Chapter 30: Best Coffee in Gotham
CITY HALL
In the hour after dawn, as reporters from across the country stood on the sidewalk away from the thin cover of fog that had had shrouded the street, Mayor Alysia Yeoh held a press conference.
She dressed smart in her blue suit. Equally smartly dressed were Police Commissioner Renee Montoya on her left, and Deputy Mayor Harper Row on her right.
"Tonight," Mayor Yeoh said into the bank of microphones at the podium, "we will be running unmanned tests on Gotham City's new monorail system."
She waited for something. Be it questions or applause, no one could say. Then she continued.
"All thirty six cars we have available at this time will be pulled by one locomotive across the track that spreads across the entire city. Bleake Island, Founders Island, Miagani Island, and the mainland. This fast, affordable, dependable public transit system will connect Gotham City's citizens in a way nothing has before."
A few clicks from the reporters' camera phones.
"These tests will run all night," Mayor Yeoh said. "So at any time, the people of this great city can look up, past the fog line, and see the ingenuity that marks Gotham's New Age. That signifies Gotham's rebirth. That calls to the world entire that we yet live. That our tragedies do not define us. That Gotham City… is a place of hope."
WAYNE MANOR
Bruce Wayne was also up at dawn. Though to be more accurate, he had not slept.
The breadth of Ra's al Ghul's plan was made known to him. Using the body of Pamela "Poison Ivy" Isley, he would disperse a volatile Venom compound, utilizing tonight's unmanned tests of the new Gotham City monorail to get as many people as possible. The citizens of Gotham City would succumb to homicidal insanity and tear each other apart.
During his sleepless night, staring up at the ceiling, Bruce ran scenarios and projections.
None of them were favorable. If there were a doomsday scenario, this was it.
He looked over at his sleeping wife. Bruce leaned over to her and kissed her on the cheek. She stirred, but did not awaken.
Bruce got out of bed. Forgoing a morning shower, he put on a white bathrobe that was hanging from a hook next to the bed, and left the bedroom to go into the East Wing hall.
He found himself in the cramped study that led to the Batcave.
But the Batcave was not his destination today. Why would it be? It had been invaded two days earlier. It was not safe. And both he and the rest of the people in his family needed a safe place for what was to come.
He walked to the row of books next to the desk, and pulled one off the shelf. A large, hardback and leather-bound volume.
Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.
It had been a joke between himself and the late Alfred Pennyworth. No one reads Finnegan's Wake. They just get to chapter three and put it back on the shelf. It had more buyers than readers by a wide margin.
Bruce opened the book to chapter three.
That was where the book ended. The rest had been hollowed out. Inside was a small, blank envelope.
Bruce took it out, set the rest of the book down on the desk, and opened the unsealed envelope with the edge of his thumbnail.
He liberated the single sheet of white folded paper inside, and opened it. All it bore was a familiar, flowing cursive forming but a scant four words.
"Best Coffee in Gotham."
THE THOMAS WAYNE MEMORIAL CLINIC
Cullen Row had also been up with the sun. Today, however, he had precious cargo.
Aaliyah Ramsay got out of the front seat of the Towncar almost before the vehicle itself had come to a stop. She looked in through the open window after she had shut the door.
"You're not coming in?" she asked.
"Who'm I gonna talk to?"
"Good point."
"Take your time," Cullen said. "I got a bunch of podcasts loaded up, I'll be fine."
"See ya," said Aaliyah.
Cullen nodded, and brought up the holographic display on the car's radio. He scrolled through the files, found a podcast discussing the NFL, and turned it on.
He hadn't spaced out for more than a minute before a knock came on the driver's side window.
It was Cass.
She looked like crap.
Cassandra had opted out of her usual leather jacket in favor of a black wool trench coat, with a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans beneath. She looked haggard and drawn. There was even a sleep crusty in her sunken left eye.
Cullen rolled the window down.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she said back in a distant voice.
"You here to see Babs?" Cullen asked.
Cassandra nodded. "You bring Aaliyah to see her parents?"
"Yup," said Cullen."
Cassandra nodded yet again. "Go ahead and take off. I'll take Aaliyah back to the manor. And what kid doesn't want a ride in the Batmobile, right?"
Cullen turned this over in his head. "Okay, but… what am I gonna do with the rest of my day?"
"Go to the RH Kane building and surprise Jason?"
Cullen could feel last night's dinner turn into a wave pool within his stomach. "Why I didn't lock the door behind me, I have no fucking clue."
"Go," Cassandra said. "Have fun. You never know when you might get the next chance."
Cullen thought that just sounded loaded. She was forty-eight hours removed from watching Conner Kent, her former boyfriend of so many years, be shot out of the sky. But he was wise enough to not actually say that to her face.
"Okay," Cullen said. "Thanks."
Cassandra nodded slightly and smiled faintly.
He rolled the window back up, put the car in Drive, and pulled away.
Of all the members of Bruce Wayne's old Bat-Network, Cullen Row was the last one to see Cassandra Wayne before the shit went down.
Aaliyah tugged at the collar of her gray sweater.
"Where do we go after all this?" she asked.
In the waiting area of the Thomas Wayne Memorial Clinic, Aaliyah sat across from her mother in the waiting room. Her father, his face still bandaged, sat in a wheelchair next to his wife.
Talia sighed. "Michigan," she said.
Aaliyah scrunched up her face. "Michigan?"
"What's wrong with Michigan?" David asked.
"It snows in Michigan."
"It snows in North Carolina as well," said Talia.
"Yeah, but not as much as in Michigan," Aaliyah said. "Right next to the Great Lakes in a state that's shaped like a glove."
She put her hand to her chest, looking for all the world that she'd fit right in knitting in a Jane Austen novel. Ready for the fainting fit that came with a sudden onset of vapors.
"My dignity and temperament prohibit me from becoming a Michiganite," Aaliyah said.
"'Michiganders,'" said David. "They're called 'Michiganders.'"
Aaliyah sighed. "And they don't even know which words sound stupid and which ones don't."
Talia smiled at this. "How fares your great adventure in Wayne Manor?"
"I, uh… I kinda like it there."
Talia's green eyes flared. "Do you, now?"
"Yeah," said Aaliyah. "Robin's cool."
"You mean Carrie Kelley?"
"Yeah," said Aaliyah. "Cullen and I get along. Selina… Selina's a trip."
Talia nodded gravely. "And the Cain girl?"
Aaliyah blinked in confusion. "'The Cain Girl?'"
Talia let a small jet of air out of her nose. "Forgive me. I mean Cassandra."
"Oh," Aaliyah said. "She's alright. I mean, we haven't had a whole bunch of opportunities to talk what with what's been going on. But…"
Aaliyah stopped when she noticed that her mother seemed a little too interested in what she was saying.
"What?" Aaliyah asked.
Talia fluttered her eyes. "I have bore witness to many of my father's plans. The One-Who-Is-All was one of the ones in which he took the most interest. She was to shepherd the League of Assassins to a new age of glory. But now? Now she is a costumed vigilante who refuses to kill."
She leaned back in her seat.
"I wonder," Talia said, "if any trace of the old killer still yet remains. If, when properly pressed, will she do what needs to be done?"
"She's a Bat," Aaliyah said, suddenly uncomfortable. "I don't think she's killing anyone. Conner was killed a couple of days ago. Barbara got destroyed last night. If she were going to start clapping on fools, now would be the time. But she's not."
"She was designed from the moment of her birth as a weapon of great lethality," Talia said. "I would not be so sure."
Aaliyah got a chill.
Last week, Aaliyah Ramsay lived a boring-ass life as a high schooler in North Carolina. Her mom was a bartender, her dad worked construction, God was in His Heaven, and all was right with the world.
Today, she lived in a large house with eccentric genius superheroes. Her hometown was gone, and her mother and father were killers.
Looking at Talia al Ghul, who was once Victoria Ramsay, turning over these thoughts visibly, Aaliyah had to wonder how much of the killer within her mother still remained. Had it always been there? When she was yelling at her when she was a kid for spilling apple juice? Helping her get ready for spelling tests? Shopping for clothes for cheerleading practice?
Aaliyah squeezed her hands open and closed. "I'm gonna go wash up."
Talia nodded. Aaliyah got up, and went to the ladies room down the hall.
She took her time, getting the soap in between her fingers. She turned off the faucet, let her hands redden beneath the air dryer, and left…
...only to see Cassandra standing there in the hallway.
"Hey," Aaliyah said.
Cassandra nodded sullenly. She reached into the pocket of her wool trench coat, pulled out a can of Soder Cola, and held it out to Aaliyah.
Aaliyah's eyes lit up. "Caffeine!"
She took the can from Cassandra, opened it, and took a couple of greedy gulps.
"Thank you," said Aaliyah.
"Don't mention it," Cassandra said. "How are you holding up?"
"Fine," said Aaliyah. "It's just… I'm coming to grips with how weird it is to have two supervillains as parents."
"I see."
"But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"I would, actually," Cassandra said in a flat voice.
Aaliyah felt the fool, the umpteenth incarnation of the great Boo-Boo Lama. "Yeah… Yeah, I suppose you would."
She took a couple more gulps from her soda. "You here to see Barbara?"
"Among other things," Cassandra said. It was only now that Aaliyah saw how tired she looked. She felt one of those internal twinges of sympathy, right there beneath the rib cage.
"Walk you back?" Cassandra asked.
"Sure," said Aaliyah, thinking it was more of a favor to Cassandra than it was for her.
They slowly walked down the hall next to each other.
"So… how are you holding up?" Aaliyah asked.
"The truth?" Cassandra asked. "It's hard."
"Ow!"
Aaliyah felt a sudden pain in the side of her chest.
She looked down.
The reason she got that sudden pain… was because Cassandra Wayne had just jammed a gun into Aaliyah's ribs.
Aaliyah took a moment from her pure terror to notice that the gun looked like a Sig Sauer, if her dad's gun magazines were to be believed.
"It's just… too… hard," Cassandra said.
They both regarded each other for a few seconds in absolute silence. Aaliyah could see Cassandra's lower lip quiver. Could see her shoulders visibly shake. She wasn't just tired. She was fucking nuts.
"Here's the cover story," Cassandra said. "There's an emergency at Wayne Manor. If you do anything that tips off your parents, I will shoot them both in the face right in front of you."
"I don't think you will," said a woman's voice from down the hall.
Cassandra yanked Aaliyah to her so hard that she dropped her soda, sending it fizzing to the tile floor. She held the gun out over Aaliyah's shoulder, aiming it down the hallway.
Talia and David were at the other end, the former standing, the latter in his wheelchair.
"Honey," David said, "you done stepped in it."
Aaliyah could feel the shuddering breath that Cassandra let out.
"Put the gun down," Talia said, neither her voice nor her face betraying emotion.
"How many times have you given villain speeches in your life?" Cassandra asked. "How many times did you tell Bruce that surrounding himself with people was only going to make him weak and soft? Well… You were right. On just the off-chance my family survives what's coming, I will give birth to your half-brother and put your daughter in the ground. The only question is whether or not I do that second one right fucking now!"
Aaliyah could hear the tears get Cassandra's voice all thick.
"Conner's dead. My… my mom is in there clinging to life because of what your dad did to her! I can't do it. I… I just can't…. If either of you try and stop me, all three of you are getting bullets. I swear to God."
"I give you my word," Talia said. "If you put the gun down now, you will be the only one who dies. If you put the gun down, I will not flay the flesh from Bruce Wayne's bones. If you put the gun down, I will not separate Barbara Gordon's head from her body. If you put the gun down, I will not boil Stephanie Brown alive in her own-"
BANG!
The apocalypse sounded from the gun in front of Aaliyah Ramsay.
Cassandra Wayne just shot Talia al Ghul.
The bullet caught Talia low in the abdomen off to the right. A thin line of blood spurted, darkening her shirt as she fell to the floor.
"MOM!"
Aaliyah's first instinct was to bolt for her mother, but the hand of Cassandra Wayne caught her by the back of the neck hard, sending bolts of agony all the way down her back.
Cassandra walked her down the hallway. David slid from his wheelchair to the floor, tending to his bleeding, groaning wife.
"Baby?" he asked. "Baby?"
David Hyde looked up…
...just in time for Cassandra to kick his head into the wall so hard that it left a dent.
Again, instinct kicked in to kneel down and help him, but Cassandra's grip overrode it.
As they made their way into the waiting area, Aaliyah saw Doctor Jenkins. She had her hands up, her eyes wide in terror.
From behind them, she could hear her father.
"I will gut you for this, Cain! DO YOU HEAR ME? I WILL GUT YOU FOR THIS!"
They were out in the open air outside the clinic, now.
BOOM!
The sound in the air tore itself apart as a black metal monstrosity seemed to appear out of thin air.
The Batmobile had just decloaked.
"Get in," Cassandra said.
ANNABELLE'S CAFE
From his haziest initial memories to the horrifying year that he turned eight years old, Bruce Wayne had gone with his parents to Annabelle's Cafe on Miagani Island.
It was nothing special, not a haven for the rich. Thomas and Martha Wayne had no small amount of fame in Gotham City, so when they went, they went in hooded sweatshirts.
Annabelle's Cafe had closed down during those years abroad when Bruce was training to be Batman, and Alfred Pennyworth, who had been running the Wayne personal finances, bought the building.
He figured that Bruce couldn't bear the thought of the place being torn down and turned into a Foot Locker. Some soulless place that no one loved.
And he was right.
Bruce Wayne stood there now, in a hooded sweatshirt himself, amid the dusty counters and the old black and white tile floor that was now more gray and even-darker-gray.
When he was a child, he remembered breaking away from his parents as they ate their eggs and looked out the window at the passers by, and standing next to the window, staring at a light-up poster display. It was painted in a retro art deco style, and depicted a woman, her head thrown back in smiling delight, holding a cup of coffee. And above her head, the simple legend:
Best Coffee in Gotham!
Bruce had never had the coffee at Annabelle's, so he could not make any statements toward the veracity of the poster's claim. The memories of his early childhood were the haziest he possessed, as he had not honed his mind to the photographic perfection needed to be The World's Greatest Detective. But if he had to make a guess, he'd have figured that the style of painting promised an air of unreality that the young Bruce Wayne would have found appealing.
But standing there now, at fifty-one years of age, something else captivated him about the poster.
Namely, the woman depicted therein.
For this woman in question had a black pixie cut and inviting green eyes.
Bruce stood there, still, trying to conjure what this meant.
It seemed that the nascent romantic longing of the young Bruce Wayne manifested later in life. Namely in marrying a woman who looked just like the permanently ecstatic coffee drinker on this poster thirty years later.
And wouldn't that be something interesting to go over in therapy?
He stepped toward the light-up poster display and put his hands up to it.
"Sorry," he said to the painted woman on the poster, his apparent first-ever crush.
He unhooked the front of the display and set it on the floor, exposing the open hollow where the lights would have been.
There were no lights inside.
What was inside, however, was another unsealed white envelope, which he picked up and opened.
That familiar flowing script again, making up two words.
"Night One."
THE PEMBROKE BUILDING
Aaliyah Ramsey was in the passenger seat of the Batmobile, a madwoman behind the controls.
Cassandra Wayne steered the vehicle in stealth, weaving in and out of traffic, speeding up around corners, terrifying Aaliyah down to her very core.
It seemed that Cassandra was more than amenable to murdering Aaliyah on Ra's al Ghul's say-so. Was this how she was going to do it? Driving so madly in traffic that it would successfully result in giving a fifteen-year-old girl a heart attack?
The Batmobile came to a sudden stop, the screeching of the tires hidden by the vehicle's stealth system. Aaliyah could hear the loud BOOM! as it decloaked.
The roof retracted.
"Get out," Cassandra said.
Aaliyah climbed over the black metal side of the Batmobile, and to the curb in front of a tall building. Even in her state of terror, she still marveled as the Batmobile drove itself half a block before turning invisible again.
The spell was broken by Cassandra viciously grabbing her by the waist.
"Hold on," Cassandra said.
She got a gun-looking device from the depths of her trench coat, and fired a grappling hook into the air. Aaliyah could barely see it lodge itself to the roof of the building, before both she and Cassandra were yanked skyward.
The ascent was so jarring and rapid that Aaliyah forgot to swear or even scream.
Their landing atop the building was a rough one. Cassandra landed on her feet. Aaliyah didn't.
Aaliyah shook the stars out of her eyes, and the first thing she saw was an exit door.
She bolted for it before she could tell herself to stop.
Aaliyah didn't get four steps before the iron grip of Cassandra Wayne latched to the back of her neck. Her agony came out of her mouth in a slow hiss.
"I don't need a gun to end you," Cassandra said. "Run and I will catch you. Hide and I will find you. And if you pull shit like that again, I will bend your legs back at the knee and make you crawl before I kill you! Do you understand me?"
Aaliyah was in too much pain to say anything. She just nodded.
"Good," Cassandra said before savagely throwing her down. "Now sit there, and don't fucking move."
Aaliyah sat cross-legged on the roof while Cassandra went over to some weird metal box thing that didn't look like a part of the building.
She wasn't at the right angle to say… but the pointy things on the other side looked an awful lot like missiles.
Cassandra got a pair of blocky black glasses out of her trench coat, put them on, and went to the keypad on the side. She punched something in, before coming back around, crossing her arms, leaning against the thing with the missiles… and glaring at Aaliyah.
"A few days ago," Cassandra said as she took her glasses off and put them away, "the Arkham Knight set up a whole bunch of missile installations around the city on just the possibility that one of them took out Mother Panic on her glider. Ever since then, the GCPD's been taking them down. I figured all the missile installations have connections to Ra's and Astrid if their control panels were tampered with like I just did. So… we're having company in a bit."
Aaliyah didn't say anything to that. She just tried to look literally anywhere else for the next few minutes as her heart pounded and Cassandra stared at her.
Then Cassandra spoke again.
"I will say this, though. I shot your mom, and your first instinct was to run in and save her. I stopped you, but… Your instincts are sound. They're good to have."
She seemed to expect Aaliyah to say something, but she held her tongue. Then Cassandra spoke again.
"Under a different set of circumstances, I'd be thinking long and hard about getting you in a costume. Put those instincts to use for the greater good. But alas, 'tis not to be."
Cassandra scratched the side of her nose. "You wanted to save your family today. But you know what…? I want to save mine. And the sad fact of the matter is, I barely know you. The vow I took to never kill another human being doesn't mean shit if breaking it means my people get to stay alive. But… you need to know I'm sorry it shook out this way."
The fear gave way in Aaliyah. Crumbled beneath black and syrupy hatred.
If the opportunity presented itself to watch Cassandra Wayne die, she would take it.
A few more minutes passed in silence until Aaliyah heard it. Heard the sound she heard in a million movies.
The THUPPA-THUPPA-THUPPA of an approaching helicopter.
It got louder and louder as it approached. So loud she couldn't stand it. Aaliyah clenched her eyes shut and screamed, but it was so loud she couldn't hear herself. She felt her hair blow back.
But the whirring of the helicopter died down, and she opened her eyes.
The helicopter was on the roof with them. Two people had stepped out, and Cassandra was standing between Aaliyah and their new company.
The one on the left, Aaliyah recognized. It was the monster in blue armor that she had first seen a few nights ago making mincemeat out of her dad at the Gotham Royal. The Arkham Knight. But her blue armor had been blackened a little between then and now, as though she'd stood beneath a jet of fire.
The one on the right, though, she had never seen before. It was an older fellow with green eyes and funky facial hair. He was wearing a green cloak above a black suit. For some strange reason, Aaliyah thought that this was what a professional wrestler would wear to Sunday services.
The one on the right looked over Cassandra's shoulder and affixed Aaliyah with a gaze.
"Hello, Aaliyah. I am your grandfather."
So this was Ra's al Ghul.
The hatred for the three of them became an inferno within the chest of Aaliyah Ramsay. She tried to think of a fittingly gory and graphic punishment for Cassandra Wayne, Ra's al Ghul, and Astrid Arkham, and could not fathom any cruelty that was not unjustified.
But it was at this point that she tried to stop herself.
Between the two of them, Aaliyah's parents were guilty for the deaths of hundreds. Maybe even thousands. And her grandfather, this vile thing before her, was responsible for casualties beyond measure. The road at her feet was well-trod, and even with her impending doom, she had to stop herself from going any further.
Is this how it starts?
"I want your word," Cassandra said. "I do what you want me to do, and no harm comes to my family."
Ra's sighed. "I can only guarantee their safety to the extent that they do not get themselves involved. I cannot promise they won't do anything foolish in their attempts to stop me, but I will promise that any among my or the Arkham Knight's number who does harm to anyone in your adoptive familial orbit, even in self-defense, shall suffer gruesome and permanent reprisals. This, I swear."
Cassandra peered at Ra's. "You know… I can tell that you're not lying right now."
"Because I am not," Ra's said. "This is how much the Line of the Demon means to me."
Cassandra nodded, pulled out her gun, and walked toward Aaliyah, pointing the weapon at her.
"Do I do it now?" Cassandra asked.
Aaliyah's heart forgot to beat, the stupid thing.
"No," Ra's said. "Illegitimate usurper though she may be, Aaliyah is still the Granddaughter of the Demon. Ceremony must be maintained. It is… the least I could do."
Aaliyah took a break from being petrified to hate Ra's al Ghul with her whole heart once more. After all, that crusty motherfucker did just talk about her like she wasn't there.
"I figured as much," Cassandra said, attempting to put her gun back beneath her coat.
This attempt was stopped by the Arkham Knight.
"Hey," she said, her voice coming out with electronic distortion. "Huh-uh. Give it here."
Cassandra slowly walked to the Arkham Knight, and handed the piece to her, along with a heaping helping of stink-eye.
"Hmmmm," the Arkham Knight said. "Sig Sauer, huh? This the gun Stephanie Brown pointed at me yesterday?"
Cassandra nodded.
"I seem to have lost one of mine in that diner," the Arkham Knight said. "Being as you and your band of merry shitheads are protected by the word of the great Ra's al Ghul, I can't start collecting trophies. Looks like the Sig here is just gonna have to do."
Cassandra glared at the Arkham Knight. "You feeling alright Astrid? You're looking a little crispy."
"I killed Nightwing and Superman," the Arkham Knight said. "I'm the Jason Voorhees of superheroes. I may look crispy, but I feel great!"
Aaliyah had heard tell of Cassandra Wayne's considerable speed and strength, but this was the only time she had ever seen proof. In the time it took Aaliyah to blink, Cassandra sent her fist into the Arkham Knight's helmet with a sound like an aluminum bat hitting a home run.
The Arkham Knight being as well-armored as she was, her head didn't even move, and Cassandra was left to shake a couple of beads of her own blood off of her hand.
"And what did you hope to accomplish with that?" the Arkham Knight asked.
Cassandra didn't say anything.
"Enough of this," Ra's said. "Come."
Cassandra walked over to Aaliyah and brought her to her feet as the helicopter started up again.
Even under the long pall of her own death, Aaliyah found a kernal of delight that popped without her consent.
At least I'm getting a helicopter ride…
THE CORNER OF ROCHESTER AVENUE AND B STREET
On his first night fighting crime in Gotham City, Bruce Wayne was not Batman. He had no gadgets. He had no car. All he had had on that evening to protect his identity and his person was a balaclava and leather jacket respectively.
Crime in Gotham was so bad that the Falcone family did their gun deals in plain sight, not giving even a fraction of a damn whether or not a cop car rolled by. And Bruce was more than happy to ruin their evening.
The corner of Rochester Avenue and B Street on Bleake Island, next to the old auto plant, had been the scenic locale for that night's event. He had hoped to take at least one of them out stealthily, but a clumsy effort to sneak around a trash can put paid to that. The whole thing turned sideways, and Falcone's goons started shooting at him. One of those stray bullets had even found its way into one of the bricks on the side of the auto plant.
A brick that, over thirty years later, no longer had a bullet hole.
The red brick seemed loose from the mortar surrounding it. Bruce, securing the hood of the sweatshirt over his head with his left hand, pulled the brick out of the wall with his right.
Behind this brick was yet another unsealed envelope, this time folded into thirds.
He plucked it from the wall and opened it, the piece of paper therein yet again bearing words in a familiar flowing cursive.
"Gotham Steel."
Well, that one was easy. It was the auto plant from which Bruce had just pulled a brick. And unless he was mistaken, Bruce was pretty sure he owned the building.
The nearest door was unlocked. He navigated the dusty and dilapidated hallways and found the factory floor.
The wide expanse of the factory floor was bare, save for the stray candy wrapper and dog turd… and the huge and hulking piece of yellow machinery off near the left wall that Bruce could not identify.
An even more curious development was the fact that, judging from the green light that was shining on the right side, the building (or at least the factory floor) still had power.
Bruce found a black button on the same side as the shining green light, and pressed it.
With a thundering metal shriek, the piece of machinery sloooooooooooowly started sliding to the right. Bruce stepped further back to see what he had just accomplished.
The piece of machinery had slid back to reveal a narrow brick staircase leading down into the floor of the factory.
Bruce got a small flashlight out of his hoodie. He didn't bring his phone. He didn't know if Ra's had the ability to track him.
He counted thirty steps into the bowels of the Earth before he came to a small cement landing a few feet long that led right to a red brick wall.
And upon this brick wall one word was written in white spray paint with no punctuation at the end.
"SPEAK"
"Hello," Bruce said.
A moment passed, before the bricks in the wall started shifting to the side, revealing a narrow metal door.
And Bruce smiled.
During his fifth year as Batman, when his wars with The Joker were at their height, Bruce had given his butler, valet, confidante, and father figure Alfred Pennyworth a task.
To found a base of operations that was secret even from Bruce Wayne himself. For if Batman were ever captured, his will ever circumvented by chemical or supernatural means toward the goal of revealing his secrets, there needed to be a place that both Alfred and Robin could go whose location could not be revealed by Batman.
And this was it.
But if Bruce himself needed to make use of such a place, then Alfred must leave clues, the answers to which only he would know. And those clues led him here. To this abandoned auto plant on Bleake Island.
A voice came from the walls.
The voice of Alfred.
"Voice print recognized… Welcome, Master Bruce."
Hearing his voice again after so long made his insides swell. Bruce wanted Alfred to see the man he'd become in spite of his own anger and pig-headedness. That the dream he had for the son of two of Gotham City's elite, viciously taken before their time, finally came true. That the world, in it's cruelty, did not break him. And that Bruce, in his foolishness, did not break himself.
Bruce said, in a whisper so soft that someone standing next to him would have been unable to hear:
"Thank you, Alfred…"
GOTHAM HILTON
Gotham City had bookstores that delivered to hotel rooms.
Who knew, right?
Stephanie Brown woke up this morning knowing that several kinds of shit were going to be hitting several different brands of fan, and it was going to happen soon. And here she was, wasting away in a hotel room, out of the loop.
She'd never wanted to go back to her Spoiler days, but here they were yet again. Coddled and protected from herself. She might do something stupid, after all.
So fuck it. She was staying right here where Cassandra told her to stay. She just didn't have it in her to fight it anymore.
Stephanie couldn't recall the last time she'd read for fun. Sounded like a lark, really.
She found a bookstore that delivered, and paid with a credit card online.
There Stephanie sat on the couch, the holographic television tuned to the channel that was actually about the hotel for background noise as she started hacking and slashing her way through Stephen King's Under the Dome.
She had just gotten to the part where King name-dropped Soledad O'Brien and Wolf Blitzer for that mid-2000s verisimilitude, when a knock came on the hotel room door.
Maybe it was Cass.
Maybe it was the bookstore delivery girl who came back to report a problem with her method of payment. Stephanie did pay with a credit card under a fake name.
She got off the couch, straightened out her jeans and her green t-shirt, checked her pocket for cash, and went to the door.
As she approached, she opted to look through the door's peephole to see who it was.
This objective proved difficult, however.
For there was not a face on the other side of the peephole.
There was a badge on the other side of the peephole.
She blinked, rooted to the spot with horror, before she slowly opened the door.
It was the real deal, alright. GCPD issue. They hadn't changed the design for the damn things in the fourteen years she'd been away.
So transfixed was she by the sight of the badge that she took no notice whatsoever of the person holding it.
"Natalie Venora," the officer holding the badge said, "you are under arrest for aiding and abetting an illegal firearms sale within the limits of Gotham City. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…"