." he laughed, "But this isn't just from me." I looked at him.

"Who else is it from?"

"Bruce. He convinced me to let you go."

"He did?" I pulled out of the hug. "Why?"

"We both agreed that you need something positive right now. Between what happened with Anni and finding out about Jason and your mother, you could use something fun. Aunt Cass is out of town, but said you can stay at her place." They weren't wrong, even if the reason I wanted to go had everything to do with my mother and Anni. But who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth?

"This is the perfect gift. Thank you." I hugged him again.


A three nights later I stood on a roof across from the police station. I didn't really want to break in, but the strange autopsy wouldn't leave my mind. Ko didn't help either, with her constantly trying to theorize with me about what might've really happened. I hated to admit that she had gotten to me.

Besides, I needed to do a test run in the suit.

It felt weird breaking into a building I had been in before. This wasn't the precinct Dad had worked at, but he had a few friends who did, and would sometimes have me drop off paperwork here if he was short on time.

Getting in was the easy part. This section of the city was usually pretty quiet, so the night watch probably wasn't as alert as they could be. I slipped by the security cameras with ease, thanks to the belt, and found the autopsy lab quickly. I cringed internally at the thought of someone getting in trouble or loosing their job because of me, but shook it off when I remembered the police were probably hiding something.

I sat at the computer in the morgue and set to work. I inserted the digital lock pick and waited. I had found a plethora of useful items in the storage room while organizing, many of which made me wonder if Bruce had worked more closely with Catwoman than he let on. The lock pick dinged. Good. Time to hunt down what really was going on.

It took a little more hunting than I would've hoped to find the autopsy files, and even more time to find Michelson's. It amazed me how many reports were saved. Some dated back to the 2010's. I finally found his and stared at it for a minute before opening it. Either this whole break in was a waste, and Ko and I were paranoid, or a government organization had falsified documentation. I really hoped I was just paranoid.

I clicked on the file and read through it. Some parts on this one didn't even exist on the one released publicly. For starters, this was still an open investigation. Why? Dad said it was a pretty clear murder-suicide case. Closed case when they found the other escapee. Not much to investigate.

I read further and involuntarily gasped. No wonder it was still open. The med examiner had found a microchip in his brain. And not only his, they found one implanted in Arron Johnson, the other escapee, as well. I needed to get to the evidence locker, and fast.

I had no idea what this suit was made of, but whatever it was, it had to be invisible to infrared sensors. Was definitely going to look up the schematics when I got back to Gotham. Getting into the evidence locker was a bit more difficult because they used a retro combo lock and I had to use my very limited lock picking skills. It took me more tries than I'm willing to admit to get it open, but I eventually did.

Since I didn't have any idea where it could be, I started with a shelf labeled 'M'. Good place as any to start. There were multiple metal storage containers, each one had a date on it. I found the group for Dec 9, 2039. There were more than I expected, which was depressing. I skimmed them until I came across Michelson's.

I pulled open the container and found the gun and knife, some shell casings, a few other things, but no microchip. That was strange. I looked over the evidence list on the container cover. The chip was still on it and no one had checked out the container in a week. It was even signed back in.

I frantically searched for Arron Johnson's evidence bin, and it was the same story. No chip. Something was very wrong. My resolve to get into MedCorp's system was stronger than ever.


My arms felt like they had been run over by a truck the next morning. Definitely should've have worked with the grappling gun sooner. I would just ice my arms and hope for the best. A little soreness wasn't going to stop me. There were more important things to worry about. A week of staying up way too late doing research would come together tonight.

I needed to time everything perfectly. My window of opportunity was uncomfortably small, but if Aunt Cass didn't get home earlier than planned, I could leave with about ten minutes to spare, getting me into MedCorp around the security's shift change. So of course it would be just my luck that things wouldn't go as planned.

People were leaving the MedCorp building. People who weren't security guards. Did I miss something? It was too late for them all to be just leaving work. Last minute planning for tomorrow? Emergency meeting? It didn't really matter, only that it slagged up my plan. Now I had to be even more cautious. The suit wasn't exactly business casual. At least I had the camo function working.

The best way in for me was through the rooftop maintenance entrance. Unfortunately, after that, I had no idea where in the building I needed to go for information. Private companies don't exactly make their floor plans public knowledge. Especially not ones as big as MedCorp.

"Here goes nothing," I whispered to myself before deploying the grappling gun up to the top of the MedCorp building. I landed so ungracefully that my gymnast's heart hurt. And so did my bad arm.

"Smooth Grayson," I muttered, rubbing my arm. I searched the rooftop for the entrance. I found it and tried the handle, but of course it was locked. I groaned and dug my lock picking set from my belt. When I got back home, I was definitely going to start working on my lock picking skills.

I felt the finial pin click into place and the door swung open. A blank expanse of darkness swallowed me as I entered the stairwell. I'll admit, I've broken into more places than most, but nothing had ever made me feel as unsettled as walking down those stairs. Maybe because this time, I wasn't committing some immature and petty act of revenge or vandalism. I was here for answers to questions I shouldn't even be asking. The consequences were much worse if I was caught. And the worst part was, I wouldn't be able to justify my reason for any of it. The cops would think I was crazy. Well, at this point, I still might agree with them.

I used my phone for light and finally made it to the end of the stairwell. Thankfully, this time the door was left unlocked. I slowly opened the door to find myself in another stairwell, this one actually lit. With only one way to go, I headed down the stairs, hope to find some clue as to where I could get what I wanted. I came across a door labeled Floor 25 Chief of Staff Offices. Nope. Not what I wanted. If anything, I wanted to be as far away as possible from that particular floor. I made my way farther into the building.

Research and Development was on floor 17, and as good a place as any to start. It wasn't what I pictured at all. It was just offices and cubicles for the entire floor. It was probably the management end of the R&D department. Maybe the director of R&D would have something on their computer. It couldn't hurt to look. After disabling the floor's cameras, I found the office with ease. It was the biggest on the floor, and of course, it was locked.

"Damn, why can't people be more trusting," I muttered, while picking the lock. I was starting to wonder if this was even worth the effort. As much as I was risking, the payout had better be worth it. The director was useless, as were the next three R&D managers I found. By the time I had gotten to the thirteenth floor, I was starting to regret ever putting on the suit. If I didn't find anything here, I was just going to pretend I knew nothing, because there was no way in hell I could ever convince Dad to let me go out to San Francisco to get to MedCorp HQ without suspicion.

After breaking into the fifth office of the night, I finally found something useful. God bless whoever Michelle Overbeck was and her wonderful organization of computer files. This woman apparently worked with Victoria at Roger Tech, and helped develop later microchips. Specifically the ones implanted into Michelson and Johnson. Her computer was a gold mine of information.

A nice little file marked Project Whisper was very helpful. The Phase 1 folder was empty, but I already knew what I needed for that. Phases 2 and 3's folders were exactly what I was looking for. Just when I was about to start reading through them, I heard footsteps outside the office, and saw lights through the frosted glass windows. It looked like my minuscule amount of luck had just run out. Shit.


Poor Jamie. All she wants is answers and the world is making it difficult.

Fun Fact: The microchip in Jamie's head is not the first. Victoria created the first one about three years before Jamie was born.