"Morning," Kate called, realizing Luke was still at the flat. The bed was made, the dishes done, and the blinds had been drawn open to let morning light flood the space. It wasn't so late that it was a surprise, but it did strike her as odd that Luke was lingering. She also felt her footing stutter at the sight of the suit laid over the kitchen counter next to Luke and his laptop.
"You left your phone. Where were you?" Luke asked, not skipping a beat to cross-examine Kate or her cryptic whereabouts. His back was turned to her, but she could already tell he was in a mood.
"Downstairs," she answered simply, dropping a folder onto the end of the counter as she rounded it to face Luke.
"Downstairs?" Luke peered over his laptop with a questioning scowl. "Why?"
"I decided to try out one of the other apartments."
"All night?" Luke asked, clearly not believing a word of it.
"Yea," Kate replied, her eyes falling onto the fresh pot of coffee calling her name.
"Why?"
"I-..." Kate turned from the cabinet to deflect when she caught Luke's look and saw that he'd spun his computer around to face her. On the screen was a recording of her vitals from the night before.
"It wouldn't have anything to do with your run-in with fear toxin last night, would it?" he asked.
"How did you-?" Kate gawked. "Mary said-"
"I don't need live access to get your vitals. The suit records them, too."
"And why would you look at the suit in the first place?" Kate asked defensively, only now seeing the cable that tied the suit to his computer. It felt strangely invasive in a way she couldn't articulate.
"Why would you try to hide something like this?" Luke asked back, his frustration replacing his patience. "You came back last night and didn't tell me-"
"You were asleep-"
"-or Mary," Luke finished curtly.
"Where is she, by the way?"
"Class."
"Oh, right," Kate said, taking the deflection to splash the dark aroma into her mug.
"Kate, you can't keep doing this-"
"It's fine," she insisted over the rattle of the pot being repositioned in its cradle. "Mary gave me-"
"Adrenaline, I know. Funny - you failed to tell me that part about your visit with her."
"It's not my fault you were too butthurt to hear anything else," Kate scowled back. "And why are you digging through the suit for information?"
"So that I can verify it's performing correctly," Luke shot back, the screen rotated back to face him.
"Since when is that something you do?"
"Since always."
"Lying doesn't suit you, Luke."
"I'm not lying. I do it because I can't trust you to keep me informed about any-"
"I was going to tell you," Kate interrupted.
"The difference between you and me is that lying does suit you," Luke sighed angrily.
Kate scowled. This wasn't how she wanted to recruit him into helping crack Butler's shorthand, but she also wasn't interested in waiting for their feelings to recover.
"Sophie got Butler's notes."
"Butler's - what? How do you know that?" Luke asked. It worked: his scowl of anger became a furrow of curiosity.
"That doesn't matter-"
"Uh, kinda does," Luke said dryly.
"No it doesn't. What matters is that we have them-"
"Or are we just forgetting the blow-up from twelve hours ago when-"
"-but they're written in shorthand-"
"-you were at her throat for being a bad-"
"-and of anyone you'd be the best to crack it."
"-Lead Crow."
The two glared at each other from across the counter, Kate leaning against the granite surface opposite and Luke still stationed behind his computer.
"You done?" Kate asked impatiently through her scowl.
"Is that what's in the folder?" he asked, nodding toward the manila cardstock holding what looked like half a ream of paper.
"Yes. You interested?" Kate asked, but she could already tell by the crook in his brow that he was hooked.
"This doesn't mean-"
Kate waved him silent as she took her first sip. "Yes, fine. Be mad at me while you save Gotham."
"I'm not mad."
"Just disappointed?" Kate smirked. "Noted, dad."
xx
"So he's been dosing patients for years," Kate said, stating what was becoming obvious the more they dug into the notes. "Overdoses, nervous breakdowns, added violence, mental degradation, memory loss…"
"This stuff is wildly incriminating," Luke added, although his voice carried a level of skepticism to contrast Kate's optimism.
"Maybe Butler's not as smart as he seems?"
It hadn't taken Luke nearly as long as Kate expected for him to begin translating the half-coherent scribbles from the copies Sophie had acquired. By lunch they were both transcribing the different remarks into supplemental information to overlay with the patient files Kate and Sophie had reviewed the night before.
"How did Sophie manage to get a copy of all of this? This doesn't feel like something he'd just willingly hand over."
"She requested it."
"From Arkahm?"
Kate nodded, her eyes on another sheet of notes.
"And they just gave it to her?" Luke scowled.
Kate glanced up. "What is this? What are you getting at?"
"Butler practically runs Arkham. He'd be privy to these kinds of requests."
"Maybe he didn't know?"
Luke didn't look convinced. It was becoming a pattern. If anything, he seemed more skeptical than when they'd started their deep dive hours earlier.
"I don't like this. It's too easy."
"Just because something's easy doesn't make it bad," Kate said. "Besides, it'd be nice to get something easy for once."
Luke's look of skepticism did fade, and Kate let out a sigh.
"You want me to call her?" Kate offered.
"Yes."
"Curfew was lifted."
"Come again?" Sophie asked, catching her arm on the doorframe to the break room to pause Paulie from leaving.
"The mayor's spokeswoman made the announcement maybe... twenty minutes ago? I thought that's what you wanted to see me. I forwarded you the press brief a few minutes ago."
Sophie's eyes were already scanning through the surge of notifications she'd been avoiding when they landed on an email from Paulie:
Press Release for Immediate Circulation: Curfew Lifted
Effective immediately, the curfew which has suppressed much of Gotham for the better part of two months has been lifted. The announcement came from the Mayor's office following confirmation that the Crows Security have successfully armed their task force with the rail gun technology provided by Hamilton Dynamics. The advancement of this technology has provided confidence in the City's ability to handle the latest waves of terror which have reintroduced Fear Toxin to the streets.
For weeks the public and local businesses have been battered by the suppressive restrictions enacted by the City's administration to curtail widespread panic; however, recent public opinion has called into question the relevance of such oppressive enforcement. Frustrations have simmered for weeks, encouraging local community members to voice opposition to what they feel is the government overstepping their rights as citizens.
It is with great relief and confidence that the Mayor acknowledges hearing these pleas and understands the impacts to business and the lives of Gotham's citizens. It is the hope of the administration that an immediate suspension of the curfew will bring back a sense of normalcy to the city.
"Is this a joke?" Sophie asked, glancing up toward Paulie. "They actually released this?"
"Uh, yes ma'am. Agent Kane signed off on it last night."
"Last night?"
Paulie nodded, unsure how to temper the frustration emanating from Sophie. "I imagine this will mean more night routes by the task force," he offered lamely. It didn't help.
This wasn't why Sophie had wanted to see Paulie. She had just assigned him running to ground the possible leads that her and Kate had sifted through the night before, but this news may have just upended all of that.
"Have you heard any of Jacob's plans?"
"No, ma'am. I… well, permission to speak freely?"
"Always," Sophie said, a smirk breaking through the frustration of the moment.
"Oh, uh, well I don't really think he's thought that far ahead."
Sophie felt a genuine smile tug at her lips. Candid Paulie had his own quirks, but he never disappointed. It made sense that Jacob hadn't considered the repercussions on the task force by rushing through the re-opening of the city. The number of Crows on medical leave or who had all but demanded desk positions until the Fear Toxin blew over meant their supply was low. To open the city with their current staff levels either meant spreading the entire task force thinner than a single layer of a puff pastry or allowing certain boroughs to fend for themselves. Neither scenario ensured the safety of Gotham's citizens or the task force. It also did ensure any pushback from failed security would land squarely on the Crows' shoulders.
"Leave this with me. I need your eyes on these Arkham files. The sooner we run that to ground, the sooner Jacob's oversight isn't an issue."
"Yes, ma'am."
"And if anyone tries to task you with something else, send them my way."
"Yes, ma'am.
"And Paulie?"
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Please stop calling me ma'am."
A chime from Sophie's phone caught her attention. A second came quickly after, and Paulie took it as his cue to leave.
K: hey
K: cracked the notes
S: really? already?
K: don't sound so surprised...
S: anything good?
K: that's what we want to talk to you about
S: we?
K: can you talk?
Sophie glanced around the empty hall as Paulie receded back toward the main space, and Sophie took the opportunity to change course toward Kate's old office. She'd already pressed 'call' when the door clicked shut behind her and she'd flicked on the dingy overhead light.
"Hey," came Kate's voice from the other side.
"Hey, what'd you find?"
"How did you get these notes?" Kate asked, ignoring Sophie's question.
"What? The normal route: I put in a request and wait an impossible amount of time before they're finally couriered over. Why?"
"Where are you?" Kate asked, her scowl coming through her tone.
"Broom closet."
Silence fell over the phone, and for a moment she thought they'd lost connection when she heard Luke's voice mutter something in the background.
"You put in the request?" Kate asked.
"I… yes? What is this about?"
"Can we see a copy of that?"
"Kate, what is this about?" Sophie asked, growing frustrated by the ambiguity of the call.
"We don't think these were meant to be included. They're too incriminating."
"Maybe he's not as smart as he seems?"
She heard a snicker from Kate.
"What?"
"That's what I said ten minutes ago," Kate said.
"So…?"
"Luke disagrees."
Sophie paused, mentally trying to piece everything together. If Luke disagreed, it felt worth investigating. "Let me call you back."
She was in her office moments later pulling up the archived request form on her computer. She scanned it, refamiliarizing herself with the form's format from weeks earlier. She read it again, certain she'd skimmed too quickly. Then again. Then once more.
"Hey," Sophie's voice came over the speakerphone twenty minutes later. The sound of cars and sirens suggested she was no longer in the building which didn't bode well. If Sophie wasn't willing to share this information in her office, there was an obvious snag in their plan.
"Anything?" Kate asked.
"Luke was right, these shouldn't have been included," Sophie confirmed, the sound of her footsteps clicking in the background.
"But how is that the Crows' problem? It's not like you stole them," Kate asked what had been nagging her mind for the last thirty minutes.
"That depends," Luke interjected. "What does the transmittal say?"
"The what?" Kate asked.
"The form that accompanies formal material requests," Sophie explained. "And that's where we have another problem: it wasn't included there either."
"Meaning?" Kate asked.
"Meaning we can't submit any of this as evidence unless we know where it came from. As far as the courts are concerned, this has been illegally obtained," Sophie said patiently, but Kate could hear the frustration in her voice.
"But the notes are obviously real. They… they're basically laying out everything. All of Butler's studies, the treatments, the doses, the… Soph, Delia is real," Kate said.
"What are the chances Butler did this on purpose?" Luke pondered.
"What? Why?" Kate asked.
"Because if we had taken this to the District Attorney without the proper channels of acquisition to back it up, they'd throw it out," Sophie sighed. "Illegally obtained evidence is generally inadmissible in court under the exclusionary rule."
"Generally?" Kate asked, "So there's a chance-"
"We need something else," Sophie interrupted. Kate could hear the resignation in Sophie's voice and knew there wasn't a loophole in the world that would change her mind. "I'll got Paulie looking into the patient records we looked at last night-"
"Last night?" Luke interrupted. "When did-"
"Later," Kate muttered with a scowl and quick shake of her head.
"Uh… maybe we'll find something in there," Sophie continued, her voice hovering with an unspoken question.
"And if you don't?" Luke asked.
"I don't know," Sophie confessed. There was a small desperation that came through, and Kate wanted to have an answer for her. "I gotta go. Thanks for the update."
"Yea, sure," Kate said, hitting 'end' on her screen.
Silence fell between them. Their momentum had all but deflated the moment Sophie confirmed their lead as inadmissible. Luke watched Kate's brain whirring together a plan, and he knew he was going to hate it.
"I already know what you're going to say," Luke said after a minute. "What are the chances I can talk you out of it?"
"Slim to none."
a/n: ahhh, I'm sorry this is such a short chapter. It was either this or wait an extra week for a truly mammoth chapter. Consider this a little teaser while I tweak the next bits.