Backlash

            "Mr. Powers?  Mardi Purcell is here to see you."

            "Thank you.  Send her in," Derek replied into the intercom.  "Well this should be interesting," he said to the large man standing in the shadows of the corner.  "And far easier than I expected."  A few moments later the door opened and she walked through, dressed casually in jeans, a contrast to the normally flawless business attire she normally wore.  Derek smiled.  "Well, well, I just can't get away from you Waynes can I?"

            Mid-stride, she flung a disk into the air towards him.  It landed on the smooth surface of the desk and slid into his lap.  "Choke on that."

            He smirked and picked the disk up, looking at it as if he'd never seen one before.  "What could this be?"

            "That is my resignation effective immediately."

            "Now why on earth would you want to leave our little family?"

            "I knew you weren't a nice person, I just didn't realize how vile you could be.  I hope they nail your ass."  She turned to walk out.  Derek nodded to his man, who stepped in front of the door, blocking her way.  "What do you think you're doing?" she asked him, then turned around.  "Powers, tell your trained monkey to get out of my way."

            "You disappointed me, Mardi," Derek said as he leaned comfortably in his chair, "I asked you to do one simple thing for me and in return I get defiance and duplicity."  She looked at him in that hard way women used when they thought they had been offended in some way, like he was a bug floating in her soup.  He didn't like it.  "But you can make it up to me," he informed her.

            "Go to hell," she spat.

            She was trying for courageous, but he noticed that a hint of fear had crept into face, which he found far more interesting.  He was almost sorry he wouldn't be able to witness it first hand.  "What you're going to do is to teach your husband a valuable lesson in loss and at the same time you are going to learn exactly what happens to people who deceive me."  He signaled and the guard reached forward placing a hand on her shoulder.  She tried to squirm out of his grasp, her face growing alive with terror, but he was trained in many ways to kill with only his bare hands.  This time, however, he simply applied pressure to a pair of nerves in her neck, completely relieving her of consciousness in less than a second.  She fell limp into his arms.  Nodding with approval, Powers said, "You know what to do with her and make sure any evidence that she was here this morning is completely eradicated."

            "How do you want me to do it?" the man asked indicated the body carried in his arms.

            "Wayne deserves to suffer, and if Mrs. Wayne has to suffer for that to happen, then so be it.  I'm sure you can come up with something appropriate."  The man walked to the other end of the office with Mardi draped over his arms and he exited into a secret elevator. 

            Powers examined the disk in his hand closely.  Wayne had caused him a lot of trouble since he'd absorbed the company.  The old man just didn't know when to quit.  Well, Derek Powers was going to teach him to mind his own business finally.  The false skin of his hand started to crack as the burning radiation that composed his body broke through, completely incinerating the disk.

            The old man was not in a good mood.  Sure he rarely could be considered to be in a good mood, but usually he was at least civil (unless of course Terry had really screwed up, then all pretense of civility went out the window).  But as the new Batman entered the large cave that served as bat central, he immediately sensed that Bruce was on edge.

            "So how's things?" he asked tentatively as he took his suit out of his backpack.

            There was a grunt that could have been considered a response.

            "Anything going on out in the big city I should be aware of?"

            Another grunt, this one less friendly.

            "Should I maybe come back at another time?  You seem to be a little preoccupied at the moment," Terry observed.

            Wayne finally turned around to face him, and Terry secretly wished he hadn't.  His face was drawn into a scowl the likes of which he hadn't seen yet in his short acquaintance of the man, and he had seen his share of scowls.  Something had happened, Terry surmised, something really, really bad.

            "What's the matter?"

            The old man stood up and walked across the floor and then stopped with his back to Terry.  "My wife left." 

            "Left as in…?"

            "As in left me.  Now get out on patrol."

            "Okay," Terry said slowly, thinking he should say something to commiserate with the guy, but what was there?  'Sorry your wife left you because you were Batman'?  On second thought he probably could relate since he was sure if Dana ever found out she would rip him a new one.  "Mr. Wayne…" he started.

            "What time is it?" Bruce asked suddenly.

            "Uh, well…"  Terry consulted his wristwatch.  "It's quarter after four.  In the afternoon," he finished, not sure if the guy had been out of the cave for a while.

            He whirled and looked at Terry as if he'd just awakened from a nap.  "She should have called by now," he said forcefully.  Terry looked perplexed.  "She was going to turn in her resignation at Wayne-Powers this morning and then drive up to Isabella's school.  She said she'd call when she got there.  The drive is three and a half hours, four max.  She should have called hours ago."  His lips pressed together.

            "Yeah, well, if she was upset, maybe she just didn't feel like calling right away," Terry suggested, which was a mistake in hindsight.  The cold blue eyes fixed on him and for a moment he knew the old Batman was going to pummel him within an inch of his young life.

            "No," he replied instead with great force.  "If she said she'd call, she would call."  His brows furrowed in thought and he moved over to the large Batcomputer.  Almost to himself he said, "There's a transmitter in her car.  I can see where it is right now."  He stood there for a moment without moving.

            "Well?" Terry prompted.

            With a quick shake of his head, Bruce reached down and entered a command on the computer console.  Immediately a large map of the city came up with a single flashing dot.  He squinted at it.  "She's still in Gotham," he muttered.

            Terry walked up and stood beside him.  "Maybe she changed her mind.  Maybe she's coming back?"

            Without reply Bruce told the computer to center in on her exact location.  The map shifted and zoomed closer.  Bruce gripped the edge of the console tensely.  "The car's still in Gotham at least; it's at the bottom of the river," he said darkly.

            "Do you think she…?"

            "No.  There's something going on."  He activated the computer's communications system and dialed through to Commissioner Gordon's private line.

            "Gordon," she said as her image came up on the large screen.

            "Barbara, I need your help.  Mardi's missing."

            "Missing?"

            "She left this morning, but she never got to her destination.  The tracker on her car says it's at the bottom of the Gotham River about a mile above the reservoir."

            "Bruce you know a missing person report can't be filed for 48 hours."

            "Her car's at the bottom of the river!  Don't you think that's just a little suspicious?"

            "I'll send out a unit to investigate.  In the meantime I suggest…"

            "I'm going over to Wayne-Powers," he cut her off.  "That was her first stop.  I want to see if she ever got there."

            "Bruce don't you dare do anything stupid."

            "If you're concerned then why don't you meet me?"

            "Fine, but we're doing this my way, understand?  Police protocol."

            "See you there."  He cut of the transmission.  He turned to Terry.  "Get out on patrol.  I'll contact you if I need you."

            Terry suited up and took the batmobile out as usual, but this time he was seriously concerned with his mentor.  Bruce wasn't exactly overflowing with the milk of human kindness on a normal day, which he'd grown used to.  When the two of them had faced down the Jokerz that night outside the estate and then Terry'd had to help him inside only to discover the long closed-off batcave, the old guy had gone completely psycho.  If it hadn't been for the fact Powers had ordered his dad murdered, he and Bruce would have gone their separate ways permanently, but as it happened he needed what Bruce had to offer, or at least what Batman had to offer.  But he'd seen the look in those old eyes after it was all said and done, the smile on his face as he'd offered Terry a more solid partnership.  This was what the guy lived for, this was who he was.

            It had taken Terry completely by surprise to discover there was a Mrs. Wayne, but the way he saw it Bruce had turned to something besides crime-fighting in his later years, which was understandable, it just wasn't enough.  Were they happy together, Terry wondered to himself.  It seemed like a strange relationship, she was a lot younger and a little on the high-strung side in Terry's estimation.  But different strokes, as the saying went.

            And now.  Now he saw that there was one thing other than crime fighting that got the old guy worked up.  And if Powers was somehow behind it, Terry had a feeling his CEO days were history.