Terry's so busy inching along the grapple cord and (barely) dodging blaster shots that he hardly notices the police hovercraft pulling in front of the black car. When Barbara's voice booms out of the speakers it startles him. Once he's over the shock, though, he grins.
Until a blaster bolt narrowly misses his left shoulder. Then he grits his teeth and starts pulling himself along the cord again. His arms are starting to hurt. He knows that if it weren't for the suit he'd be hurting like hell.
It occurs to him to wonder whether Melanie and Kitsune are close behind him. He doesn't dare to look back, and he can't hear them. Terry may very well be on his own. Except for Barbara, of course. The black hovercar is trying to rise, but the police unit sort of slides in over it and neatly matches its speed and course.
Now the soldier in the front passenger seat is trying to shoot up at the cop craft and only the guy in the back is concentrating on Terry. Barbara's car will hold up against shots for a while. Terry is now only about two meters from his grapple's anchor point. He can clearly see Gray Suit scowling at him as he pulls off a couple blaster shots, then ducks back into the car to put in a fresh energy clip.
While he's reloading, Terry wonders if he should get a Batarang ready to disarm him when he pops back out. He decides against it – he needs his hands on the grapple cord and his aim will be off anyway.
"McGinnis! Pull yourself up before he starts shooting you again," Wayne snaps.
"I'm trying," Terry growls as he does a frantic hand-over-hand to the car's trunk. At last he's within arm's reach of it. He extends the claws in his right glove and digs them into the trunk. Then he lets go of the grapple with his left hand, extends those claws, and digs in.
The engine of the GCPD craft whines and thunders in his ears now that he's so close. With a great deal of effort he pulls himself forward along the black car's trunk, up to the rear windshield. It's tinted so that he can see only faint shadows inside. With a thought he switches on his infrared vision. Natalie is there, with her back to him. He can't tell if she's conscious or not. Gray Suit is about to lean out the window again. With a turn of speed that surprises even him, Terry claws his way up and to the left.
When Gray Suit sticks his head out the car window and tries to aim his weapon, Terry takes a swipe at him. He manages to disarm the man – his gun pangs off the side of the car and falls – but doesn't manage to do more than clip his forearm. Gray Suit ducks back into the car and shouts something Terry can't quite make out.
He finds out quickly enough, though – the car comes to a screeching halt (or what would have been a screeching halt, if it had rubber tires) as its magnetic drivers reverse their fields. Terry loses his tenuous one-handed grip and the police unit overshoots the black car by at least six meters before it starts slowing down. The grappling hook Terry sunk into the back of the car is still holding, and since Terry didn't detach himself from the cord he jerks to a stop after only a short fall. Unfortunately he reaches the end of the rope just as the black car starts on a steep ascent, so the jolt is particularly nasty. He's been subjected to worse punishment, though, and quickly regains his equilibrium.
Terry takes a quick look behind him and sees that Melanie has almost caught up with him. Kitsune is not too far behind her. But then the black car, which has gotten above the level of the surrounding rooftops, veers off sideways before either they or the police unit can reach it again. It starts going faster than before – the driver can afford to put on the speed now that there are no obstacles to worry about – and Terry decides that he'll have to pull his way along the rope again. It'll help if he's more careful this time around.
But, as it turns out, he has to do something quite different.
~***~
They cuffed Natalie's hands in front of her, not behind, so that it would be easier for her to sit down in the car seat. They must have thought that the shock collar would be enough to keep her in line. It's kept her from doing anything overt, but she's managed to raise her blindfold a little without being noticed. She can see a few things and hear a lot more.
For instance, by listening to the words exchanged between the other people in the car, she learns that the shock to its frame she felt earlier was Batman harpooning the trunk. She also learned that the sudden stop they just made threw him off, and that now he is being pulled along behind them. This seems like a good opportunity to do something. Natalie's got a plan – it depends on both her and Batman being fast, and also a little on her being lucky. If it goes wrong she'll be dead, but it's a chance she's willing to take.
First she unclips her seat belt, then tucks the metal tab between her leg and the seat so it looks like she's still wearing it. She does this very quietly, and succeeds in pulling it off without getting caught. The others in the car are too concerned with Batman to worry about her. Afterwards she turns her head and looks at the door, or at least what part of it can be seen in the narrow window of view permitted by the slightly pushed-up blindfold. Her eyes settle on the handle, and the door-lock tab next to it. If it were unlocked she'd see the red underside of the tab, which she doesn't. Natalie takes a deep breath, preparing herself, and then grabs the handle with one hand while catching the index finger of the other beneath the lock tab. She's got the door unlocked and halfway open before her captor in the seat next to her comprehends what she's doing and shouts.
The shock collar sends pain through her, but by then she's already throwing herself into the door and getting her right arm out of the seat belt. The man in the seat next to her tries to grab her wrist but only gets her sleeve, which tears as she lets gravity take her the rest of the way out of the car.
For the first long second of the fall she's almost convinced that this is a nightmare, and she'll wake up when she hits the ground, or maybe even before then. But the weak illusion is torn away by the rushing air around her. While part of her is terrified, another part wonders how far up in the air the car was when she jumped out.
And then, all of a sudden, she is snatched out of the air. "That was completely insane," she hears Batman shout over the rush of wind.
Natalie grins. "But it worked, didn't it?"