Chapter 5

Reality

Bruce watched Clark as he reviewed the weather satellite tracking of hurricane Willow. He had been sitting in the Batcave for three hours, the last two hours watching the movements of the storm from its conception off the coast of Africa to its dissipation near Greenland. Twenty days in all, on three different screens; the first was from the national weather service, the second was from a Wayne Tech infra-red satellite, the third from the JLA's satellite. Bruce must have hacked the uplinks from the computer since there was no request made to them for this information. Truth be told, he didn't need them, at least not for information.

He showed the films in tandem, the first time with just the storm. Then the second time he added the paths of the ocean liner and flight 407.

"According to the ship's log they changed directions so as not to cross paths with the storm. They were actually hit by the first of the outer rings when something happened and the engines stalled." Superman gawked at the screen.

"It looks like the hurricane was following the ship."

"Now, the blue line is the original flight path of flight 407, the red dot is the plane. The original path would have taken them south of the storm. But watch…" During his pause the storm seemed to get larger then backtrack south. "At this point," he emphasized with a virtual pointer, "the report says they were confirming a new flight path when they were struck by lightning…here." From the point of view the archive was filmed, it almost looked as though a they were struck from out of the blue, for they were still south enough of the storm to have been safe.

"That's not possible," Clark growled.

"There actually have been reports of lighting strikes hitting miles from the storm. Rare, yes, but not impossible. Now watch. The blue dot coming northeast of the storm is the T-Jet. As you can see, this is were he came upon them, took the lead, changed the direction just slightly and…according to Captain Roman's, here is report where Dick checked out the exterior of the plane. And..." In the infrared depiction of the scenario, what looked to him to be the explosion of the T-Jet originally, wasn't; at least not at first. It looked as if the whole storm became a conductor of electricity and then literally, from outer space, a white-hot ball came into view and hit the T-jet directly.

"What was that?!?"

"That was proof that if Dick is dead, then it was no accident. He was murdered."

"You're also telling me that the storm was man made?"

"I have not told you anything," Bruce growled. "I know everyone thinks I've lost it, Clark; that I should accept the obvious and go on. But until just now the obvious, as you believed it to be, was that Dick was killed in some freak accident on a rescue mission, during a natural phenomenon. What does the obvious tell you now?"

"Someone has developed a man made machine that can produce and control the weather and be used as a weapon," Clark surmised.

"Hurricane Willow was not a disaster it was a success," Bruce added.

"If it had not been for the fact you were looking into Dick's death they would have gotten away with it," Superman growled. "The next question is who are they?"

"I'll be honest with you Clark, Wayne Tech has been working on the cutting edge of that kind of technology, but I saw where the direction the military wanted to take it, so I avoided involvement with them by not acknowledging the research. There are maybe four companies with the ability and resource to continue this kind of research…STAR Labs, Powers Industry International, Wayne Tech, and LexCorp," Bruce said.

"We know it isn't Wayne Tech, and Powers International is currently under investigation of espionage through the Russian Branch, so they're too vulnerable. That leaves STAR Labs and I don't' believe that STAR has the political pull to do what they did without international repercussion. But President Luthor has the money the resource and the power." Clark surmised.

"And the one thing that STAR Labs doesn't have…military access," Bruce growled.

"So what you're saying is the United States military is behind Nightwing's murder?"

"No, what I am saying is the Commander and Chief of the United States military is," Bruce snapped back. "But it also leads us to another problem. How do we confront Luthor without compromising world peace? He attacked a French cruise ship with Norwegian registrations, which was carrying three prominent German Diplomats on board. The British Airliner was on its way to New York carrying 13 of OPEC's highest ranking officers. My best guess is that the last blast was sent by one of the military satellites, possibly the one that is controlling the storm, maybe another. They tried to hide it with the storm but…"

"But, Why the Titan jet? Why not down the airliner or take out the ocean liner."

"Think about it, Clark. Both the jet and the ocean liner might have gone down had the Titans not helped out, but it would have looked like they were struck by lightning and gone down in the storm. Simple everyday air/sea accidents, but the T-Jet wasn't just any aircraft. It's made to withstand nature and almost anything this planet can toss at it, whether or not those inside can. How better to confirm the operation of a weapon than to use it on one of the best-built aircrafts in this world? It was just a fluke the T-Jet was there, but it could have been just as useful if they were able to do the same to the Batwing or any of our other equipment, when someone decided to take that opportunity give it the ultimate test."

Dick was finding himself more and more tired. His days seemed to crash together. He managed to find a large concave stone filled with rain water. It was too large for him to move even if he was fit, and he would have to shelter it from the heat of the day and find a way maintain a source of fresh water. He found a cave as well, but more often than not he would find himself passing out almost anywhere and waking up later in the day not even sure if it was the same day.

At times he couldn't even remember the things he had done before passing out or what he had intended to do. The voice returned less and less but it managed to make sense when it talked him in to writing things down. He kept a soft piece of limestone and a piece of bark on him and made a point to write anything that came to him, however insignificant it may seem, on the cave walls. The first thing on his wall was the words Bat, Angel, Boy then the word Survive. Something about those things gave him the will to live. He placed them in front of the place where he slept, the light of the fire dancing on the words.

His food consisted of plants and berries the bat told him would be okay to eat. He didn't know why sometimes he saw the shadow and sometimes he just heard this deep voice that made him want to do what he was told, but he felt like it was something from the past, something that saved him before, something that was trying to help him save himself once again. The rain was coming again. He needed the clean water. His arm was on fire, and he needed to stop the infection or make a decision between his arm or his life. He didn't think he could do it. Maybe he could, but it wasn't a decision he was yet willing to make.



Tim stared at the satellite pictures of Hurricane Willow. He'd reviewed them over and over and over again and still wasn't satisfied he didn't miss something. He knew he should just close his laptop and go to bed. It was a good idea to try and get some sleep but all sleep brought were recurring nightmares of an injured and lost friend that everyone continued to tell him was dead. Everyone but Bruce, not that he believed otherwise; he just preferred not to talk about it at all with anyone. The only thing Tim knew for sure was he would not have wanted to be a bad guy in Gotham or Bludhaven this past two weeks. Between the JLA, the Titans, and Batman, the criminals of Bludhaven were made totally aware that Nightwing may be gone but he and his work were not forgotten.

Alfred came home from the hospital the day after the storm passed. Everyone counted their blessings that it had not directly hit the mainland. It had already spun in to a category 5 storm before Dick's plane went down. But like most devils, it spawned many little storms and before it was finished with the shore lines it had been the direct and indirect cause of millions of dollars of damage to coastal cities and towns, as well as 26 lives, the first being Nightwing. It was being hailed a miracle it didn't make land, but he and Batman knew better.

A cartoonist in the daily planet did a sketch of Nightwing as St. George fighting the Dragon Hurricane Willow. Tim laughed but in his heart that was the story he wanted to believe if he had to accept that his friend was gone. It wasn't something he had accepted yet, maybe that is why he had spent the last couple of hours watching these damn tapes. He was beginning to feel a morbid attraction to the damned tunnel of wind that took his friend's life. He actually watched the JLA's weather satellite footage of the hurricane, from its inception to its current standing somewhere harmless in the ocean, three times. He was on viewing number 4 when he saw it, the flicker on the screen, not of lightning, but of some kind of reflecting material. With an adjustment of the computer, the film showed the thermal images of the same tape. The thermal scan videos showed little or no heat compared to the vivid red spots that appeared on his screen as lightning. It could be a piece of the T-Jet but if it is, it was a big piece and up to this point in time there have not been any big pieces found. The image never reappeared anywhere in the film afterwards. If Bruce was right and Dick did have time to eject, was it possible for him to have ridden the storm within the ejection pod for two days, and survive?