Percy bit back a snarl, trying to control himself as he slammed the phone back down on the receiver. This had been the umpteenth time he had attempted to get a hold of the St. Clouds. But just like the several calls he had made the day previous, he had been redirected. It took almost all of his willpower not to shout, "Their daughter is dead, you gutless worm!" at the annoying attendant he had been talking to.
"No luck with the parents?" Montoya asked from across the desk, though the question was mostly rhetorical.
"No," Percy spat out, "If I get the ring-around one more godsdamned time, I'm just going to tell whatever pissant answers that Silver's dead and leave it at that,"
Montoya snorted, her own phone pressed to an ear, "That's a great way to get put on probation on your first week Metro,"
Percy chose not to respond. He was very quickly developing a foul mood. His talk with Montoya at breakfast had dredged up a lot of feelings and memories that he would have much preferred remain buried. Add up the mounting frustration that he was still unable to get in touch with the St. Clouds, and he was not a happy camper.
Montoya sensed her partner's developing foul mood, and placed her phone back down. "Well, I got some good news at least." She gestured to her phone, "Got a few messages from the morgue and the lab. They're waiting on one of us before they make the cut, and the lab got some of the results back from the alley." She laughed lightly, "Guess Gordon wasn't kidding when he said he'd put his foot to their throat to get our results back."
Percy nodded, his mood lifting a little. That was indeed all good news. In a city like Gotham, autopsies, or cuts, could take days, before they were ready to be done. With the sheer backlog of bodies that needed to be cut, and the small staff that often worked in the morgues, it was an uphill battle. That was nothing on waiting for lab results. Essentially being a first-come-first-serve basis, Percy had once waited nearly two weeks before he had been able to access forensics reports from a crime scene.
"You thinking we split up?" Percy asked, "One of us takes the cut, the other takes the lab?"
Montoya hummed her agreement, "I'll go to the cut if you want to handle the nerds,"
Percy nodded, before standing up and grabbing his coat. Putting it on, he reached down onto his desk and retrieved his pistol and replaced his badge around his neck.
"You know where you're going?" Montoya asked, grabbing her own belongings, before joining Percy as they descended out of the bullpen.
"Yeah," he said, "It's attached to One Police Plaza, right?"
Montoya nodded her head in agreement. She didn't say anything for a second, as her face scrunched up slightly in thought. She thought that the two of them should talk about what happened in the diner. There had been this tension between them since their talk. She blamed herself a little for it. She had overreacted a bit when Percy had been talking about the league. Sure, they hadn't shouted at one another or anything like that, but there was a definite lacking to the casual camaraderie they had been building between them.
Percy was sharing similar sentiments. It was clear to him that his partner didn't hold the same feelings and hesitation toward capes that he did. He could understand it, it was hard not to idolize figures that were larger than life, and there was no discounting the leagues track record for saving the world. But she also had never lived that life. To be fair, Percy hadn't strictly lived that life either, but it was close enough that he felt justified in his beliefs. Any time he fought something from his world, Percy had always done everything in his power to minimize the damage to mortal life and property. He believed staunchly that his problems should never result in the direct disruption of the lives of others. While he was sure that capes had similar feelings, a person didn't go into that life without some degree of empathy for human life, he felt that often times members of the league got too wrapped up in the fight to think of the consequences of their actions.
Still, in spite of his own clashing ideals with his partner, he did not want this little disagreement to blow up into something greater. Yes, to the casual observer it was a minor disagreement. But Percy had lost enough friends over the years to know that if problems or disagreements, no matter how minor, went unresolved then issues arose. Slowly, those problems would compound. It would start with a minor disagreement, and then slowly any and every disagreement that followed would build upon one another, until the tension reached a boiling point. For any relationship to be successful, clear and honest communication was needed. While such a thing was a bit more difficult for him, ancient laws and all that, he still believed they should address things before they went any further.
"I'm sorry-"
"I'm Sorry-"
Both said at the same time as they reached the bottom of the stairs, just outside the precinct. Both just stared blankly at one another for a minute, before the pair both broke down in chuckles.
"We good?" Percy asked, reaching his fist out to her,
"Yeah," Montoya smirked, bumping her own fist against his.
With that, the two made their way over to the parking lot, got in their respective vehicles, and took off in the direction of their respective destinations.
BREAK
One Police Plaza was located in one of the oldest districts in the city. Whereas much of the urban sprawl, especially around Percy's own precinct, was more modern its architectural designs, the Five Points was more gothic in its appearance. Sprawling spires, and old brickworks, Percy rather liked the more historical look of the headquarters for the Gotham Police Department.
Parking his car, Percy made his way to the building attached to the gothic police monolith. Unlike One Police, the forensics lab stood out as a monument to modernity. Five stories of tall, glass walls in some form of postmodern expressionism, Percy couldn't help but be impressed. In spite of all he had read about the lack of funding the GCPD had been receiving, the building was clearly brand new.
Pushing open the doors to the tall building, Percy showed his identification to one of the desk attendants in the main lobby, and he was directed to the fifth floor of the building. Percy was reminded of his time at NYU; the building was very reminiscent of some of the buildings he had taken classes in. He arrived at a closed door with the number 515 on a sign by the handle. There was a buzzer next to the handle, taking the hint, Percy pressed the buzzer, and a few seconds passed before the was a 'click', and the door was unlocked.
The inside was about what he expected out of a forensics lab. The sterilized, hospital-like, smell hit his nostrils in a wave. The room was open, with several large machines tucked away into various corners. On the far side of the room, facing the large windows, was a large man. He was a little over six feet tall, with deep black skin, a shaved head, and a white lab coat, he was standing over a machine as it whizzed and hummed. Hearing the door close behind Percy, the man looked up and turned around from his work to see who was intruding onto his personal space.
"Detective Jackson," Percy introduced himself, "I'm working the St. Cloud case."
The man grunted but nodded, "So you're the one making my life difficult." he said gruffly, instead of introducing himself.
"Sorry that a kid is dead. Next time someone decides to cap a fourteen-year old I'll make a call and see if it's ok with you first," Percy shot back. He understood where the man was coming from, if the commissioner was putting the pressure on for him to start putting up results, then the man had likely been living in the lab. That didn't excuse acting like a jackass though.
The man just snorted, and Percy caught the name on the badge on his lapel. "Dr. Treyvon Parker." He strode past Percy and over to a table with a variety of evidence bags and other items that Percy recognized from the alley the night of the shoot.
"You got lucky. One of the shots went clean through the girl and embedded itself in the alley." Parker said without preamble, pulling up one of the evidence bags. "We also managed to pull out a couple of shell casings from the alley." Parker held up another bag, "Nine-millimeter. We ran the casings through NIBIN and we got a hit on at least seven other shootings over the last three years that came from the gun that was used."
NIBIN, or the National Integrated Ballistics Information Network, was a relatively new addition to crime scene analysis. Techs could input data found on a shell casing and, using a machine and algorithm Percy didn't understand, could track down the likely gun that was used in the shoot, and trace it back to other cases where that gun was used. It was incredibly helpful technology, that only a handful of states had the access to. Percy frowned though, as useful as it was to hear that they had this evidence it meant that they were really dealing with a professional.
Percy almost felt his stomach drop out of his shoes; this guy was likely already very long gone.
"Get any clean prints off of the casings?" Percy asked. He was hoping that their guy hadn't been smart enough to wear gloves when he was loading his brass, and would have left a clear print for them to have put through the system.
Parker shook his head, "No luck. At least nothing clean."
Percy bit back a groan but just nodded. Parker then walked around to the end of the table, "We pulled a variety of particulates off of the clothing. But we didn't find anything that would indicate that she was held in a secondary location or she was anywhere but her home, school or that alley. We did manage to get a few sets of prints off of her jacket, ran those through the system too, but again, no luck."
"Hell…" Percy muttered under his breath, "You guys get anything we can use to figure out who this guy is?" Percy asked, his frustrations mounting.
"No," said Parker simply, but then he grinned. "But we found something else that's very, very interesting."
He then picked up the smallest bag on the table and handed it over to Percy. With a look of confusion, Percy took the bag and looked at it. Opening the manila bag, he peered inside, where the small bracelet that he had found in the alleyway lay.
"The bracelet?" Percy asked, "What's that got to do with anything,"
"That," said Parker, pointing at the bag before resting his elbows on top of the table, "Is your motive."
Percy stood stock still. "Excuse me?" he said, because he wasn't quite sure he had heard the man correctly. Parker's grin just widened in self-satisfaction,
"I don't mean to presume anything here detective," he said, still resting on the table, "But would I be correct in assuming you aren't thinking this murder was just a mugging gone wrong?"
Percy didn't move for a moment, his mind whirling as he tried to process the information. Finally, he just nodded, "Yes," he said slowly, "Working theory at the moment is that our guy was after something, and not just trying to kill the kid."
"Thought so," said Parker, that same satisfied look on his face, "And the reason I thought so, is because of that little bracelet." he pointed again at the bag.
"Alright," said Percy, having enough of the little game the man was playing, "What the hell is so special about the damn bracelet?"
"That ain't a bracelet detective," Parker said easily, not rattled by Percy's aggravation, "It's an encryption. A set of codes mapping out a seriously impressive security array of some kind. I don't know what it's for, or what it does, but the little gem on there?" he said, gesturing again to the bag and Percy looked down again to look at the small emerald dangling from its side, "That gem has coding written on the inside. No idea how they managed to do it, or what it says cause that ain't my specialty, but there's a thousand or so lines of coding algorithms engraved on the inside of the emerald."
Percy felt his breathing stop momentarily, as a surge of hope flooded through him. Their guy wasn't about to go anywhere. Percy had been sure that there was something else going on, everything they had found during the investigation indicated as such. There was just no other reason for the man to have trashed Silver's Penthouse, or assume the role of her personal chauffeur. He hadn't been sure what he had been expecting, but this? This most certainly had not been it.
"How in the hell did you spot that?" Percy asked, slightly amazed.
Parker just shrugged his shoulders noncommittally, "I wanted to get a closer look at the emerald, sometimes the piece makers will put some sort of marking or engraving on their works to show who made it, but when I put it under the scope, I saw the coding instead."
"Did you find a mark or anything while you were looking though?" Percy asked, if they could find out who crafted the piece, then it would be likely that they could find someone who could tell them what it was, or yet, break the decryption code.
"Nothing, sorry pal," Parker said, not sounding the least bit sorry, and Percy found his patience with the man growing thinner by the passing second.
"So how would something like this even work?" Percy asked as a new line of thought entered his mind, "I'm no coder, but as far as I know, you can't just shove an emerald into a thumb drive and unlock the secrets of the universe,"
Parker just snorted, but didn't disagree, "Think of it like this. Out there somewhere, is a lock, and the coding on the inside of that emerald is the key. You input the coding into whatever it's made for, and it unlocks the door."
"Any way we could get someone in here to break through the encryption, or maybe reverse engineer it so we could find out what this thing is used for?" Percy asked, still not taking his eyes away from the bracelet,
"Maybe, but not anytime soon." Parker admitted with a shrug, "Gotham don't got the tech to break through something like that, I hear that there's a guy out in Central City who does some pretty good code work, Allen or something like that, but unless you feel like driving all the way out to Missouri, you're probably out of luck for at least a few weeks."
Percy sighed, but nodded. He figured it would have been a bit of a long shot. Not even Metropolis had someone who was able to break encryptions. Most of the good coders were either in the private sector, or working as subcontractors to the federal government.
"Where are your gloves at?" he asked, and Parker pointed to a table behind Percy. Putting down the bag on the table, he walked over, and Percy grabbed a pair of gloves from the box on the table, and slapped them on. Then, grabbing the bag, he slowly pulled the bracelet out of the bag and held it with one hand. He placed the now empty bag on the table, and with his free hand, reached into his pocket and grabbed his phone. Angling the jewelry in such a way that the emerald was dangling free and unobstructed, Percy snapped a couple of pictures at a variety of angles. When he was done, he carefully replaced the bracelet and resealed the bag, and placed it on the table.
"Anything else for me?" Percy asked,
Parked just a raised a brow, "Not yet," he said slowly, "But I'm not quite through sifting through the other messes you brought my way. I have a team working through what we pulled out of the penthouse and I'm still waiting to hear back from the morgue about the second victim you found. I have your number; I'll call if we find anything else for you."
Percy nodded, "Thanks," he said, "Great work, on that," he pointed to the bag on the table, before he felt his phone begin to vibrate in his pocket. Reaching in, he pulled it out, only to see a number he didn't recognize flashing over the screen. "Forward your reports to our precinct," Without another word to the rude forensics' analyst, Percy strode out of the lab, answering the phone as he did so.
"Hello?" he answered,
"Is this detective Jackson?" a smooth female voice asked on the other end of the line,
"Yes," he answered as he closed the door to the lab behind him, and strode towards the elevator. "Who is this?"
"This is Samantha Khan from the District Attorney's office, how are you today detective?"
Percy's brows shot up to his hairline, Gordon must have had a busy night, "Another day in paradise, you know how that goes. Is there something I can help you with miss Khan?"
"Your name was attached to the search warrant requests presented to the office yesterday, however we could not find your fax number in our system."
"Ah," Percy said, stepping into the elevator, silently hoping he wasn't about to lose service, "Sorry about that. I'm a recent hire and was put on a case immediately, so I haven't had a chance to set up my number yet. I'll take care of that later today. Does that mean we have our warrant?"
"Please make sure you do." Khan said, "And yes, we were going to fax it over this morning."
"Can I just stop by and pick it up myself?" he asked,
There was a pause on the other end of the line, and for a moment, Percy thought he might have lost the call. "That would be acceptable. When can you be here?" Khan finally said,
Percy felt himself grinning. Things were starting to look up for them. If they could get even a semi-clean look at their guy, it could prove beyond useful. He checked his watch briefly before pulling his phone down and pulling his map app out. After a quick check to see how close the DA's office was, he replaced the phone by his ear.
"I can be there in fifteen minutes," he said,
"That will be fine detective. Your warrant will be waiting with the receptionist in the lobby." There was a click, and the woman ended the call. Percy pulled the phone away from his face and stared at it for a moment. With a snort of amusement, he tucked the phone away back into his pants pockets, as the elevator doors reopened.
He exited the building and made it back to the parking lot, and into his car. Once inside, he pulled up the map and set a route towards the DA's office, then swiped over and called up Montoya and set the phone on speaker, then he switched back to the map app. He was just placing the phone into the dock on his center console when his partner answered.
"This Montoya," was her crisp greeting,
"Heya Monty," Percy said cheerfully, "How'd the cut go?"
"You sound…chipper," Montoya said, "And nothing. The M.E. found some particulates under her finger nails that they're going to analyze, hopefully comes back with someone in the system,"
"It won't," Percy interjected, "The techs found prints on some of the casings the pulled from the alley, ran them through AFIS but got nothing out of them."
"Ok…" Montoya replied, as she drew out the word, "You've got something, don't you?"
"Maybe," Percy teased, unable to keep a smug smile off of his face as he turned at the intersection, "Or maybe I have a couple of somethings"
"Don't be a cocktease," Montoya chided, "What do you got,"
"Alright, so I'm guessing at least one of the bullets was not in the girl's body?"
"That's right,"
"That's because it was a through and through. Right into the concrete. Anyways, they pulled it, analyzed it, and ran it through NIBIN. Seven other shoots Montoya, our guy's been involved in seven other shoots."
Montoya was quiet, "Ok, so our boy is a professional. Why is that a good thing?" She asked, and Percy realized with a start that, with how their conversation had gone that morning, he had never had a chance to discuss what his thoughts or findings on the case were.
"It's a good thing, because we know that he isn't done with his job yet."
"Really not in the mood for games today Metro, what do you mean?"
Percy got the message and got straight to the point, "Alright, so hear me out," he said as he pulled up to a stoplight, "I'm sure that I'm not the only one here that's been feeling like there was more to this right?"
"Thought that was pretty clear when we found the second body," was Montoya's dry reply.
Percy chuckled, "Yes," he drawled, "But I was more referring to the why, here Monty. Why was there a second body? Why, if this guy was here to kill miss St. Cloud, did he take the time to assume the identify of her driver if he already knew where she lived and where she went to school? Why was the penthouse trashed? Why not just take her out when she was coming out of school?"
"Alright, alright, I get your point. Yes, all of that has occurred to me. So, what are you thinking, our guy is looking for something and thought that Silver had it?"
"Got it in one, and I think I know exactly what he was looking for." Percy said, "You remember that bracelet I found?" Montoya grunted in affirmation, "Turns out? Not just a nice piece, the folks in the lab found an encryption on the inside of the emerald."
"What?" Montoya asked, "Like, stenciled on one side or something?"
"No," Percy corrected, "I mean that there are shit-ton of code that was inscribed on the inside of the emerald that are smaller than the eye can see. They only found it by chance, but whatever it is, works kind of like a key for something. If the St. Clouds are as rich as I've been hearing, then it's probably a reserve or valuable art piece or something stupid like that. Anyways, the point is, that I'm willing to bet that our guy was looking for this." Percy said, his voice growing a little more excited,
"That makes sense. Wait, I just thought of something," Montoya said, "If that is true, and our guy left it at the scene of the crime, then he probably doesn't know what his little code looks like."
"Exactly what I was thinking," Percy exclaimed happily, "I mean if it's like super-secret codes for something, then he was probably thinking it would be on like, a thumb drive or something."
"Oh shit," Percy heard Montoya mutter,
"What?" Percy asked,
"If he's still looking for it, what do you think the chances are that our boy tries to go back to the Penthouse to look again?"
Percy scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, "That place is still swarming with cops, he can't be dumb enough to try and break in there right now."
"He's killed at least two people in a week Metro," Montoya chided, "This guy sounds desperate, I would not put it past him. Better to be safe than sorry."
Percy just nodded, more for himself since there was no way Montoya could actually see him. "That works out I suppose," he mused, "Especially since I was going to be heading back there anyways."
"Why's that?" Montoya asked,
Percy spoke as he pulled into a parking space on the side of the curb along the District Attorney's office building, "Got a call from someone in the DA's office, they have our warrant for the camera's. Was going to suggest we get the tapes and head back to the precinct and settle in for a movie night."
Montoya groaned over the phone, and Percy couldn't blame her. Tape duty was about as tedious as a stakeout. "On the bright side," Percy said, trying to convince himself as much as his partner that it wouldn't be too bad, "At least we have a rough timeline to look for. Whoever the guy is with Silver and drives off has got to be our guy,"
There was a sigh but Percy could hear the resigned agreement in her tone, "You're right, you're right."
Percy thought of something, "Were you the one to submit the request?" he asked,
"Yeah, faxed it over to the Commissioner's personal line, why?"
"You didn't happen to ask for the tapes of the surrounding buildings and traffic cameras, did you?" he asked.
She snorted slightly in derision, "C'mon Metro, give me some credit here, this isn't my first month on the job. Yes, I said that the cameras in the building, along with the cameras of the neighboring high-rises and street cams potentially held evidence pertaining to the identity of a suspect in a double homicide."
Percy just chuckled as he stepped out of the car, "Alright, meet you there in…" he checked his watch, "Half an hour?"
"Sounds good," and then she hung up. Chuckling, Percy walked into the building, and true to miss Khan's word, the warrants were waiting for him. He chatted up the secretary for a few minutes before he collected his items and made his way back towards his car.
He thought about what Montoya had said as he made his way towards the penthouse. She was right, if nothing else then their guy was going to get desperate soon. It couldn't hurt anything to add a few more units to the scene, and maybe around Dorsett, the dead driver's, home. Sighing as he got back behind the wheel, he checked his watch, it was a little before one in the afternoon, which meant that they would be able to go through a few hours of tape, and then they could make their way to fundraiser. Groaning, Percy placed his head on the steering wheel, he still had to bring that fun little topic up to Montoya, and he had a feeling that she wasn't going to love the idea of spending her evening at a black-tie gala with Gotham's elite.
Turing the ignition over, Percy put the car in gear and prepared himself for another long day.
BREAK
Recognize: Black Canary 13
The familiar sensation of her atoms being reconfigured sent a tingle shivering across her skin as Dinah stepped out of the tube. She was always a little taken aback when she stepped onto the watchtower, the Leagues orbiting headquarters. The view from the large windows by the tube was indescribable. The entire planet, the large blue-green sphere, gently floating through the void. It served as an anchor for her, a constant reminder of why she did what she did, and why she would continue the fight her mother had started.
"It's funny," came a voice from over her shoulder. Turning to the voice, Dinah was unsurprised to see her fellow teammate and friend. Diana Prince, better known to the world as Wonder Woman, was on the orbiting space station nearly as often as J'onn.
"What is?" Dinah asked, her gaze following the taller woman as she moved to stand next to Dinah by the window, gazing down on the planet below.
"That is," Diana replied, wrapping a knuckle against the glass in the direction of the planet below. "From up here, it always appears so peaceful. So calm. Almost idyllic." Dinah didn't have anything to say. The unspoken 'but we know better,' didn't need to be said by either heroine. The pair stood there in silence for a while, neither speaking, but taking solace in the beauty and majesty of the view before them.
"So, what are you doing here?" Diana asked after a few minutes of quiet contemplation. She hadn't spoken loudly, her voice barely above that of a whisper, but in the quiet confines of the watchtower, even the quietest voices carried. "You're not on Monitor rotation for another week,"
Dinah turned her gaze away from the planet to regard her friend, "Needed to run something through the database,"
Diana quirked a meticulously plucked brow, "Trouble?" she asked, and Dinah almost chuckled at the way the muscular woman's body involuntarily began tensing before relaxing and tensing again. After nearly a decade of knowing the woman she shouldn't have been surprised, but it always did catch Dinah off guard how easily, even the mention of combat, could set the warrior loose. She supposed that if you grew up fighting gods and demons you probably would be a little quick on the draw.
"Maybe, not sure yet. There might be a new player in Gotham."
An amused, but not quite pitying look came over Diana's features, "If there is, do you really think Bruce hasn't already been all over him?"
Dinah didn't think she'd ever really get used to hearing someone refer to the Bat by his real name. Though she supposed, if anyone could and would, it would Diana.
"You're probably right," Dinah chuckled, "But it would be easier trying to pull the teeth from a mountain lion than get Batman to share some of his intel with me. And besides," she added as she began to casually make her way towards the Monitor room, where the League's supercomputer resided, "Sometimes you just have to satisfy your own personal curiosity."
"Fair enough," Diana laughed, "Would you care for an extra set of eyes?"
"Sure," Dinah shrugged, she wasn't about to brush off the help of someone with more than a few centuries under her belt.
The Monitor room was the second largest room on the Watchtower, second only to the conference room. It was situated in the heart of the of the building, completely sequestered behind several, nigh impermeable, lead-lined magnesium-based alloy walls. While the entire station was made of the same alloy, Batman had insisted on lining the inner walls of that particular room with lead, Dinah wasn't entirely certain why, but if the dirty looks Clark had given the Bat when he had informed them of the design were any indication, then she assumed it was something to do with Superman.
Against one wall was the Monitor, a large super computer in its own right, but with a very different purpose to the machine Dinah intended on using. The Monitor, as it was known to the League, was linked up to several dozen WayneTech satellites, and allowed the League to slice their way into every known police and military surveillance system they were aware of, as well as unlimited access to most known forms of radio-waves. It allowed the League the quickest possible response time to any world-ending emergency or catastrophe. It was an extension of something Batman had designed himself, which allowed the man unlimited access to anyone with a cellphone, radio, or anything transmitting radio waves. The Monitor was run by some complex algorithm Dinah didn't care to understand, to flag specific words or phrases, and relay them back to the user at the station. If the flagged items were inconsequential, then things moved on as normal, but every once in a while, the Monitor would pick up on something else, and it would be the job of whomever was on duty that day, to get the word out immediately the who, what, and where. It was the League's first line of defense against the greatest threats to humanity, which was why there was always a leaguer on standby for Monitor duty. Which was why Diana just so happened to be the tower.
Dinah would be the first to jump in and praise the efficacy, and life-saving potential of the Monitor. It had already prevented utter catastrophe, natural or otherwise, on nearly a dozen of occasions. It was difficult to say exactly how many lives had been saved, directly because of the existence of the machine. That being said, the Monitor made Dinah uneasy. In spite of all the good it had done, and all the lives they'd saved using it, Dinah couldn't help but feel like it was a gross invasion of privacy. She trusted in Batman and Superman and the rest of the hyper-intelligent Leaguers who designed the Monitor's firewall, but she her mind couldn't help but go to the worst-case scenario. What if someone did manage to hack into their system, sure they would have to know about the Watchtower, and the Monitor, and be able to hack into it, but their enemies were numerous, intelligent and powerful. To think that the enemies of the League didn't know about their headquarters, or assume they had something similar to the Monitor would a practice in naivety. The kind of havoc that could be wrought with a system such as the Monitor was mind numbing. That was before a person even considered the moral ambiguity of even creating such a system in the first place.
Dinah knew she wasn't the only person to have these beliefs as well. A couple of the others had even started to call it Brother Eye, in reference to Orwell's dystopian Big Brother, when they thought none of the triumvirate were around.
Tearing her gaze away from the Monitor, Dinah turned her attention to the supercomputer. Another large screen that was supposedly modeled after the system Batman used in his own headquarters. Dinah pulled out a small thumb drive, last night she had used her own personal system to download the information she had accumulated using her League Lens' and transfer the data over. Taking the thumb drive, she inserted it into a port under the keyboard. The file appeared on the Monitor, and Dinah clicked on it to download. In only a few seconds the entirety of the file was downloaded onto the League database.
Mousing over, Dinah clicked on a link to the shared League Person's of Interest System, or LPIS. The LPIS was all of the records any Leaguer had ever downloaded or shared on any person or group that was of interest or suspect. It was, like the Monitor, linked in with every nation's national archive on everything from criminal and arrest records to school attendance listings and missing person's services.
Clicking on the downloaded file on Percy, she dragged it over and dropped it into the search menu, and instantly the computer began running everything that had ever been put through the system on Percy Jackson.
Diana just watched quietly from the side as Dinah worked. She found herself intrigued, it had been a rather boring shift, so when she got the alert that her friend was coming through the Zeta Tube she had welcomed the minor distraction. If any trouble arose, the Monitor would be sure to alert the whole station so she wasn't all that concerned with being 'away from her post'. That, and it wasn't often that something caught her friend's attention like this. She was happy for her, the League had a bit of an unwritten rule: leave outside distractions at the door, and whatever had been going on between her and Oliver was clearly troubling the woman. So, to have this little distraction, no matter how potentially insignificant was a welcome sign to the warrior princess. There was that, and Dinah was not the type to fuss over something she didn't feel was potentially important.
As the computer began running through files, and they waited for the results, Diana asked, "So what's so special about this person?"
Dinah looked over at her friend, "He's a new detective with GCPD, transferred from Metropolis, I ran into him at Ted's," she said, and Diana knew who she was referring to. She had met and fought with Ted 'Wildcat' Grant a few times. He was a good man, who was now quietly enjoying his retirement. "Ted said that he bribed him to ignore the fact that he was lifting weights that would shatter most Olympic records."
Diana's eyebrows rose at that, "A Metahuman then," she said
Dinah nodded, "That's what we were thinking," Diana knew she was referring to Ted, "I was there with Artemis, you know, Arrow's new protege," the lack of her use of Oliver's given name was not missed by Diana, "I wanted to get her out of the cave for a bit, the team's been a bit…volatile lately as I'm sure you've heard." Which was an understatement. Diana did not have much, if any contact with this new 'team' that Batman had created, but she kept up to date with most of the League gossip. Supposedly, there was a mole within the team and Aqualad had been keeping that information from the rest of the kids.
"Anyway," Dinah continued, "I was trying to help her with her unarmed combat training, but she was having some problems with it. Percy," Diana assumed that was the man in question, and was assumed by Dinah's casual usage of his first name, but Dinah didn't even realize she had done it, "He noticed what was going on and offered some pointers,"
"Bold of him," Diana noted, and Dinah nodded. It had annoyed her a little that this strange man had just interjected himself into their training, but she supposed she couldn't fault him too much for it, Artemis had been rather vocal about her displeasure, and Percy hadn't been malicious or anything in his intent. Dinah wasn't sure what it was about the man, she was curious to be certain about him, but there was something in her gut that was telling her that he wasn't a threat. At least not to her or Artemis.
"Yeah, but honestly, I was getting annoyed. Artemis wasn't listening to anything I was trying to teach her and he wasn't rude about it, so when he offered to help, I thought to hell with it." Dinah said,
That really had Diana's attention, "You let a civilian spar with one of the League's…" she searched for the term the young ones seemed to prefer for a moment, "protege's?" she asked,
"Guy is covered in military ink, I figured he was at least trained, and I just figured, hey, either he actually shows her something useful and maybe knocks her ass into gear, or he gets put in the ground for butting in. Either way, win-win, right?"
Diana just laughed, "Indeed. So, what happened?"
"Put her in the mat in less than a second," Dinah answered, snapping her fingers for emphasis, "He moved quick too, faster than even someone who's been trained to react fast should be able to. One second she's standing there, the next she was on the ground that basically solidified it to me that this was not normal. I don't care how long he served, I know who trained Artemis before we got to her, there is no way even a trained civie could do that, that quickly."
Diana nodded; she had heard the rumors about the young Miss Crock's upbringings. If this 'Percy' had indeed been able to defeat her so quickly and efficiently it spoke to something beyond the combat training most members of the American military received.
"Then there was the phone call,"
"Phone call?" Diana asked,
Dinah had the grace to at least appear sheepish at that, running a slightly embarrassed hand through her hair, "Might have listened to a phone call he had while he was changing in the bathroom, hey!" she countered, seeing Diana's disapproving glance, "In my defense, he was shifty, and when he got the call, he left in a real hurry. Besides, who he was speaking to is a bit concerning,"
Diana gestured for Dinah to continue, "The name Jimmy Olson mean anything to you?"
Diana's eyes widened, "Kal's friend?" she asked,
Dinah nodded, "But it gets better. Not only does he supposedly have an in with Olson, but he name-dropped Lois. As in Clark's Lois."
"Oh dear…" Diana muttered under her breath, as the implications started to hit her.
Dinah hummed in agreement, "I could excuse one or two things as coincidental. He knows Jimmy Olson and Lois Lane? Ok sure, he was a cop in Metropolis, he made connections with the people who are well well-connected. I can buy that. But then he also just happens to stumble on a gym run by a former Leaguer, and run into two off-duty capes? Something about that doesn't add up to me. You could call it a coincidence but we've worked the game too long to believe in those anymore."
Diana agreed. In the world they lived in, and the battles the fought, against the types of people they fought; coincidence was not a luxury one could afford to believe in. Diana herself, had made far too many mistakes, because she did not connect the dots soon enough. It was enough to make her realize why Bruce was the way that he was, if there was even a remote chance that something was not as it appeared, they needed to treat it as a one-hundred percent certainty.
The beep from the computer drew Diana's attention away from her thoughts, it had finished the calculation. Dinah, hearing the beep too, turned to begin scanning through the files. What she saw wasn't exactly surprising, since it matched up with what she had seen and put together herself. Fairly average childhood, though he did seem to move around a lot. Military background, collegiate honors, and a quick path through the ranks of the Metropolis Police Department. There was nothing immediately noticeable that the League had flagged as suspicious.
She turned to make a comment to Diana but stopped when she saw her colleague's expression. Diana's mouth was slack-jawed, her eyes wide and round in shock and disbelief. Dinah tried to get her attention; waved her hands in front of her face and snapped her fingers but nothing seemed to faze the warrior, as she was lost in her own thoughts.
"Di," She finally said sharply, "Talk to me here, who is he?" she demanded. It was obvious enough that Diana knew Percy, an oddity in and of itself, but the look on the Amazon's face was starting to disturb Dinah. In all the years she had known her, Dinah had never known her comrade to be surprised or shocked by something.
"Gods above," Diana finally managed to mutter, but it sounded more like a prayer, "I had thought-we had all thought…. I can't believe he's alive…."
"Diana!" Dinah said, a touch more forcefully, "Who. Is. He?"
Diana managed to pull her attention away from the screen, for a second her face scrunched up, as though she were trying to piece together a particularly difficult puzzle. When she spoke, her tone was quiet, subdued, and far removed from the confident sounding woman Dinah had come to know, "I guess you could say he's my…half-cousin? Maybe full cousin? It is…difficult to explain."
Dinah had no idea how to respond to that, thankfully, her mouth had always been a bit quicker than her mind, and took up the slack.
"Oh what the fuck"
A wordsmith, she was not.
AN: Here we go, this where things really start beginning to pop off. Got some pretty cool stuff planned for the next few chapters that I think will be a pretty interesting take on these kinds of crossovers never really seen before, so I'm pretty excited for that. Thanks for all the support on the story guys, it's unbelievable, as always you all are awesome. Thanks for the love, and stay safe and healthy.
Love,
LilDB
