Chapter 19 - "Divisions"

Jemima marched down the corridor of the GCPD complex, sipping the last bit of coffee from the cardboard cup before tossing it into the trashcan outside the room that had been adopted as a lounge for the Titan Movement and its members. Inside, several of the group was gathered.

Briskly, trying not to draw attention to herself, Jemima slipped in. The heads of those waiting turned to her, and she tried to give up her best smile as a greeting. She slipped into a chair between Emily and Mia. "Am I late?" she asked. "I got tied up in the tech hub."

"Oh, no," Emily quickly replied. "We're just waiting for the others. Gordon isn't here yet either."

Jemima nodded as she settled into her seat. "So," Emily started, "what is it like? The tech hub, I mean."

"Hmm? Oh, it's great. It has a lot of tech. Wayne Enterprises stuff, government equipment—some of this stuff I thought we were years from having."

"You think I could maybe drop in sometime?" Emily asked. She grinned slightly. "I have a bit of a knack for technology."

"Sure," Jemima said. "But you don't have to ask. It's not just mine."

Emily smiled and nodded just as the door to the lounge burst open. John poked his head inside. "Here you all are," he said, huffing slightly. "Gordon needs you all in the conference room. Something big has happened."

Curiosities were piqued. Quickly, the members all got up and left, funneling out of the lounge. In all, aside from John, there were nine in the lounge—Jemima, Emily, Mia, Vermin, Renegade, Romero, Matt, Aria, and Nansi. They all followed John to the conference room. As they entered, Gordon turned to them.

"John found you all—good." He eyed John. "Did you tell them?"

"Nope. Saved that honor for you."

Gordon nodded, and waited for the group to seat themselves around the table. The other members were all there—Sean, Clyde, Annalise, and Dante. Once they were all seated, Gordon started up. "We have a murder on our hands. Councilwoman Stevens has been killed."

Silence filled the room. A few of the members shifted, and the looks on some of their faces showed what many were thinking: most didn't even know there was a Councilwoman Stevens.

"Late last night, while she was working late, the councilwoman was ambushed in her office. Someone shot her repeatedly. We found a message written on the bottom of a chair—in blood."

Jemima's face twisted in disgust. How evil can someone be to murder someone then write a message in their blood?

Gordon clicked a remote in his hand, and an image appeared on a large screen against the wall. It showed the bottom of a chair, with a message written on it. After the group read it, Clyde mused, "What is this? Some kind of joke?"

"Murder isn't my idea of a joke," Gordon replied coolly. "From the sound of this message, whoever did this is delusional at best, psychotic at worst. Odds lean to the latter." He paused, cleared his throat, then said, "This is the message that we deciphered: Dear GCPD: Go to the bell, book, and candle, but don't fly off the handle. The secrets you seek are not so black and white, and last night was just the beginning of our little fight."

Gordon turned off the screen, then continued, "Annalise and Dante happened upon the scene of the crime. From our talks, we have deduced that this ties into the ambush at Ace Chemicals from last night. And that means Falcone is involved."

"Finally! Now we get to take the fight to them." Clyde had a triumphant grin on his face, but as he glanced to his companions, his smile began to fade. "What? Too much enthusiasm?"

Annalise gave a nod and a forced smile as Clyde nodded, crossing his arms.

"We appreciate the enthusiasm, Mr. Darby," Gordon continued, "but we can't just rush Falcone and arrest him."

"Arrest isn't what I had in mind," Clyde mumbled.

Ignoring him, Gordon added, "If Falcone is behind this, then he'll be expecting a full-on assault of some kind. He might be evil, but he isn't stupid. We have to slip in unnoticed. Do it stealthily."

"Do we have a plan?" Mia asked.

Gordon stroked his chin. "We have some ideas. But we'll let you know when we decided on a course of action."

Jemima fiddled, tapping her fingers on the arm of her chair, before she piped up. "I think . . ."

All eyes turned to her. Most were surprised; this was her first time speaking before the entire group, actually. She felt a tinge of red rush to her cheeks, and resisting the urge to clam up and withhold any more speech, Jemima continued, "I think that we should try to figure out what exactly this riddle means."

"What it means?" Clyde prodded.

Jemima nodded. "Yeah—like, the meaning of the words. A riddle isn't a riddle unless it takes some digging to uncover it. We have to find out what it's referring to, like in the beginning. What was it you said? Something about a bell, a book, and a candle?"

Gordon nodded, reciting the riddle. "'Go to the bell, book, and candle.'"

"Well, what does that mean?"

"I think I see what she's getting at," Annalise said, hoping to help enlighten the others concerning Jemima's ideas. "If we find out what the killer was referring to with his riddle, we can try to crack it. Maybe that will help us get the culprit easily."

Jemima flashed a smile to Annalise, in thanks. Annalise returned it as Gordon spoke up. "A good plan, Ms. Allson. One of our forensic scientists is trying to crack the riddle—he has a knack for these things. I'm sure he'll appreciate all the help you can get."

"I'll help too, in any way that I can," Dante offered.

"Same here," Mia said. "Working in the CIA has helped me with some code-cracking abilities. They might be of use."

"Glad to see you all coming together on this," Gordon said. He looked to the others. "Anyone else think they can help solve this riddle?"

"I'm in," Annalise said.

"Me too." Aria raised a hand, adding herself to the list.

Gordon nodded. "Good—I think that will be a good group. You all can work on cracking this code and figuring out what exactly it means. The rest of you—"

Suddenly, Bullock rushed into the conference room. "Commissioner," he said, panting. "That bat-thing just attacked a construction worker in the sewers under Fifth Avenue. Killed 'em, his pal says."

Gordon cursed, then turned to the others. "Looks like I've got a job for the rest of you. Who's up for some tracking work?"

Gordon and the field team of the Titan Movement arrived at the sewers. The foreman was conversing with a cop while another pair of officers were standing by the sewer entrance, waiting. They were both carrying rifles, occasionally casting a wary glance down the tunnel as if the bat creature might appear and drag them in.

The members all exited their vehicles and moved towards the sewer. Gordon led the way, followed closely by Bullock. His accompaniment forced a wider berth between Gordon and the other members.

"Grant," Gordon called, and one of the officers climbed up the embankment to the group.

"Commissioner," Officer Grant greeted, nodding. He was in his early forties, his dark brown hair graying from age, but his face still looked as if he had enough fight left in him for several years at least. He arched an eyebrow. "This the little team you were putting together?"

"Part of it," Gordon said. He nodded to the sewers. "What've you got?"

Grant gestured to the foreman. "The foreman says that he sent two guys into the sewers to check out a clogged water line. One of them came back, screaming that the creature killed his friend. We wanted to wait for backup before going on."

"It's your lucky day then," Sean said with a grin. "Backup's arrived."

Grant chuckled. "Pretty gung-ho, aren't they?"

"Trust me, you haven't seen them in action yet," Gordon replied as he turned to the group. "We'll split up—there's a few different routes leading into the sewers. I'll lead a group into one, Bullock can take the next, and Grant can have the third.

"Vermin, Romero, and Nansi can come with me. Emily, Matt, and Renegade can go with Bullock. Clyde, John, and Sean will go with Grant. Sound good?"

The group gave their affirmations, and Gordon nodded. "All right. Let's go." He quickly moved down the lead pipe, flanked by Vermin, then Romero, and Nansi in the back. Bullock took his team to one to the left, while Grant led his to the right.

Gordon pulled a flashlight from his belt and unholstered his pistol, shining his light around. "Vermin—can you smell anything?" he asked.

Vermin gave a sniff, then nodded. "The dead guy's up here. I can tell."

Gordon sighed. "Just great."

As Grant led his team into their pipe, the officer clicked on the flashlight attachment mounted on his rifle's barrel. As he led the way, Clyde and Sean both drew their handguns. John followed closely behind, having summoned no weapon yet.

"This place gives me the creeps," Sean murmured.

"At least we don't have Vermin with us. We might mistake her for the creature," Clyde remarked.

John sighed. "Cly, enough with the talk about Vermin, okay? We get that you've got a bias or whatever against those with powers, but we don't have to hear about it all the time, got it?"

Clyde was silent. Grant took the moment to speak. "So, you guys really have powers? I thought that stuff was only in comic books and movies."

"Oh no, it's for real. Johnny Boy here was frozen in ice and can summon different weapons from ice."

"What? Frozen in ice? Like Captain—"

"No, not like that. That is a comic book. As Sean said, this is real life. We've got real, honest to God powers."

Grant whistled. "Fancy."

In the third pipe, Bullock led the way. And they were moving slowly. "Um, do you mind speeding up a bit?" Renegade quipped.

Bullock turned and snapped, "Hush your face, Batfan. I'm going as fast as you can."

Renegade felt a grin on his face. "So—have you actually met Batman, Bullock?"

Bullock snorted. "Met him? I coulda creamed the guy, if the Commissioner didn't order me to stand down."

Matt took the moment to spur Bullock on. "Creamed him? How so?"

Bullock opened his mouth to retort before Emily cut him off. "I can't say I don't enjoy your little conversation, guys, but you are talking pretty loud. You might scare off the bat creature I you're too loud."

Bullock nodded. "You're right. I'll put you two in your places later, when we're outta this mess."

"Hey! Maybe it's a birthday cake factory?" Aria burst out, a grin on her face. She looked to each of the others around the table. "No? Maybe not?"

Annalise shrugged. "I guess it could be. I just don't get the picture that our killer is running around planting clues with birthday cake candles."

"I think we should maybe look outside the box a little more," Dante offered. "If we try to take the candle part at face value, we're gonna have a lot of stores to look at that sell candles."

As the group mulled over their thoughts, Mia remarked, "I didn't think that this job would involve me trying to figure out what a deranged psychopath was thinking when they wrote a riddle."

They all laughed, and Jemima said, "Yeah, me too."

"Tell us a bit about yourself, Jemima," Annalise said out of the blue.

"Me? What do you mean?"

"Well, just about yourself, what you do, your baby—if it isn't too personal, that is."

Jemima grinned. "Oh no. Actually, I'm very excited about the baby. So is Daniel."

"Daniel," Aria repeated. "Boyfriend, I guess? You don't look old enough to be married yet."

"Yeah, boyfriend. He's going to the university to take classes on becoming a cop. He'll probably wind up here someday."

"Have you told him the kind of work you're doing? It'd probably make him jealous," Annalise commented.

"Not all of it. Not only would he be upset that I got to do crime-fighting before him, but he'd also worry himself to death. He tries to hide it, but I think he's real nervous about the baby and everything, like something's going to happen."

"Don't worry, nothing will happen. I'm sure your baby will be perfectly healthy," Annalise said with a grin.

"The library?" Dante said out of the blue.

"What?" Aria asked.

"The library—that's what the 'book' part could've been referring to."

"Oh," Aria murmured. "I mean, I guess so. Does anyone know anything about Gotham's libraries? Maybe one of them has a psycho librarian."

"That sounds like an interesting B-movie," Jemima said.

"It might be worth looking into. We could do an after-hours search of the local libraries and try to find something," Mia suggested.

"We'll bring it up at our next meeting," Annalise replied. She let out a sigh. "I'll say one thing—trying to solve a riddle is tiring work. Not to mention boring."

"Let's take a break then," Dante decided. "We'll get back to work in a few minutes."

"You're delusional, Harvey," Arthur Reeves said with a snort. "Stevens was just a poor, unfortunate soul. Some unhappy voter must've gone off the rails and killed her."

"I can't believe you," Harvey fumed. "A councilwoman is dead—brutally murdered—and you pin it on some voter? Face the facts, Arthur, we're standing on the edge of a storm that's about to blow all over Gotham. Something bad is gonna happen, I just know it."

"So what are you suggesting, Harvey?" Mayor Hill asked, seated in his cushioned chair. "Provide each and every city official with a twenty-four-seven guard? That would be impossible."

"Why not?" Harvey demanded, whirling to the mayor's desk. "Gordon's got more than enough men to swing it, not to mention the entire Titan team he's just formed."

"Not only would it be too comprehensive of a task, but it could be for nothing. What if this was just an isolated incident? We'd have wasted so many men for nothing."

"But what if it wasn't an isolated incident?" Harvey barked. His face was red with anger, sweat beading on his forehead out of rage. "You're sitting here on your hands, so worried about saving funds and wasting time, that you don't even care if people are gonna get killed."

"Harvey, take it easy. Be patient."

"'Be patient'?!" Harvey yelled, slamming a fist on the desk. "You can just sit by, Mayor, but believe me—something's going to happen. You can count on that." Brushing past Reeves, Harvey stormed from the mayor's office and slammed the door.

"What a firecracker," Reeves snorted, shaking his head.

"What if he's right, Arthur? What if there is some deranged lunatic on the loose, targeting city officials? You, me, Harvey—any one of us could be a target."

"Listen, Mayor, you've got nothing to worry about," Reeves said, his smile ever so large. With that, he turned and exited the office casually.

Hamilton Hill could only sit in silence and massage his temples, fretting over the dilemma Gotham City was facing.

A/N: Hello everyone! Here's chapter 19. We get to dig deeper into the mystery and our group is divided for their first missions. Any ideas on what might happen? I hope you all enjoyed it. Be sure to let me know your thoughts in the reviews, and by all means, if anyone has an idea for something they'd like to see concerning their OC's story, just feel free to PM me and let me know your ideas. I'd love to hear them. You all take care and I'll see you next time.