Casually improved Chapter 1 a little bit.

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Chapter 2

I grabbed my gun, rolled out of my bed onto the ground and onto the ground.

Crap. What should I do? The house alarm didn't go off, which means the people outside disabled it somehow.

I can't think. My hands are shaking.

Focus. FOCUS!

Okay. I have my phone. I need to call 911. Even though the Gotham police are corrupt, you never know if they might help. Commissioner Jim Gordan was still in charge after all. I switched my phone to silent and dialed the number.

"911, what's your emergency?" A voice on the other line spoke quickly.

"There are people breaking into my home!" I said quietly. "They've cut the security system off already and are currently trying to get inside."

"Okay, remain calm. What's your address?"

"1132 Leery Lane."

"Confirmed. Officers are on route to your location."

"What should I do?" I panickily asked.

"Do you have someplace to hide?" The voice on the line was emotionless. Clearly, they've encountered situations like this numerous times.

Think! THINK! Where can I hide that might buy me some time? Next time, we need to get a home with a back door or something. "There's a crawl space that I can hide in."

"Alright, go on in, and keep me on the line."

There was a crawl space underneath our stairs, I hurried on over and crawled in and closed the little door behind me.

God, I wish this thing had a lock.

What? Did you think I was going to go out and shoot at the bad guys? That would be a one-way ticket to the afterlife.

I took my gun out and turned the safety off.

It was already loaded. I had never removed the bullets before. Guess that turned out to be handy in the situation.

Fuck. I wasn't made for situations like this. I'm just a fat kid about to finish high school, living in Gotham with his parents. I'm not made for high pressure situations. This is the whole reason I wanted to get out of this city!

I could hear people entering through the window. "Fuck! Why are the doors barricaded? Did they know we were coming?"

"No way!" Another voice denied. "We didn't even know that we were coming here until about 30 minutes ago. How the heck could anyone here know?"

"I don't know, but there has to be someone hiding here." The first voice responded. "Parents are supposed to be out of the house right now. Must be the kid. If you find him, kill him. Boss says to get rid of any loose ends."

Oh shit.

"Are you still there?" The operator on the other end of line asked.

I ignored the voice and turned the volume as low as I could to prevent this guy from giving me away. It's like this guy is trying to get me killed.

"Huh. That's odd." I heard the second voice again as he walked through our home. "It doesn't look like the kid is here."

"Whatever. Forget about the kid." The first voice brushed him off. "If he ain't here, there's nothing we can do. We need to find the stuff the boss wants pronto. The Bat will only be distracted for so long."

Holy shit! They knew where Batman was right now! These guys aren't regular crooks!

"Fuck!" The second voice cursed. "Don't mention him! You'll jinx it!"

"Don't be a baby!" The first guy sounded irritated. "Talking about the Bat doesn't summon him!"

"Maybe it'll summon the others!" The second voice answered angrily.

"I miss the good old days when there was only the bat." The first voice reminisced. "Now you have Robin, Red Robin, Nightwing, Batgirl, Batwoman, The Signal, Red Hood, Spoiler, and other random freaks that seem to be prowling the streets."

"Stop saying their names!" The other voice hissed.

"Fine." The first voice sighed. "How I got stuck with a superstitious twat like you, I have no idea. You're such a fucking baby. Stop wasting time and start looking?"

"Where the hell do you expect me to find something like that?"

"I don't know!" The first voice was practically growling at this point. "Grab their computers. Search through everything to see if there are any external hard drives. There should be a server room that has what we need. Seriously! How did I end up with an idiot like you?"

"Probably because I'm the one who knows how to break into places without tripping the alarms." The second voice sounded extremely proud of his skills.

"Jeez Louise!" I could practically hear the first guy rolling his eyes at his partner. "That was what we call a rhetorical question. Every time…"

"Alright, alright!" The second guy responded and they began looking through our house. "Found it. Now what?"

"Just gather it up and keep looking. Sagar and Usha Khanna are certifiable geniuses. There's no way that they would just leave it out in the open like that." I could hear the first voice continue walking around and searching. "Look for external hard drives. There's no way these commercial laptops has enough space to hold what we want. "

"Got it."

Seriously?

My parents were geniuses?

What the hell were they doing?

And how do a bunch of criminals know more about it than their own son?

Is this why we've been moving around so often?

Shit! What is going on?

As far as I know, there's no server room in this house. Trust me, that's not something that would escape my notice.

That means these people are going to search hard for something that doesn't exist here.

If these guys were going to do a deep search, I was screwed. The crawl space isn't a super hiding place. It's decent if the job was just a basic home robbery, but it's not going to hold up under a detailed inspection…

Where the hell were the police? They should be here by now!

My hands are shaking so bad…

I don't think I'm going to make it out of this.

I can't die like this in a crawl space without anyone knowing. Without my parents knowing how much I loved them. You know, I know my parents love me and they know that I love them, but we never say it. We do a bunch of small things to show each other our love, such making each other food or helping out with random tasks, but we never say the words. I never thought it was stupid until now. What if I died without ever telling my parents that I loved them? They had to know that I was thinking about them before I died.

They had to.

I saw that they left me a voice message while I was on the phone with the police. I'll have to check it out later, but for now, I quietly texted my parents - "SOS. Gunmen broke into our home. Police on line. No matter what happens, I will always love you both".

After I texted it, I realized it actually sounded like my last words.

Shit.

They'll probably be driven nuts by my message.

After I texted that to my parents, I picked up my gun and aimed it at the entrance of the crawlspace.

Then I waited.

If I was going to die, I was going to go with all guns blazing.

Every second felt like hours. I could hear them rummaging through our house, tearing everything apart. Getting closer and closer to the crawl space.

"Hey Fish, what is supposed to be on these hard drives that are so valuable?" The second voice asked. "It's not like the people who live here are particularly rich or anything."

"Shut up Tony." The first voice, who I assume is nicknamed Fish, responded. "Don't ask questions about things you don't need to know. You'll live longer."

"Oh come on Fish!" Tony whined. "I don't know why we are checking out their house. If these people are as smart as you say, there's no way they would leave something valuable just lying around for us to just pick up."

"I don't know what the boss wants us to find, and I don't care either. We do what the boss says. That's it." Fish explained. "It doesn't even matter if we find it here or not as long as we do our job perfectly. It's best not to use your brains too much, or you might end up ruining the boss's plans."

"Still…"

"You think this is the only place being searched? Of course not. We just got the easiest assignment of them all.

You got skills, kid. I can respect that. But you're new to the scene. Keep your head down and stay one of the faceless. You'll live longer."

Shit! What do my parents have that's so important that lots of people are out looking for it?

These guys are being too careful. There's no chance of them overlooking my hiding spot.

Dammit! Stop shaking!

I'm terrified. Terrified of pain. Terrified of dying in my own home.

I glanced at my phone. The operator was still on the line. It had almost been 30 minutes. Where the hell were the police?

They probably…weren't going to make it here on time, if at all.

I took a deep breath and mentally prepared myself to fire my weapon at actual people.

I couldn't hesitate.

"We've even ripped open the mattresses and the couch. This is just a waste of time." I heard Tony speak out. "Short of breaking down the walls, we've searched everywhere."

My heart skipped a beat.

"Tony, that's the smartest thing I've heard you say all day." Fish responded without enthusiasm. "Let's check all of the walls of this house. That way we can tell the boss that we checked everywhere before leaving without finding anything."

"Seriously? That wasn't a suggestion, Fish!"

"You wanna tell the boss that we searched everywhere when we didn't? Do ya Tony? You know he's gonna send someone to double check eventually if they don't find what he's looking for eventually. And if they do find something we missed…"

"Arghhhhh! Fine!" I heard them start knocking on walls. "I guess there's no choice."

Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck Fuck!

They are going to find me in a minute or so.

I took a deep breath and suppressed my emotions.

There was a knock on the wall next to me.

It was time.

"Fish! I think I found something! The wall sounds different here!"

"Good job, Tony! Look for an opening! They definitely need a way in and out."

I heard them head to the closet and open the door.

"There's a crawl space under their stairs!"

"Congratulations Tony. You have eyes. Open it up and I'll take a look."

"Sheesh Fish, would it kill ya to not be an ass about everything?"

Someone pulled the cover off of the crawlspace.

I saw a face peer in.

I pulled the trigger.

He was only a few feet away.

Headshot.

Time seemed to slow down for a moment. I saw the dude's brains get blown out.

Then the headache came.

I was assaulted by a bunch of images and events in my mind. It took me a moment to process that they were memories.

Memories of the man I just killed.

My hand moved with reflexes and experienced motion that felt both natural and completely foreign at the same time and shot additional bullets through the wall at the other man.

I already knew where the other guy, Tony, was based on Fish's memories.

In addition to the knowledge and gun skills that Fish's memories provided…

Tony never stood a chance.

Before the first headache had a chance to go away, I was assaulted by a second headache. Tony's memories entered my mind and took root.

It was all too much.

I passed out.

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