Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!
"Just Another Day" written by Brian Yorkey and Tom Kitt. Performed by the Alice Ripley on the Next to Normal album (Sh-K-Boom, 2009)
...It's up to you to hold your house together
A house you built with patience and with care
But you're grappling with that gray and rainy weather
And you're living on a latte and a prayer
—Brian Yorkey, Tom Kitt, "Just Another Day"
Chapter 40—On a Latte and a Prayer
Commissioner Maggie Sawyer was screening her calls this evening. Like Jim Gordon before her, she had no secretary. Individuals calling the non-emergency police number who selected the "To reach Police Commissioner Sawyer, press seven" option from the automated menu would be routed to a voice mail box. People who needed to reach her directly knew her private number. Those included high-ranking officers, municipal politicians, several friends and lovers who had used her as their emergency contact... and, of course, Bruce Wayne.
She'd been expecting him to call since she'd read the reports from the officers who had rescued Salvatore Fiorini from the zombie last night. Well, of course, it hadn't been an actual zombie. The creature had been barely breathing after taking one bullet to the liver and another to the collarbone. EMTs had been called to the scene and conveyed him to a hospital. After about an hour under anesthetic, his skin had reverted to normal tones from sickly gray and his unconscious form had lost a good measure of its bulk. When last she'd checked, he'd been confirmed in critical but stable condition.
That was more than she could confirm in the case of Lucius Fox.
Ever since Batgirl had asked her to involve Wayne, Sawyer had been waiting for his call. She'd half-hoped he wouldn't find out or would accept that he needed to stay out of this one, but deep down, she'd known that he'd call. And since Wayne's phone always came up as 'Private Number' on her caller ID, she was letting all such phone calls ring to voice mail for the time being.
The call finally came at twenty past ten. She reviewed the message at half-past. Irritation at knowing that she was going to have to call him back warred with relief that the wait was over. She seldom enjoyed telling people things that they didn't want to hear and this situation was no different in that respect.
With a sigh, she headed up to the roof and was glad to find it empty. At times like this, a few minutes outdoors in the crisp night air did wonders for her peace of mind. It was drizzling a bit and the damp mist felt cool on her cheeks. She closed her eyes and reveled in the sensation for a short time. Then, with a sigh, she headed back to her office to return Wayne's call.
He wasn't barking orders, Sawyer noted. He wasn't trying to intimidate her. And above all, he wasn't begging or pleading. Unfortunately, that didn't change the answer she had for him. "I'm sorry, Cadet," she said. "It's out of the question."
"Because you already have me jumping through your hoops," Wayne countered bitterly. "You no longer need my goodwill."
Sawyer tried not to rise to the bait, as much as his comment irked her. "Needing and valuing aren't the same thing," she said evenly. "My people are handling the matter. As are yours."
"I'll get the results faster," Bruce shot back.
"Are you prepared to show us how?" Hearing him growl on the other end of the line, she moderated her tone. "Mr. Wayne, when you contacted me less than three months ago, it was a different situation. You'd been keeping a lower profile. You had no affiliation with us, and the media was no longer interested in your activities. In other words, you were old news and your activities were not being scrutinized on a daily basis. Under those circumstances, I was willing to bend the rules. Moreover," her voice softened, "Joker was holding one of your people. I was at your last hearing, Mr. Wayne. It was obvious to anybody with functioning ears or eyes that you consider those young people to be family. I wasn't going to tell a father not to go off in search of his abducted son—not when that father had the equivalent of Special Forces training and then some. And even so, it was a one-time favor pending your acquisition of official sanction—a sanction you are currently in the process of earning. Now, I'm not going to argue about where to draw the line and how closely associated you need to be with an abducted party before I'll consider making another exception. I'm not considering it. I can't. You know as well as I do how the media will spin it if you're found at the scene."
"I don't care about—"
"Unfortunately," she interrupted, "that's a luxury I don't have. If everything goes according to plan, there's no harm done and we might even be able to avoid the press. But if anything goes wrong, from a fleeing suspect leaving property damage in his wake to one of the kidnap victims being injured or killed, there will be inquiries and there will be a public outcry. At that point, I'll need to field some very pointed questions about how things went wrong and whether you were involved. The outcome in that situation won't be something either of us will want to face. I went out on a limb for you once. I'm still out there. And this situation is an axe biting deeply into the branch I'm sitting on. For both our sakes, Mr. Wayne, do not join me on this branch. And above all, do not swing that axe."
There was a long pause. Then, "They have Lucius."
"I know. As I said, your people and mine are working to get him back." She hesitated. "There may be something I can do. It's highly irregular. Unprecedented, I shouldn't wonder. And it's still not what you want, but it's something."
"I'm listening."
"I'm pulling up the current Academy schedule. It says here..." she paused. When she resumed speaking, there was a smile in her voice. "...okay. I see here that you passed the Ethics module last week. That's good. As I recall, that was the one academic class that you didn't pass the first time. And... you have the firing range after lunch this week, just before PT and Parade Drills. That's good. I can work with that."
"Commissioner?"
She took a deep breath. "How open would you be to discussing search and rescue tactics with the task force I've put together to deal with the abduction? It would mean missing some of your Academy day—that's why I'm ensuring that the courses you'll miss are the courses you've already passed. I'll leave it up to you as to whether you want to allow your original marks to stand or whether you can make up the missed classwork on your own time and retake the examinations. Know that, should you choose the latter option, the second grade will stand, even if it should happen that you'd earned a higher mark the first time." She waited for Wayne's response. After about thirty seconds of silence, she spoke again.
"Squad Leader Wayne?"
"When?" Bruce asked.
She smiled, not in triumph, but in relief. "I'll call you back to confirm, but I was thinking tomorrow morning at eight?"
"I'll be there."
Cass tried to get comfortable, but the unfamiliar surroundings were making her jumpy. Most of the Teen Titans seemed so... young. They were relaxed, unwary, chattering among themselves with an ease that she seldom saw with the people she thought of as family. Dick was sometimes like this and he would probably be like this more often if the others were, she admitted to herself, but she wasn't used to being around people who were this free and easy with one another.
The silver-haired girl with the eyepatch—Ravager, Cass remembered—smiled at her and raised a hand in a friendly wave. She hesitated for a moment. Then she returned the gesture jerkily with an awkward smile. She wasn't here to socialize. She was here because Tim had invited her. He'd said something about working with the Teen Titans to cover more ground. Cass thought she understood the idiom, but she wasn't sure she agreed with it. She usually did better on her own. Teamwork was not one of her strengths.
Tim cleared his throat and the others immediately stopped talking among themselves. "Okay, People," he said. "Thanks to Oracle, here's what we know: the zombie attacks are Scarecrow's latest attempt to spook the city. He's also probably behind the bomb scare at PMWE some time back. And he may be holding two PMWE executives. We need to find out where."
"Well," Kid Devil said, "where have the zombie attacks been happening? Is there a pattern?"
Wonder Girl pointed to the city map on the overhead vid-screen. "They've been happening all over. It looks like Scarecrow's been..." she made a face, "...zombifying people in different parts of the city. We stopped the GSU attack a few nights ago. There've been similar outbreaks at the docks, and in Tricorner, Robinson Park, and Knights Dome."
"The baseball season just started yesterday," Static protested. "And the Knights' home opener is next week."
"Yeah, but there was a Normandy concert three nights ago," Harrier pointed out.
"Normandy?" Ravager sniffed. "She is so yesterday. You mean, people paid to hear her?"
"They did," Harrier nodded. "Luckily, whatever Scarecrow did went off prematurely and affected some of the techies, but they hadn't let the audience inside yet."
"So no zombie army, no panicked stampede," Wonder Girl cut in.
"Yeah, that's something else to note," Harrier said. "The zombies are probably a means to an end: he's not creating them for the heck of it, he's creating them to strike fear."
Behind her mask, Batgirl frowned. "Uh..." Immediately, she wished she hadn't tried to say something. It was one thing among people who knew her, but she knew what she sounded like and she knew what the others were going to think of her.
It was too late. Wonder Girl was smiling in her direction. "Batgirl?"
She took a deep breath. "Uh... cameras. Security cameras. Did they... uh... see something?"
Harrier hesitated. "Oracle's still going over it. The problem is, we don't quite know what we're looking for, yet. The places that have been hit are high-traffic areas and the cameras aren't everywhere. We're not even sure if he's been on the scene or if he's just... couriering his concoctions to the targeted buildings."
"Oh." She could drop it now. Someone else was sure to realize what she had, or she could tell Tim after the meeting. Something made her speak again. "If... courier," she licked her lips to moisten them, "um... I mean, if Scarecrow sent by courier... then wouldn't they be from... same place? From the same place?" she amended.
Ravager sniffed. "I don't think he'd be dumb enough to put a return address on them," she pointed out.
"Wait," Dodge said excitedly. "Even if he didn't, he's probably sending them all from the same location. Maybe we can find a courier depot that's been sending packages to all the places that got hit."
"I don't know," Miss Martian ventured. "They must handle a lot of packages."
"Yes, but if we cross-reference them," Harrier said slowly, "we might find that only one or two sent deliveries to each of the targeted locations on the day they were attacked."
"We still don't know for sure that he's using courier companies," Static pointed out.
"No, we don't. But Scarecrow is hitting places all over the city and he hasn't shown his face yet. Oracle hasn't caught him on camera, in or out of costume. I think Batgirl might be on to something."
"I'll see what I can find," Kid Devil nodded.
"Talk to Oracle," Harrier advised. "Just to make sure that you don't go over ground she's already covered."
"Got it." He grinned at Batgirl. "At least I know where to start looking now."
Behind her mask, Cass smiled back.
Earlier...
In Metropolis, Dick was in a good mood as he finished his training session for the day. In some ways, this was easier than setting up combat drills for his fellow Titans or teaching Bruce a thing or two about acrobatics. In that kind of training, there was always the possibility—however miniscule—of serious injury. A classroom tutorial was a good deal safer. It had its challenges, too, though. Most of the people in his current training class were at least five years his senior. More than a few outranked him in the hierarchy and Dick suspected that they were half-hoping to find out that he was some fresh-out-of-school, wet-behind-the-ears kid who thought he knew everything about corporate security because he'd read a blog-post about it once.
In some ways, Dick reflected, it wasn't all that different from the first time Bruce had taken him to a Justice League meeting when he was twelve. Except then, the condescension had been more good-natured and it hadn't taken much to convince them not to hold his relative youth against him. He half-suspected that Bruce might have been standing behind him and glowering at anybody who tried it.
Still, inside of ten minutes in the conference room, he'd sensed a more positive vibe. He hadn't quite won everyone over and probably wouldn't. The friendly rivalry between Gotham and Metropolis wasn't so friendly in everyone's eyes and there were some people who resented taking instruction from anyone under the age of thirty, no matter how knowledgeable they were. But the ones who had been on the fence, hoping for the best while expecting the worst... those people seemed to have come down on his side. He smiled. He'd been granted a gift for getting along with diverse types of people and he was grateful that it was standing him in good stead now.
He was still smiling when he exited the elevator and spied Clark leaning against one of the marble columns in the lobby. His smile faded quickly when he saw the serious look on his friend's face. "What's up?"
"Something serious," Clark replied. "Do you have somewhere you can go to change?"
Dick sighed. "Cell phones are really putting public phone booths on the endangered species list, aren't they?" He shrugged. "I'm not wearing my suit under my clothes anyhow. I'll change at the hotel."
"I'll fly you."
Dick blinked. "Where are you going to—" A gust of wind blew into his eyes and he shut them on reflex. When he opened them a second later, he saw Superman standing on the sidewalk outside. The Man of Steel winked at him and came inside. "—change...?" he finished his sentence.
Superman smiled. "At high speeds, nobody can see you make a quick dash to the roof."
"So, what's going on?" Nightwing asked, less than a half hour later, when he and Superman touched down on a Suicide Slum rooftop.
Superman made a face. "Lois decided to be helpful."
The younger man fought back a chuckle. He knew that he should feel sorry for Superman. A little. Maybe. But the expression on his face was simply priceless. "She was pretty helpful last night," he said, trying to stay serious. What's the problem?"
"She remembered another property," Superman sighed. "She didn't enter it into her tablet at the time, probably because she raced off to that location as soon as she heard about it when she was doing that investigative piece. Anyway, when she realized she'd left it off the list she gave you, she decided to check it out herself this morning. I guess she didn't want to admit she'd missed one, unless it was important."
Nightwing blinked. "Why not? It's not like anybody's perfect around here." He swallowed hard, realizing that sometimes people didn't like to hear that their spouses weren't perfect—even when they knew as much themselves. "Um... I mean, oversights happen."
Superman's lips twitched. "She's dedicated that way," he said. His good humor died. "She called me about an hour ago and told me what she found. I figured you'd want to take a look."
"Ah. Wait. If she found it this morning, why did she wait hours before contacting you?"
Superman sighed. "She wanted to get everything she needed for the story first..."
He smelled the blood, rank and metallic, long before he came upon the bodies. As they walked down the hallway, Dick noted muddy boot-prints on the carpet. The stairwell door at the end of the hall was ajar, blocked by a prone body. Lois was waiting for them outside the conference room. Her face was pale, her expression tight, but she was otherwise composed.
"Any reason why you didn't call the police?" Nightwing asked as they drew nearer.
Lois raised both eyebrows. "I didn't think you'd want them ruining the crime scene."
"I can see you've worked with Bruce before," Nightwing sighed. "Much as I appreciate the thought, they really should have been here sooner. For one thing, they've got a state-of-the-art crime lab. I've got a few gadgets I brought from Gotham that fit into an overnight bag." He gave her a crooked smile. "It's better to let local law enforcement run their tests and I'll hack their systems later."
"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," Superman said, suppressing a smile.
"I appreciate that, too," Nightwing replied, deadpan. He pulled a tiny camera out of a compartment in his boot-top, steeled himself for what he was about to see, and pulled the conference room door open. He managed not to retch when the full effect of the smell hit him.
Now...
"You're serious?" Static said, disbelief plain on his face. "Of all the possible places in Gotham to hang out, Scarecrow thinks Wayne Manor's backyard is the perfect location for a hideout?"
Harrier grinned. "I know it's a big backyard," he said, "but it doesn't extend all the way out to South Darby."
"Which is actually in the northern part of Bristol Township," Kid Devil interjected.
"Which is just south of Darby Township, though," Harrier said. "Anyway, during the No Man's Land, I found out that Batman built a satellite Batcave under Arkham Asylum, so it would be poetic justice if Scarecrow did hole up on the Manor grounds."
"Close enough to be free-verse poetry," Ravager shrugged. "Can we narrow it down further?"
"Well," Kid Devil said, "after spending the last couple of days going over security footage—oh and Harrier, if you talk to Oracle before I do, thank her for me; that program of hers did the job in half the time—"
"Yeah, yeah, spill it already," Dodge said, rolling his eyes.
Kid Devil sighed. "Okay. Each time there's a major zombie outbreak... transformation... whatever you want to call it, about six hours before the first 911 call, there's a car from Giddapango Courier parked outside. Or double-parked," he muttered under his breath, "they don't really care if they're blocking traffic."
"Giddapango?" Wonder Girl said skeptically. "Is that a real company?"
"Yeah. Strictly Greater Gotham area and they charge a lot more than the big ones, but they'll deliver your package within four hours, guaranteed." He smiled. "They also have one shipping center—just next to the G&NE Auxiliary Train Yards." He smiled tightly. "Two miles away, there's a FED-RUSH office. Like I said, that would be a lot cheaper. So, if we're right about how he's distributing the stuff, I'd say he's probably at the train yards."
Miss Martian frowned. "But with all the people who take trains," she said, "wouldn't Scarecrow have attacked the station first?"
Harrier shook his head. "That station hasn't been used in about thirty years. They just keep the rail yards for the old train and subway cars. Actually..." His voice trailed off for a moment. Then his eyes widened. "That's it." He snapped his fingers. "It's got to be. When the Quake hit, most of the station sank into the ground."
"I heard something like that happened to the Manor," Wonder Girl said.
"Not quite. With the Manor," Harrier explained, "the house pretty much fell into the Cave. The station was built on sandy soil, though. Sometimes, when a quake hits, that kind of ground can temporarily liquefy."
"How stable would it be now?" Dodge asked, swallowing hard.
"Well," Wonder Girl said, "the Quake was more than five years ago, and the station hasn't collapsed in on itself yet. Let's hope that luck holds." She smiled at Kid Devil. "Nice work, Eddie."
Miss Martian raised her hand. "Maybe I should do some reconnaissance first," she said. "Let's make sure we know where the captives are."
Harrier nodded. "Do it. If this lead pans out, we're moving in tonight."
The cage was too narrow to allow Lucius to sit or lie down, so he settled for slumping against the bars. He couldn't relax, though. Apart from a narrow strip of wood about two inches wide, the floor of the cage was covered in spikes. He could stand on his tiptoes and, if he needed to, he could rest the soles of his feet lightly on the spikes—uncomfortable, but still bearable—but that was all he could do safely. He pressed against the bars again and the cage creaked as it swayed slightly on its iron hook. Lucius guessed that he was hanging probably some five feet above the stone floor. In another corner, Paxton sat in a cage too low to allow him to stand and too narrow to allow him to lie down. There was a large aquarium beneath it. As Lucius watched, a small grating slid back in the wall over the tank and a shower of ice cubes poured over the cage and into the aquarium. Paxton flinched as the barrage hit him, but Lucius suspected that it was less from pain than from dread at what was coming next.
Sure enough, a moment later, Paxton's cage dropped abruptly into the aquarium and the executive cried out as he found himself submerged in ice water up to his chest. He sat in the tank, hugging himself, his teeth chattering, until the cage jerked upwards once more.
The door opened and Scarecrow poked his head into the cell. "How are my two songbirds doing?" he chortled. "Mr. Paxton? Staying cozy? And I see we're certainly keeping you on your toes, Mr. Fox."
Lucius gripped a bar in each hand and shook it. "What do you want, Scarecrow?"
Scarecrow reached down, picked up a long metal pole, and smashed it against Lucius's cage. It rocked back and forth and Lucius brought his heels down involuntarily. He gritted his teeth, but a gasp forced its way past them.
"Lester," Scarecrow said playfully, "the new bird has a question. Didn't you tell him what was in store? Show him the ropes, as it were? And the rack, the thumbscrews, the iron maiden...?"
Paxton, still hugging himself as he shivered, cringed. "Lucius, j-just t-tell him what he w-w-wants to know, for p-p-pity's sake!"
Scarecrow rubbed his gloved hands together happily. "Such wise advice. No wonder you held onto him for so many years." He took a step closer to Lucius. "Well?" he snapped. "What can you tell me about the new security measures at PMWE, hmmm?"
Behind square-rimmed glasses, Lucius Fox's eyes grew wide. "Only the most important detail," he smiled. "They were created by Batman."
Scarecrow drew himself up taller with an angry snarl. "What?"
"Batman," Lucius repeated, his smile growing wider. "Oh, I'll be happy to tell you what they do, but as to how they work? I'm not certain our chief of building security understands them fully."
"If you're lying to me..." Scarecrow said slowly.
Lucius shook his head. "I've had a look at the decorations here. I'm not sanguine about my chances of withstanding them. It all boils down to this: if you don't believe me, if you think there's a different answer, odds are, if you put me under enough pressure, I'll eventually say whatever you want me to, just to make the pain stop. But that won't make it the truth. I've just told you the truth. Can you deal with it?"
An inarticulate snarl issued from behind Scarecrow's burlap face mask. Then he straightened up, paced back and forth for a moment or two, and came to a stop, again standing by Fox's cage. "Do you know, Mr. Fox?" he began conversationally, "I do believe that if Batman saw what I was putting the two of you through... he just might decide to share the security specs with me." He rubbed his hands together. "Yes, I think we'll start on that in the morning. Meanwhile..." he lifted a remote control device, pointed it at Lucius's cage and pressed a button. The spikes in the cage floor receded and Lucius sank to his heels and leaned against the rear bars with an audible sigh of relief. Seeming not to notice, Scarecrow danced over to the wall and hit a switch, plunging the room into darkness, "I think you two gentlemen could use a night to refresh yourselves and dream of what the morrow brings. I'll just leave you with a little bedtime story. Voice only, this time. I'll leave the visuals to your imaginations..."
The door shut behind him. A moment later, a pleasant voice began to intone, "Bastinadoes involve blows with a stick, generally on the soles of the feet..."
In the dark, Paxton whimpered. Fox winced.
Miss Martian waited until Scarecrow had moved off down the hall before she contacted the Teen Titans' base. "They're both here and both alive and sane... for now," she whispered into her comm-link. Normally, telepathy would be more secure, but the emotions coming from the cell were strong enough that she was using the bulk of her mental power just to keep her mind shielded. "I think we should move fast if we want to keep it that way."
Harrier went over the train station schematics and sighed. Thanks to Miss Martian, they knew where the Scarecrow was holding his captives, but getting them out wasn't going to be easy.
When it had first been erected, the South Darby train terminus had been a model of neo-Gothic architecture. It had stood three stories tall, its façade stark against the skyline, overshadowing the industrial complexes, warehouses, and rail yards. The station had been solidly constructed with deep foundations and strong building materials. Had it been built on bedrock, it might well have come through the quake with minimal damage. Unfortunately, as he'd told Wonder Girl, the station had been built on sandy soil that had liquefied. Even so, instead of crumbling, the station had sunk nearly two stories into the earth, coming to rest, more-or-less intact, in the abandoned nickel mine that had been closed down nearly a century earlier.
Surveyors called in later to assess the damage had been amazed to find out how little had been sustained. Of course, with the G&NE Auxiliary no longer in operation, and faced with the prohibitive cost of attempting to either raise the structure or unearth it, the Bristol Township municipal council had voted to seal off the building and allocate funds to those houses and businesses that were still being used.
And now, Scarecrow was using it as a base of operations. The problem was that the structure was huge and the captives were nowhere near the surface opening. If the Teen Titans went in, it was very possible that their presence would be detected, and there was no telling what Scarecrow might do his hostages. Or what shape the Teen Titans might find them in. Miss Martian had given him a detailed description of the room in which Scarecrow was holding them.
Harrier frowned. He hated the idea of bringing Bruce in on this. It wasn't as though the Teen Titans couldn't handle themselves in situations like this. They'd done fine in worse. But Lucius Fox was one of Bruce's few friends in civilian life. And while Tim was no slouch in the strategy and tactics department, that was only because Bruce had taught him nearly everything he knew, and he knew less than half of what Bruce did.
He'd been at this for years. He was well past second-guessing himself and he knew he didn't need Bruce to sign off on his every action. On the other hand, Scarecrow had Lucius. And, while Bruce would never say that any one life was somehow more important than another, he knew that Bruce would want to be involved in this one—or, at least, kept in the loop. Just like Tim would, if it were one of his friends who was missing.
He nodded once to himself. Then he reached for the phone. "I hope I didn't wake you," he said, when Bruce picked up. "I'm presuming you know that Lucius Fox is missing..."
"I appreciate the heads-up," Bruce said, after hearing Tim out. "Commissioner Sawyer has asked me to speak to her people tomorrow morning."
"That's why you're still up," Tim said sagely.
"More or less," Bruce admitted. "I've been poring over my files, looking for possible leads. Thanks to you and your team, I have one."
"I wasn't sure if you'd want us to move in. Megan thinks Lucius and Lester are okay for now, but we don't know how long that's going to be the case."
Bruce nodded to himself. "Understood," he said aloud. "All right. Is Miss Martian still in position or has she returned to base?"
"Still there."
"Good. And the rest of your people?"
"Should be coming in from patrol about now. I came back early because I was expecting Megan to check in. I just figured I should talk to you before I had everyone head out to South Darby."
Bruce considered. Sawyer should be informed. At the very least, she wouldn't have her people wasting time looking for the missing executives. She'd probably want to send a team in, but the Teen Titans were better equipped to deal with the likes of Scarecrow. On the other hand, should anything go wrong, especially if it could have been foreseen... "Send me a detailed plan. Scarecrow has hostages. Getting them out, particularly if Miss Martian's data is correct, is your priority. Meanwhile, I'll let Sawyer know what you've discovered and why I won't be assisting her people tomorrow."
"Huh?"
Bruce sighed. "Nothing. I'll await your report."
Maggie Sawyer was silent for a moment after Bruce relayed the information. "I'll dispatch someone to pick up the pieces then," she said finally. "You trust them in the field?"
"With Harrier leading them?" Bruce replied. "Yes."
"All right," she said. "When you get that report from him, forward it to me. I have some officers who'll benefit from a look."
Although her order didn't surprise Bruce in the slightest, his automatic reaction was to refuse. Then he reminded himself that his time at the Academy was leading up to a more cooperative relationship. He sighed inwardly. He didn't like having an oversight body to report to. It was one more change that he wasn't comfortable with. It helped that Sawyer wasn't speaking as though she was pulling rank on him. She was making a reasonable request, even if it wasn't one he would have entertained in the past.
"Very well, Commissioner," he said, keeping the resentment out of his voice.
"Good night, Squad Leader."
It was not a good night in the derelict train station. The recording droned on, repeating the various torture implements and their uses. When it reached the end, there came a five minute interval of whispers, giggles, screeches, and groans. Then it looped back to the beginning.
"Make it stop!" Paxton pleaded. "For Heaven's sake, make it stop!"
"Lester," the strength in Lucius's voice belied the desperation with which he clung to his cage bars, "he's probably watching us. Don't give him the satisfaction of seeing you squirm."
"He got that a long time ago!" Paxton snapped. "It doesn't matter whether he sees it or not. I've got a cramp in my legs, I couldn't choke down more than a mouthful of that swill he called dinner, he's got a fan blowing cold air in my face, and I don't care if I'm giving him what he wants to see, as long as he lets me out of here!" He gripped the bars of his cage in both hands and shook, causing the cage to rock gently from side to side. "Let me out! Let me out!"
"Lester..."
And then a new voice spoke in the darkness. "It's going to be okay," it said. "We should have you free soon."
"Who...?" Lucius whispered. It was a woman's voice, and young by the sound of it.
"You can call me Miss Martian," she replied. "The rest of the Teen Titans are on their way here, now. Just hold on a little longer."
Lucius breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness," he said, still whispering.
"What?" Lester barked. "You expect me to trust my life to a bunch of hotheaded teenagers?"
Miss Martian sighed. "If you'd like to take your chances with Scarecrow, I guess we could leave you here."
A loud grating sound echoed harshly in the room. It was followed quickly by an eerie cackle as the lights came on. "Well, you're not quite the hero I was hoping for, my dear," Scarecrow's voice erupted from speakers in each corner of the room, "but I suppose I can make do."
Several stones at the base of each wall of the room flipped up, revealing hose nozzles behind them. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Then a light golden liquid streamed forth from each one, spreading quickly over the floor. All three occupants of the room recognized the smell.
Miss Martian's eyes grew wide. "Gasoline!" she whispered in horror.
"What's this?" Scarecrow taunted. "Has the much-vaunted Miss Martian just met her..." the dungeon door panel slid back and a burlap-gloved hand held a small object teasingly through the gap behind, "...match?"