Author's Note: Sorry I haven't been updating lately. I admit that I was lazy when I could have been writing, and now school has started and stuff has been going on. The next few chapters will probably be shorter than usual, but it's nearly at the end.
While Kitsune is keeping the guards occupied near the front gate of the complex, Terry and Melanie touch down by a loading bay around back. Piles of old crates and shipping containers – some stacked neatly, some collapsed in heaps, all dusty and decaying in one way or another – make it a relatively concealed spot. Melanie certainly knows what she's doing, but that really isn't a surprise.
Terry takes a quick look around in the infrared spectrum to make sure nobody's nearby. Melanie seems to be doing the same thing. They both come to the conclusion that they're safe, switch off their camo and fade back into the visible spectrum. "We'd better hurry before they figure out Kitsune's just keeping them busy," Melanie whispers. Terry expects her to go up on the loading ramp and try to open the steel-shutter door, but she doesn't. Instead she scans the ground, walks a few meters to the left, and kneels down. Then she removes something from her belt – a length of cord attached to a metal rod about the size and width of her thumb. She shakes it out and it snaps open into a grappling hook.
"This was how I got out," she says as she wedges the hook into the small opening in the manhole cover. Then she gets up and goes around to the other side of the manhole, letting out a little more cord as she goes. When she's about half a meter from it she hold the cord with both hands, takes in the slack and jerks on it. The manhole cover bolts upward, stands on its edge for half a second and falls backward with a clang. Terry's glad that there's nobody around to hear.
Melanie goes and detaches the grappling hook from the manhole cover. She folds it back into a rod again, then presses something in the compartment of her belt where the reel of line is stored. Terry hears a whirring noise as the cord is drawn back into its compartment. Once the folded hook is in and the whirring stops, Melanie closes the belt compartment. Then she goes over to the manhole.
"Hold on – I'll go first," Terry says, feeling some inexplicable need to be gallant and regretting it instantly.
He can't see the look Melanie is giving him from behind her mask, but he feels that he might be better off not knowing. She steps back from the manhole without saying anything. Terry goes up to the edge and looks in. There's no light in there, of course, but his cowl lets him see the concrete slab flooring five or six meters below. Instead of taking the ladder down he just jumps in and lands in a crouch. He's in a small alcove off a larger, rounded concrete tunnel. Various pipes run along the walls and ceiling. The place smells dank but not, thank God, like a sewer. That's probably further down, at the level of the rest of Gotham's sewer system (which Terry is more familiar with than he'd like to be) – these are just the water pipes and underground wires for the complex above.
As soon as he moves out of the alcove, Melanie drops in behind him. "We're not going to take the same way out, are we?" he asks.
"Probably not," she says. "We'll take whatever's closest." She steps around to his right and starts walking down the concrete tunnel. Terry follows her lead, keeping his eyes and ears open for any potential threat. You never know
"Terry," Wayne hails him over the transmitter, "I've found the blueprints for the factory." Terry almost asks why it took so long, but he stops himself – he doesn't want to talk to Wayne in front of Melanie, if he can avoid it. "It was in the archives. This place has been abandoned for a long time," he explains, answering Terry's unspoken question. The architectural plans for every public, commercial and industrial building in Gotham City were stored in the municipal database. That database had been around since Terry's mother was a teenager, but the filing system has changed a few times since then. And the city administration doesn't want to spend the time or resources it would take to reorganize files for buildings that nobody's using anyway.
Suddenly a map drawn in glowing orange lines superimposes itself on his vision. It's a map of the tunnel system he's currently in. A yellow arrowhead shows him where he is and which way he's facing. Once he goes up a level the map will change to show him the ground floor. For now, he lets Melanie lead him. She can follow when they climb up and out of the tunnels.
"I'm contacting Barbara," Wayne informs him. "She'll send the police in once you have Natalie out. I don't want her to get caught in the crossfire." A sensible precaution, because there is definitely going to be some heavy crossfire once the police arrive.
They come to a place where two passageways cross. Melanie takes a left turn. "We're going to the main office building," she says. "I'm not sure where Natalie is, but she's probably on the same floor I was."
"Once we get her out, my…assistant is going to call the cops," he informs her.
Melanie nods as she comes to another alcove with a ladder in it. She puts her hands on the rung at her eye level, as if she's about to start climbing, but then she pauses. "I know who your 'assistant' is," she says quietly.
Terry wonders if Wayne is as surprised – okay, alarmed – as he is, but he doesn't hear anything to indicate it. He doesn't trust himself to say anything that he won't regret later on, so he keeps his mouth shut.
She turns her head to look over her shoulder at him. "It wasn't that hard to figure out," she tells him, her voice almost apologetic. "But I'm the only one who knows."
Of course. Once she knew who she was, it wouldn't have taken too much effort for her to find out who he worked for. He's confident that she won't tell anyone she shouldn't, but to hear her say that she knows makes him very uncomfortable. Terry doesn't want to talk about it anymore. "Let's stick to the rescue, okay?" he almost snaps.
Melanie mumbles some apology and starts climbing up the rusty ladder. He follows at a safe distance and waits while she listens just below the grate at the top. "There's nobody there," she tells him. Then she pushes the grate upward and moves it aside – something she probably couldn't have managed without her suit. She climbs through the opening. Terry comes through shortly after to find himself in some kind of defunct boiler room.
"Natalie should be on this level," Melanie says in a whisper. "Probably behind a door with a guard outside it."
Terry thinks at first that she's just being pessimistic, but he figures out that she's just telling him what to look for. "If they haven't all left to chase Kitsune," he says.
"There should still be a few around," Melanie assures him. She goes up to the door, which is at the top of a short concrete stairway, and puts her ear to it for a few seconds. "All clear," she says. "Come on." Then she pushes the door open.
~***~
The old factory is full of activity. There are a lot of people – soldiers mostly – running around and shouting at each other. A lot of them are carrying boxes, trunks, pieces of equipment or portable furniture, some with the help of antigrav sleds but most with just their hands. Terry thinks that they may be evacuating the place, since they know they've been discovered. Maybe using Kitsune as a distraction wasn't such a good idea. They might have put extra guards on Natalie or even moved her somewhere else by now. But, he thinks, it would have been just as bad, maybe worse, if they'd all snuck in without using a distraction and ended up being discovered.
Terry and Melanie dart into a side corridor to avoid a group of guards jogging down one of the wider hallways. At least, Terry thinks, it's easy to know when people are coming. If only it were that easy to find Natalie. As it is, they'll have to comb the whole place for her. The various vision enhancements in their respective suits make it easier, but it's still going to be a very long and very difficult process.
He's lost count of how many corridors they've gone through. All of them look pretty much the same, with their crumbling cheap tiles, dim lights and rusting doors. If it weren't for the map, he'd think they were just going in circles. They probably would be. Terry's starting to feel stupid, the way he usually does when he can't find a clue or put the ones he has together. Although Wayne doesn't seem to have any ideas either, so it's not just him…
Terry jumps when Melanie grabs his arm, putting his train of thought back on the right track. He realizes, now, that he can hear the tramp of a few pairs of boots and a man's voice – a very irritated man's voice – both of which are coming closer and closer. For a moment he is grateful to Melanie for paying attention when he didn't – and then he feels embarrassed. It's not just because he let himself get distracted. There's another reason. His feelings regarding Melanie are very complicated, but there is a sort of pattern to them, and gratitude just doesn't seem to fit.
During that moment of intense embarrassment Melanie jerks the handle of the nearest door, opens it and darts in. She still has him by the wrist, but she's not exactly dragging him, since he manages to keep up with her. Melanie shuts the door, quickly and quietly, throwing the room into what would be almost complete darkness if they didn't have their infrared and light-enhancing equipment to see by. Terry takes a quick glance at the room and sees a long wooden table surrounded by simple chairs, a fallen whiteboard at the end of the room to his left, and on the end to his right, a smaller folding table with an ancient, cobweb-draped coffee urn. A meeting room.
Outside, the tramp of boots clatters to a halt. Terry can still hear the man he heard earlier, but he can't make out more than the occasional nearly-shouted word. He notices that Melanie has the two fingers of her right hand against the door. She must have finger mikes, like he does. Terry puts his own fingers to the door, and the voice is suddenly clear, as if there's nothing between him and the speaker.
"…not going to just leave her here. Not after all that trouble." The voice is fairly deep and, though it sounds a little breathy and hoarse, the sound of it sends prickles down Terry's spine. He knows the voice of a cold-blooded killer when he hears it.
Judging by the sound of things, the man seems to be pacing back and forth outside the door. Terry activates his heat vision and sees that there is indeed someone pacing; he is tall, and of medium build. He moves like a frustrated predator, just what Terry expected to see after hearing his voice. There are four other people – his accompanying guards – standing around, their stances indicating that they're only pausing and not expecting to stay where they are for long. The predator-man seems to be talking into a mobile phone or walkie-talkie.
After several seconds' pause, during which he listens to the person on the other end of the line, the man growls, "Then just draw her off. Get her away from the garage." Now he starts walking down the corridor again, listening to whoever's on the phone. The guards follow him, and by the time he speaks again, he's too far off to hear.
"He's going to try and get Natalie out," Wayne says. "If he does, we might not find her again. Find the garage."
"Me…Shinobi, where'd you steal the truck from?" Terry hopes that's the last stupid thing he's going to say tonight, although he doubts it.
Melanie doesn't even blink at his nearly using her real name. "In the opposite direction from where he went. He's getting Natalie first. I think we should follow him."
"No," Terry says, "I don't think that would be a good idea. With that many guards in a confined space, it's going to be harder. If we get her at the garage, we can get her out more quickly, and we'll have Kitsune right there to help us." He's surprised at his quick reaction, and the resolve in his voice – he realizes that it's the first time tonight he's really felt like he's Batman and not just Terry wearing the suit. Maybe he's finally getting used to Melanie. "She won't get hurt on the way. He'll make sure of that," he adds.
Melanie gives him what might be a funny look, but decides to follow his plan of action. Maybe she's deferring to his experience, the way Kitsune did before. But he really can't tell with her. She nods, opens the door and slips out. He follows her without a second thought.
Terry knows by now that he can trust her, at least to some extent. Now he's wondering what she thinks of him.