Chapter 15: Questions
"AH!" I woke up with a start, finding myself on the floor next to my desk in the dark. That must be what I felt when I hit the ground in my dream. I glanced at my clock, which read 11 pm. Damn, I was more tired than I thought.
Since I had wasted the day sleeping to avoid my problems, I decided to head down to the cave to see what fresh trouble McGinnis had gotten into tonight.
"And she has risen from the dead." Terry comment when I entered the cave.
"Ha ha." I said flatly. I hopped up on the med table across from the one he was sitting on and looked him over. He was in the Batsuit, minus the cowl, holding an ice pack to his temple. He looked completely slagged and ready to crash. Bruce was near by fiddling with a med scanner looking just as slagged.
"What happened to you two?" I asked. I noticed the Bat-exosuit was out, instead of in the armory with the other specialized weapons.
"Inque." Terry groaned.
"I thought she was frozen?" Or what I thought I remembered of her case file said she was.
"One of the workers at Gotham Cryo freed her. He wanted to be like her so he agreed to help her only if she made him like her." Terry explained.
"When did this happen?" Inque wasn't in the news at all. Of course Spellbinder had taken center stage recently though.
"This morning. I tried to stop her, but she got away I had school."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Was everyone determined to keep me in the dark?
"You were too busy lying about being fine." Terry brought our previous argument up again.
"It isn't a lie!" I protested.
"Whatever Grayson. It doesn't matter because Bruce and I handled it." He said cockily. I would have smacked him right then, but I realized something.
"Wait a minute. Bruce, you fought Inque? In the exosuit?" I turned to him, the pieces pulling together in my head. He nodded. "I thought your heart couldn't take the strain of fighting anymore? That's why you gave up Batman, right?"
"It is, but I didn't have another option tonight. McGinnis was down and Inque gave me no choice." He said, still messing with the scanner.
"What about me?" I asked, slightly offended I wasn't considered to help.
"You spent part of your afternoon convincing Dick that you wouldn't do work outside of the cave. And your arm needs a chance to heal. You weren't a choice." Bruce said while scanning Terry for injuries. I hated when he was right. We sat in silence for a moment, waiting for the scanner. It beeped with the results.
"You'll be fine except for a little soreness and a headache. The cowl took most of the damage to your head. Grab a spare, do one more round of the city and head home." Bruce told him. Terry didn't move.
"Not until you scan Jamie too." Terry said. I shot an angry look towards Terry. Not this again. I was fine, why didn't he believe that? And it wasn't like the med scanner would pick up any psychological damage anyway. Not that I had any.
"It would be good after what happened with Spellbinder. Sit still" Bruce ordered me. I rolled my eyes and glared at Terry the whole time Bruce scanned me. Terry just sat with a satisfied smirk on his face. He made it really hard not to smack him.
The scanner made an error noise this time. Bruce frowned at it and scanned me again, ending with the same result.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"It says there's an interference blocking the scanner. I'm going to x-ray you." He said. That wasn't reassuring. Did Spellbinder do more than we first thought? It annoyed me that Terry might be right. Bruce hit a few buttons on the scanner and scanned me again. The scanner beeped with the results and Bruce frowned at it again. Okay now I was worried.
Terry looked over Bruce's shoulder at the scanner and frowned too.
"Are you going to tell me what's going on?" I asked. They looked up at me and then Bruce turned for the computer. Terry and I followed and watched as he pulled up what was on the scanner display.
"That is the cause of the interference." Bruce zoomed in on a spot about the size of a nail head on my skull. Actually, not on, in my skull.
"What is it?" Terry asked. They both looked at me.
"I'm just as clueless as you two." I told them. "And how could something be in my bone? I've never had a reason to have a medical procedure."
"If it was implanted when you were young, the bone could have developed around it, leaving it partially embedded." Bruce explained.
"So you're implying someone possibly had this implanted in me as a baby? Can you at least tell me what it is and why it slagged the scanner?"
"It's possible your mother is behind this. We need to run some tests on you to know what it is." Bruce said, already preparing monitoring stats for the test on the computer. "McGinnis, get to your patrol."
"What about Jamie?" He asked.
"You said you would leave once I was scanned. Go." I snapped. I don't if I was mad at him for having Bruce scan me or the fact that the scan actually found something.
"She's right. We'll be fine without you." Bruce told him.
"Whatever." McGinnis huffed and stormed out of the cave.
The cave went quiet after he left, while I contemplated what was going on.
"Wait. How do you know my mother could be behind this? Did you know her?" I asked. It had never occurred to me that Bruce could have met her.
"No. You were a year old when Dick found out about you. More than enough time for this to be implanted."
That was news to me. I always assumed that I was born and my mother left me with Dad right after. She had kept me for a year before that? Why? Did it have something to do with the chip thing in my skull?
"Let's get to work then. I would like some answers." I said.
"Anything yet?" I asked two hours later. I was laying on the cave floor, using Ace as a pillow, because I refused to go to bed until I got some answers. Plus the cold floor felt good on my arm. The computer pinged in response.
"I'll take that as a yes," I said, getting up. Bruce displayed a 3D hologram of the microchip in the middle of the control center of the cave. I spent a moment studying it.
"So that's what's embedded in my skull?" I asked. He nodded.
"And out of all those tests and scans, this was the result?"
"Yes."
"Okay then." We fell into silence, both examining the hologram.
"What's that?" I pointed to a tiny symbol engraved on the bottom of the chip.
"Computer, enhance hologram." Bruce commanded. The computer complied and the symbol became clear.
"Rogers Research Technologies?" I asked. I had never heard of that company.
"It used to be subsidiarity of MedCorp International. It was the current CEO of MedCorp's first company before she took over running MedCorp from her grandfather." Bruce explained.
"MedCorp? The best medical equipment manufacturer in the world? Leader in medical robotics? Why would an international mega corporation have an interest in me?" I questioned.
"Your mother could have ties to either of them. But lets focus on the chip first." Bruce said.
"Okay, so why did it interfere with the med scanner?"
"It's built like a cell in the body, each part has a different function." Bruce explained. He pointed to a part of the chip. "This is essentially an EMP which is what stopped the scanner. Not strong enough to shut it down. The technology is a bit outdated or weakened with age."
"What else does it do?"
"It also monitors your brain activity, heart rate, and blood pressure. All things that can change as a physical response to your emotions." Bruce explained as he pointed to each part of the chip.
"So whoever put that chip in my skull is measuring my emotions?" I questioned. Why would anyone care about the emotional response of a random girl as she grew up?
"It appears that way. It also had an affect on what you were supposed to see from Spellbinder last night." Bruce added.
"What do you mean?"
"I reviewed what you saw against what Spellbinder's signal sent and they're different." He explained.
"What do you mean different? And how did you not know this last night?"
"I only ran a download of what you saw. That was what mattered." He said, pulling up two videos on the computer. One was of the circus nightmare I saw, and another was of a parachuting jump.
"So wait, I was supposed to think I was parachuting instead of being on a trapeze? How did the chip change it so drastically? And how could you even analyze what I saw in my head?" I asked, very confused. The fact Bruce was able to download my thoughts into a vid was stranger than anything that microchip or Spellbinder could do.
"An old mission involving Doctor Strange trying to find my secret identity. Whatever signal the chip is sending out, it interfered with Spellbinder's signal." Thanks for the explanation Gramps.
"So that chip can mess with my thought patterns?" That's disturbing. "Can we take it out?" I was very uncomfortable with this whole microchip in my head thing.
"Its too well embedded in your skull to remove without going to a hospital, and short circuiting it isn't a choice without endangering you."
"So what can we do?" I asked.
"Going to Roger Tech is the best choice, but they've been merged into MedCorp. The only way is to confront MedCorp about shutting the chip down."
"What? Do we just walk into MedCorp and ask for a list former Roger Tech employees? I don't think they'll agree to that." I said skeptically.
"Victoria Rogers, CEO of MedCorp is going to be at the Wayne-Powers charity dinner. You can pretend to be interested in her time at Rogers and ask her questions then." Bruce told me. He was manipulating me, giving me a reason to go, just so I would do what he wanted. Unfortunately I couldn't think of a better way to get information other than sending Batman in to terrorize MedCorp. But this wasn't a Batman problem.
"Fine." I finally conceded, heading up to the manor. "But you 're buying me something to wear."
Maybe Jamie will find out more about her mother soon?
So, I'm not dead, just really busy. And I apologize for not being consistent with updates. With work and class, this story has to be put on hold for a bit. I'll post when I can, but it might take awhile in between. But I promise I haven't abandoned this story and it will be finished because I owe it to all of you who have been kind enough to read and stick with Jamie. Thank you!
Fun Fact(not really): Is anyone else curious about what Ace was doing while Bruce was out fighting Inque with Terry? I feel like Ace was smart enough to know that Bruce was putting himself in danger, and probably tried to stop Bruce. I would've liked to be in the cave to see Ace all concerned for Bruce.