Chapter 13:
"The Probability Theory of Slade"
The moment her friend dropped her off at her apartment back in Bludhaven, Pixie—which was not her real name, but a name taken from the Disney movie Peter Pan—"Pixie Dust" used by the fairy Tinkerbell—made a phone call, and within fifteen minutes, she was picked up by another car, a dark Lexus and a male driver, and taken to a secluded spot near the river bed. She felt relatively safe and guarded by the driver until her late night rendezvous with the person she had asked to see could be achieved.
She stared up at the night sky and became lost in thought.
Even though Dick Grayson had been kind of a jerk to others at times whenever she had seen him in the bar she frequented, he had always been a gentleman to her. And when she came on to him, he would always politely take a rain check, saying he already had someone special in his life. But he never revealed who. Despite his amnesia, she knew Barbara Gordon was that love interest—whenever she came around the bar to visit him. He always stopped and starred and lost all interest in everything else but her.
She didn't know their history, but she knew love when she saw it.
She looked back after a few minutes of solitude at the driver standing next to the car, who was dressed in a dapper black suit and tie, with perfectly combed hair, and obviously armed, and said: "I thought people of your boss's calibre were always on time?"
The man gave her a narrowed stare. "He's always on time, miss—when it's important," he replied.
"Does that mean that I am not important enough for him?" she said irate. The way the man responded irked her.
"You misunderstand my underling…"
Pixie jumped from the sudden voice behind her. The man she had come to see was masked in darkness, despite the crescent moon clearly seen in the dark night sky. However, the bridge passing over the river near by cast a shadow that hid him from sight. But his authoritative voice gave him away; she had heard it before—when they had met on other occasions. She was an information broker and had worked for him for nearly a year. Her latest job was obtaining information on Dick Grayson, or as he called himself Ric or Gray, after his incident with the shooting, and knew about his secret identity. She pretended to play innocent. There was no reason to tell anyone she knew or to expose it, and in a way, she actually felt sorry for Dick Grayson after everything he'd been through.
The mystery man standing before her had never revealed his identity to her, but that didn't matter. She got paid, nonetheless. And as long as the information he requested on different issues of interest kept coming, more money would come, which would help out her sick mother, getting treatments for cancer.
Everyone had a weakness and everyone had a need. As long as she didn't have to kill anyone, she would continue to get what he wanted. And she knew how to get it: men were always suckers for a beautiful woman.
An unseen stare told the driver to leave the area to allow them to talk in private.
When they were alone, he said: "You have information for me? I'm very busy."
"This would be easier if you had a cell phone."
"Technology can be tracked, and a man in my line of work wishes to remain in the shadows. Now, I know you went to see him. Tell me, how is my old student?"
"Not doing well," she said dejected. "He's gone through so much and now he's laying in a hospital bed, poisoned."
For the first time, she caught a glimpse of the man's face as a glimmer of light flashed down off the bridge from a passing car, reflected off something else. Whether it was by accident, or the fact that he had taken a step forward in a movement of interest, she finally saw her paymaster. He wore a mask, half of it was orange and the other black.
"Poisoned? By whom?" he demanded.
She gasped, then: "I don't know, and I couldn't get in to see him. From what I overheard, however, he was exposed to a dangerous drug, during a seemingly random encounter in the cafe with a fellow hospital patient, and suddenly, soon afterwards, Dick Grayson developed a fever, and then began to act all crazy. He had to be sedated for his own well being."
"Crazy? How? Speak!"
"Like he was under some sort of drug like when you overdose on marijuana or alike. He attacked two orderlies and a cop."
The man was silent for a moment as if he was thinking. "That isn't like my former student at all. And not part of the plan. I've been privy to all events: from Dick Grayson's amnesia and to his recent surgeries that restored his memories. I knew the half-cocked plan wouldn't work, but the fool paid me a lot of money to do the job. It failed, why try to kill him in such an irresponsible manner now?"
"You know, come to think of it, Grayson was acting like some of those people I've seen on the news in Gotham City—people have been going nuts, seeing things, hallucinating, and such. There's been a rash of them as of late. They're saying it's—"
"Yes," he said, interrupting her. "I know of it—the Fear Germ. But why would he be targeting Dick Grayson?" the man mused further. She was about to ask who "he" was, but the man silenced her before she could. "I'm out of the loop here. I must get to the bottom of this, something is amiss. History is history, but there is no reason for this. Unless—No, that's highly unlikely," he said to himself.
There was a probability theory called "Independence" where two seemingly, supposedly, random events intersected similarly, to come together with an equal end result of quintessence—like two similar actions of a likeable nature but from two different sources.
He thought: What if, not only was he was hired to do a job, but someone else was also paid to complete the same job and in similar fashion? He was hired to shoot Dick Grayson—Nightwing—in the head with a non-lethal blood capsulated bullet with a device that would render him unconscious, to make it appear he had been shot in the head, so surgery could be performed and an implant placed in his brain to control his every thought and action, while driving him mad in the meantime, causing amnesia like symptoms.
He knew the plot was far-fetched, but it had worked for a little while. Then Damian Wayne stuck his nose in and spoiled things, dressing up as Nightwing Junior and rescuing Dick Grayson from his half-life.
After Grayson got his memory back, he thought that was the end of it. He got paid, so that's all he cared about. But now his student was subjected to yet another attack, without correlation or consultation from his employer. Two random plots, but with a similar result.
The probability of that was astronomical, but not out of the realm of the possible.
"The deed was done…It was a risky but unique undertaking at best, and it failed…But…"
Pixie wondered what he was talking about, when suddenly, there was a large noise from behind her, seemingly coming from under the bridge afar, like a trash can behind tipped over, and the sound of animals. She whipped around, piercing through the darkness, as if to see what it was. When she saw nothing, and turned back, the man was gone.
The driver of the car came over, gave her a packet, and then asked her to enter the vehicle. He would take her home. She took one last glance at the river bed and then got into the car with her payment.
x x x
Slade Wilson stood on the highest point of the Littleneck Harrow's Bridge that intersected Bludhaven and the mainland and reflected on recent events. He wasn't necessarily angry, but he was a somewhat confused and frustrated.
Someone had overstepped or miscalculated, but it wasn't him. There was obviously two plots of a similar fashion at play against his former student. He had agreed to take the job from Jake Handles, an ex-spy from the now defunked spy agency known as Spyral, on the bases murder would not be the end result.
Jake Handles wanted to evoke a revenge upon Dick Grayson for events that transpired while Dick Grayson was known as Agent 37. Slade was not privy to everything that went on during that time, but it was learnt Jake Handles went rogue and turned against his fellow agents, murdering several of them. Agent 37 was sent to go after him and to terminate with extreme prejudice.
But Slade knew Dick Grayson wouldn't kill, it wasn't in his nature.
Jake Handles was subsequently defeated, nonetheless, when a building toppled down on him after an explosive device ignited prematurely that also cost him an arm and a leg. The man would later receive artificial limbs, but eighty-five percent of his body had been burnt from the bomb's blast. He now dressed like some weird adumbration of the main protagonist from the stage play: The Phantom of the Opera. Slade had only meant the man once when he was hired and that was enough.
There was a difference between insanity and intelligence, and although the man was brilliant, he was mentally unstable. Slade knew quite a few people like this, one of whom was the Joker. But it took more than intelligence to outwit your opponent, you also needed to be patient. Strategy was important. And even if it took a while for the planning, and one quick shot ended it, there was no failing.
Something was fowl here. And he knew he wasn't the only one who had been hired to do the same job. Had there been a contingency plan put in place in case he had failed. Or, had he been the contingency plan in case the original plan failed? Two shooters, with the same motive and method in mind—neither of whom knew about the other. Or, had he been left out of the loop, as he thought?
There was only one other sharpshooter he knew that could pull off the same kind of shot he had—he was only known as KB.
However, he had been hired to do a job. So, the other shooter didn't matter to him. But what did matter was the deception and that he had been played like a second string fiddle, which he detested. If the plan was to complete the mission and for there to be no mistakes, two shooters hired would make sense.
But he worked alone.
That aside, what did Scarecrow have to do with this now? And why would he poison his student? Was it just opportunity?
He fretted what he would have to do now. But he had no choice. He had to get answers.
To be continued…
