Chapter Six

            Commissioner James Gordon stood on the edge of the roof looking out over the city. Behind him, he could hear the gears of the heavy spotlight grinding as they made it automatically swing in its slow, quarter turn sweeps of the sky. He always marveled at the view from here. Only eight years since the mighty quake that had torn the city down, yet not a trace of that No Man's Land existed. Only in certain parts of the very outskirts of the city could any of the damage still be seen. WayneTech and LexCorp had worked together to pull off a miracle. The idiots at City Hall had actually wanted to change the name of the city to New Gotham, but luckily Bruce Wayne had managed to squash that idea before it took hold. It was Gotham before the quake and Gotham it would ever remain.

            Of course, the city wasn't the only causality of the quake. Nor was it the only thing on his mind tonight. The quake had split Arkham practically in half, and what madmen hadn't escaped then were set free by that crackpot doctor, Quinzel, working on behalf of the Joker. What the quake didn't destroy, he managed to. And in the course of doing so he killed one of Batman's partners and crippled another. His own daughter, Barbara. And now that lunatic was out there again, somewhere.

            He checked his watch again. It wasn't like him to take this long.

            "You rang?"

            He turned to the speaker, but they were standing to the side of the signal, giving him nothing but a silhouette to work with.

"Who are you?" he asked, his hand heading to his gun. It obviously wasn't Batman.    

            "Black Canary," she said. "Batman's gone."

            "Gone?"

            "Well, not gone gone. He'll be back. Until then, he asked me to look after things for him."

            Gordon's gun hand relaxed but it didn't move away. "He's spoken of you. Very highly. He's also said that one day someone else might answer this call in his stead, but he gave me a code phrase to let me know the person was with him. What is it?"

            "Phoenix rising," crackled in her ear. She repeated the phrase and Gordon relaxed. He walked over and turned off the spotlight. Black Canary had worn her original costume, a black leather bodysuit with a matching leather jacket, fishnet stockings and the black "Robin Hood" boots given to her by her ex-boyfriend, Green Arrow. The silver bird's head com-mike choker rested around her throat.

            "How much do you know about what's going on?" he asked her.

            "That depends. Are we talking about the Joker's disappearance or the riot at Arkham?" She'd purposely left out her knowledge of the woman's murder. If Batman hadn't given his information over to the police, he must have had a reason and until they figured out what it was, it was best to keep mum.

            "Arkham, mostly, but if you work with Him I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you know about the other already." He pulled a pipe out of his pocket and began packing it with tobacco. He was quiet as he did it, and Canary felt a little uncomfortable in the silence. She felt like he was testing her in some way and she wasn't sure if, by speaking, she would pass or fail. He produced a silver lighter from his vest pocket and pulled the flame into the bowl, thoroughly scorching the tobacco. Two pulls on the pipe later, he continued as if he'd never stopped. "Everyone at Arkham is now accounted for, except two. Jonathan Crane, the Scarecrow and Eddie "Slick" Waters. There are no leads on either one yet, but I'm sure they won't take too long to make themselves heard."

            "We'll keep a lookout for anything and-"

            "We?" Gordon asked

            "I," she quickly amended, mentally kicking herself. "I meant I'll keep a lookout and let you know if I run across anything. If you hear anything, just, you know…" She motioned towards the giant spotlight.

            "Fair enough," Gordon said. "Will you need a different symbol or anything?"

            "No," Canary smiled at him. "I think the bat will be fine."

            She started to say something else, but was interrupted buy a dark-skinned man coming out on the roof. He was holding a folder in one hand and appeared excited.

            "Commissioner," he said, waving the folder in front of him. "They told me I could find you up here. We finally got some information back from the lab on the…" he trailed off when he saw Black Canary standing close to his boss. Gordon saw his hesitation and waved it away absently with his pipe.

            "Anything you have to say you can say in front of her. She's been vouched for by a trust-worthy source."

            "But, Commissioner, this is official police-"

            "Detective Reece," Gordon interrupted. "I said it was okay. Now what do you have?"

            Detective Reece looked unsure, but handed the folder to Gordon anyway. "They found two bloody fingerprints on the doorjamb of the Kanly woman's house. They were a bit smudged but the lab managed to find a match. They belonged to a guy named Roland Desmond."

            "Blockbuster." Gordon looked at Canary. "Add him to your list of people to look out for."

            "I'll be on touch," she said, moving back towards the opposite corner of the roof, behind the stairwell entrance where she could exit unseen. Gordon waited until she was gone before turning to Reece, who hadn't taken his eyes off Canary throughout her exit, his face clearly showing his unhappiness.

            "Is there a problem, Detective?"

            "No, Sir," Reece lied, and then blurted, "I just don't think we should be working with a bunch of half-breeds, Sir."

            Gordon raised his eyebrows. "Half-breeds?"

            "You know, half-breeds. Half human freaks."

            "First of all," Gordon said, turning to the detective, "I believe they like to be called Metas, if you have to put a tag on them at all. And if memory serves me correct, I don't believe Black Canary can be considered a Meta any longer. From what I understand she lost her powers some time ago. Second of all, I realize you're new here and that a police station is the last place you'll find pristine language use, but I do not allow slurs to be used in my department. At least not in my presence. This includes racial, sexual or Meta-Human.

            "Third, and pay attention to this, son, because it could one day save your life. Gotham doesn't have a learning curve. There are lunatics out there who live to do nothing but kill and destroy, simply because they feel like it. Some of them occasionally show the typical motives, like money or revenge, but more often than not they do it because they can. Good people willing to fight that kind of evil are few and far between, especially in this city. We need to do whatever we can to keep the ones who are willing to fight on our side, masks or no masks. Is that clear?"

            "Yes, sir," Reece said, averting his eyes.

            "One more thing," Gordon continued. "I don't think anyone else but me knows your background, son. I'd think you'd be the last person to be throwing around phrases like half-breed, no matter what the inference."

            Detective Reece nodded and walked to the open doorway to return downstairs. Gordon took one last look at the city, his city, and followed.