Owlman chapter 4: Escalation
Gotham City
Earth-3:
"Good evening, this is Gotham City News at Eight with Jack Ryder. Tonight, the city is under siege as members of the Bertinelli organized crime family have become a militant force led by a masked man calling himself the Black Spider. Two hours ago a video was sent to our station, claiming responsibility for an attack on downtown Gotham. Viewers are strongly urged to use caution, as it may contain images disturbing to some audiences."
The picture shifts to a black screen that comes to life in the form of a busy city street near the Bowery. The camera shifts to a woman in her mid-thirties, dressed for the bracing air of Gotham in November. "Drew, no! Get that thing out of my face, I'm not made up enough to be on camera!" She laughs as she says this with a smile on her lips, though she struggles to hide it. The man behind the camera, ostensibly Drew, laughs and shrugs it off. "Come on Amanda, it's our vacation. Don't tell me you want to just let it go unre-" Drew is cut off by the explosion of a nearby car, as panic breaks out. The camera shakes as gunfire bursts. Incendiary grenades are thrown in windows, buildings burst into flame as men armed with Wayne Industries Flamethrowers march the street. Alongside them are men with traditional firearms, decked out in protective vests. What houses aren't set ablaze are ransacked, civilians are thrown out of their homes and murdered in plain view. One of them turns and fires at the camera as he sees the couple. The picture blurs and falls to the ground only to stare at Amanda's unblinking face, her hair matting to the sidewalk in a pool of her blood.
A black boot steps into view and picks up the camera, gripping it and focusing on themselves. It reveals a mask with eight eyes, or what appears to be eight eyes. His voice is deep and filtered disguising whatever identity he has. The masked man pans the camera around and the scene becomes somewhat clearer. Mob enforcers and street-level soldiers are shooting and killing, hostages of perceived value are ripped from their cars, anything that can help them is repurposed. The scene is surgical, like watching an actual trained military conduct a raid. Cops, the two that were already on the scene sit with bullets in them as their squad car erupts in flames; Bodies clog the streets as this figure steps over them.
"Citizens of Gotham, I am Black Spider, and these are my men. For too long, the mob in this town have sat idle, only struggling enough to keep their slice of anything. That stops now. On Orders of the Huntress, this city is now hers. All rule is down to her. City Hall has 24 hours to accept the new reign. The other families have one. As for the Owlman? You try to stop us, you die."
The camera falls as the video stops, and in the cave, Thomas sighs. "The situation has become untenable. My attacks on the Bertinelli family have only agitated them. Hrm. It's time to end this, Alfred." He looks towards his family butler, and then towards the case where his suit is stored. "It's time to end the Family."
Alfred snorts at this and maintains his straight-laced posture. "And how are you going to do that? Kill every last enforcer in Gotham? We'd be at this for years!" He coughs and laces his hands behind his back. "Sir." Thomas shoots Alfred a look as he returns to the computer. A few clicks of the mouse give way as a diagram pulls up on the computer. It's a complete map of the city, or rather the blueprints to the city.
Thomas highlights a section on the waterfront, Dixon Docks. Dixon Docks has long been held by the Bertinelli crime family going back to the late 1800s. Back then the Bertinelli family had finally established its roots from a family of street thugs into an actual criminal syndicate. Through arson, fraud, and murder, they took over the Bowery bit by bit. The docks acted as both an import/export business, and a sort of washing machine for the Bertinelli family. They own Customs, dock officials, and supplant the night guards with their men. If there was any way to slow the theft of WayneTech projects, it would be through the docks.
"Yes, I can see where that would work, sir. But even if we take down the Bertinelli family, we won't own all of Gotham."
"No, but we can begin to sink our talons in," Thomas replied. He strode over to the suit and quickly set about arming himself for the long evening ahead. "Alfred, check the docks, let's go over their records for the past month and a half, start with when the Bertinellis began making their thefts."
Dixon Docks was one of Gotham City's oldest ports having been constructed as early as the city's founding in 1609, and updated with the restoration undergone in 1840 by the Cobblepot family, philanthropists and the second most wealthy family in Gotham. It was a rusty, dilapidated, outdated mess of a port, with half of the machinery at least fourteen years old. Still, ships from across the country made port here almost daily ferrying cargo containers of all kinds of goods from across the world. The shipping business alone, at least the legitimate end of it, grossed the city $9 billion annually. Seventeen percent of that legitimate business was due to Wayne Industries and its many subsidiaries.
What Thomas did not own, however, was the workers. Ostensibly working for the city or privatized shipping companies, most of the dockworkers, in reality, owed their allegiance to the mob in one way or another. Jay Bruns, the security shift supervisor on duty tonight, was one such man. According to his job description, he was supposed to keep check of security safety measures and keep in contact with the boys via radio. In reality, what that meant was he spent eight hours a night pretending to look at security cameras and watching football on the TV someone had brought in long before he began the job.
Jay sipped his thermos and kicked his feet up on his desk. Tonight, the Gotham Gargoyles were up against the Keystone City Whirlwinds, and all the bookies in town had odds that the Gargoyles were gonna win. Usually, that meant some cheating scandal was about to come down but occasionally the teams won without interference. Way the game was going, there was definitely some cheating scandal about to come out. The reporters on the screen kept hovering at the edge of their seats, except maybe Daily Planet. Whoever they sent just sat back in her seat filing her nails and looked smug enough that Jay wanted to smack that smile off of her face. Nothing good ever came from a woman being that smug, in his opinion. As the last play of the first half ended, and the TV cut to commercial Jay picked up his radio and pretended as if he gave a rat's ass about his job. "Boys, I need a sound off here." Silence reigned, and he listened to radio static for a few heartbeats before he thumbed the talk button again.
"They won't answer."
The voice was harsh, cool. In control, if there had to be some descriptor to it. It froze Jay's insides and his heartbeat quickened. He made to turn around, but then something razor-sharp embedded itself into the desk. "I wouldn't turn around." The voice brooked no argument, no dissension. At once, the dockworker just knew that if he said the wrong thing, he would just die. No one would find him for days, if at all. "What do you want?" A small part of him cheered inwardly at the composure with which he said the words.
An uncomfortable silence followed as he felt eyes on him that chilled him to the bone. There was just something not right about that gaze, pinning him in place. He wasn't actually sure how long the silence was; he felt rigid, like he couldn't move, so the timecodes on the security monitors were no help, and the tapes had likely been altered already. Then the voice spoke again. "The Bertinelli family owns these docks" It wasn't a question, and before he could half-heartedly protest, the voice continued. "Over the last six weeks, Wayne-Tech shipping containers bound for Northeast Asia and Eastern Europe have been redirected here. That's not counting the trucks they stole en route to warehouses. So, Shift Supervisor Jackson Bruns, you're going to tell me where the containers go after they arrive here at the port."
"W-what?" he stammered, and as soon as it left his mouth, he regretted it. A hand gripped his shoulder loosely, and he squirmed in discomfort. Black gloved fingers gripped his collarbone, and the other hand clamped around his mouth. Jay wasn't a stranger to pain. As both a low-level mob enforcer and a dockworker, he had had his share of injuries. Back spasms, bruises, black eyes, hell, he had even been stabbed once. Nothing prepared him for what came next as the fingers on his collarbone yanked hard. He screamed or tried to, as he felt the bone snap. His strangled cries never made it past the glove over his mouth. The pain was like nothing else; He'd broken his wrist once as a kid, but even then, this was nothing like that. He'd almost passed out if the truth was told.
"Where do the containers go after they arrive here?"
He shook his head, not really able to answer the question. "I don't know! I don't know" A fist slammed into his ribs, and he would have doubled over, had that fist then not clamped around his throat. "Do not lie to me." the voice said. Out of the corner of his eye, he could make out metal in the moonlight, but with the way he was gripped, he couldn't turn to look. Jay swallowed as best he could and stayed silent, trying not to anger the voice further. After a moment, the voice continued. "Your men talked. After the shipping containers arrive at port, their paperwork changes. I checked the shipping manifests, and the documents filed with the city. On every one of those missing shipments, your name appears. So, tell me," Here the voice leaned in closer, unsettlingly so. "Where. Do. They. Go?"
Jay couldn't answer. He was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't. On the one hand, the Bertinellis would string him alive, probably let that sick fuck Zsasz do his creepy serial killer stuff to him. On the other...Well, he had no idea what this guy was capable of. Either way, his life was about to get either very dead or very complicated. In the end, Jay was a massive coward. When he felt something sharp against his inner thigh, he talked.
"Okay, okay! I don't know where they go after they reach here, but I do know that the containers are always picked up by some heavy-duty 18 wheelers. The same guy always picks them up too, Big. Not too tall, but you can tell the guy's been to the gym."
The sharp object against his thigh moved suddenly, and he screamed. Blood started spurting everywhere, and Jay moved his hands to cover the wound. He railed at his would-be assassin, but when he looked for the man, whoever it was, they were long gone. All he had left to do was survive this wound. If he could just get to the truck below his watchtower and if he could just make it down the stairs, he might live. He tried to stand and fell to the floor, blood pooling around him. His hands clawed at the floor, trying to inch closer to the doorway, The pain was like fire until it wasn't and all he could feel was very, very weak. Jackson "Jay" Bruns bled out there, just three feet from the doorway.
Owlman walked down the stairs, talking into his link to Alfred. "The supervisor didn't know much beyond that the trucks the containers are picked up in are always overseen by the same subject, male, athletic. Height unknown, weight unknown. I have my suspicions it might be this Black Spider and if it is, we may need the car. Get on Fox, have him accelerate the development. Remind him who signs his paychecks if you have to."
"Of course, sir," Alfred replied easily; as if Thomas had asked him to pick up his dry cleaning. "And will we be making any more overtures to the GCPD tonight?" The GCPD had long been Thomas' labor for the last year, probing it for the best way to bend it to his will. "I see you have Harvey Bullock and James Gordon flagged here."
"Yes, Bullock is a cheap thug with a badge who'll say and sell anything if it makes him a quick buck, and Gordon...Gordon wants the Mayoral seat someday, I can tell. Owning him would mean owning City Hall." Owlman spoke levelly, almost monotonously as he left the docks, his voice never changing tone or pitch even as he began to traverse the back alleys and rooftops of the city that at best could be considered labyrinthine. "We back him, we help him win, and we own him forever. He makes no moves without consulting me."
"That's assuming we can even sway him to our banner, considering the evening's bold claims by this 'Black Spider' and Ms. Bertinelli" Alfred countered, leaning back in the cave's chair. "As it stands, the Bertinellis and their hired man have had thirty minutes and counting to do who knows how much damage to their rivals, let alone our tenuous operations."
Owlman leaped off of his current rooftop, cape spreading wide to catch the updraft and slow his descent. "Just keep looking into it, Alfred. Owlman out."