Chapter 2 - Unrest

Cris slowly pulls the car forward and stops. She sighs as she leans her elbow on the arm rest and rests her chin on her free hand. She hated traffic jams; her feet always started cramping after a while. She looked in her review mirror and saw red lights flashing in the distance and slowly growing closer. It was an ambulance bypassing the traffic via the emergency lane. Cris turned the music blaring from her radio down and finally head the siren. As it sped by her, the man behind her in a classic jaguar entered the emergency lane.

"Impatient idiot," Cris thought as she watched him speed up. She shook her head, pulled up a little more as the traffic moved. At least she was in the tunnel now, being stuck in traffic in the blazing sun wasn't fun. She looked at both her arms and realized she had gotten a little sunburned. Just then she heard two men shout over the noise of the sirens and the hooting, ".you have..headquarters. We need to fix...crack pronto!" She watched as two men walked on the side path of the tunnel and then disappear past and open door.

She raised and eyebrow wandering what the one meant by crack. She shook her head and then turned the volume up, drumming her fingers to the beat.

She'd be by the high school right now if it wasn't for Barbara signing her up for a conference in New York. Barbara knew she hated teachers conferences; she detested them with a passion. Barbara was probably getting her back after she had made a comment one night during patrols that Barbara had too deep an affair with her computers, thus ensuing in an hour debate that had Dinah in stitches and Helena switching her comms off.

The conference had taken 2 days, 2 days of pure, boring hell. Cris couldn't wait to climb back into her car and drive back to New Gotham. She missed Matthew, even though it were only 2 days, she almost pined for him. A thought crept through her mind, and she was just about to dial a no. on her cell, when it rang.

She answered the phone.

***

Tracy paced back and forth in unison with Nala the lion. Her head was buried deep in a frown and she chewed nervously on her thumb nail.

"Tracy!" someone called-out. She looked up to see a man running towards her. "Jonathan! What took you so long?!" she said frustratedly as he came closer. "Sorry, but the whole place is restless, the chimps are going nuts in their cages, Bill the gorilla keeps running up and down beating on the bars and the birds are flying about madly! And can you hear the wolves?" he asked as he tried to catch his breath. Tracy paused and lifted her head in the air, sure enough amongst the other noises she would hear the lonely howls of the wolves. Something wasn't right, the animals never acted like this!

She turned to him, "You have any idea what's going on?" He shook his head, "None whatsoever!" She threw her hands up in frustration, "Ok! Have you ever seen anything like this before? Maybe when you spent some tine in Africa?" He seemed deep in thought and then lifted his head, "Only time I seen animals as frantic as this, was when they were running away from a fire, other than that, no." "Well I don't see a fire anywhere Jonathan, so it isn't helping!" Tracy snapped, the noises were beginning to annoy her. "Oh for pete's sake Tracy, I'm trying the best I can!! All I can think of is that they're sensing something, but I don't know what?!" Jonathan shouted back.

Just them Nala suddenly shook her head a let out a bone chilling roar, it resonated deep from her belly. Tracy could feel her bones rattle and chill run down her back, it was the first time since she began working with lions she had ever heard such a roar, and it frightened her.

***

Helena smiled as another customer approached her. "Hi, what can I get you?" she asked, placing the cloth she had been using to wipe the top counter, behind the counter. "Johnnie Walker on the rocks please, oh and make it a double," the man replied bothersomely and took a seat. Helena nodded and reached for a tumbler. Spotting the bottle, she reached out and grabbed it. Expertly, she poured a double tot and then places 3 ice cubes into the glass. She put the bottle down and the slid the glass over to him. "There ya go!" She said. He smiled weakly, thanked her and took a rather huge sip. Helena frowned slightly and said, "Whoa there, you don't wanna down that too fast." She smiled sheepishly remembering the first time she drank whiskey, she ended up receiving a rather lengthy speech about the abuse of alcohol and it's side effects to her fighting skills and another lecture from Alfred about how 'unlady-like' it was for a woman to stumble in and hurl profanities at priceless head piece of some or other dead guy and asking him why he was staring at her. Needless to say, she had developed a 'allergy' to the stuff.

He looked at her and said, "Well if you can answer the million dollar question I'll order the biggest meal on your menu!" Helena grinned, "Well how could I refuse business! What's your question?" He slides a newspaper to her, on it is the statue of one or other ex-mayor from old Gotham, and the headlines, "No pigeons for old Henry now." She looked up frowning. "How can a whole population of birds just disappear in one night?" he asked.