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Full Circle
Chapter 3

Shea O'Briley was not happy. How could she be, when her father—surrogate father, mind you—kept nagging at her to stop sitting before the computer and come for dinner?

"I'm doing my work, dad!" she yelled back at him through the door, knowing he could hear her.

"Dinner's getting cold!"

She was about the shout 'fuck dinner!' when she stopped herself in time: cursing will cause them to nag a lot more. She remembered the torture of enduring over an hour of lecturing by Mike and Sarah O'Briley, just because of saying 'fuck.' While she wanted to rebel, the constant nagging wasn't worth it.

"Shea!"

"What? If it's dinner, I'm coming alr—"

"Your call!"

"Oh." That came out softly, then she raised her voice again. "Coming!" She placed the 'Busy' status on her IM programs, and went out to the living room for the common vid-phone: the other one in her room had been used for another of her experiments. "Yeah, Shea here."

"Um, hi. This is John…Grayson?" The caller made his name into a question.

Shea tried to place a face to the name. Ah, yes. That ruggedly-cute guy that her good friend Michelle had a crush on. Pretty good kid. She gave a short laugh at her calling him a kid, when they were of the same age. "Yeah, I know you. S'up?"

"I heard tha—"

"Oh, and how did you get my number?"

"Alvia got it for me." He sounded uncomfortable with that fact. "Alvia Malone."

"Ah, yeah. Okay. So s'up?"

There were slight shuffling sounds, as if John was moving about. She heard some muffled argument between him and another before he spoke again. "Um, I heard you're pretty good with computers. We need some help with one."

Shea rolled her eyes. Figured they'd call for these stuff. "What type?"

"We're not sure. A really big one."

"We?"

"Alvia and I," John said. "And um, it's in Gotham. We kind of saw it today but couldn't get it to work."

Losing interest rapidly, Shea was about to decline, and was deciding whether to do it cordially or snappishly when she stopped. Gotham: where she originally lived, before her parents died. She hadn't been back for over four years.

"Where exactly in Gotham is it?" she asked quietly.

There was a short pause, then, "Wayne Manor."

Wayne Manor. A small smile grew on Shea's face: her parents had brought her to the Manor's gates once, and she had marveled at the building's beauty.

"You up for it?"

She jerked back to the conversation. Should she go? "Yeah. I'm up. When?"

"Tomorrow. We'll meet you at the school gates at two?"

"Classes," she answered. "Make it four."

John had another argument with whoever was with him (Shea guessed it was Alvia). Then he agreed. And once she had assented, he hung up quickly.

She didn't take offense at that. Instead, she felt a smile on her face as she went for dinner.

"Hey, Shea. Thanks for coming." Alvia handed her a can of soda before poking John. "We going?"

John made a jokingly-gallant bow towards his car. "Ladies first." Alvia aimed a kick as his leg and he shifted quickly before it landed, laughing. "Stop it, Alvy."

The ride to Gotham was filled with eating snacks and loud jokes that almost-literally rocked the car. Shea found that John wasn't as shy as she thought he was: in fact, he was quite loud in a strangely endearing way. Especially with Alvia.

It was over five when they reached Wayne Manor, and this time, John went to open the gates before driving all the way to the building itself. He unloaded three sets of flashlights, and three pairs of night-vision goggles.

"Where did you get those?" Alvia demanded in surprise.

"The goggles? They were going for a low price so I just got them. Everyone in the house has a pair."

"You're crazy! You never told me!"

"Only remembered them last night, Alvy. Stop bein—"

Shea hushed them, taken in by the broken splendor of the Manor: she had never been in Wayne Manor's grounds before. Besides, she never had reason to: she didn't know any of the Waynes, not that there were any descendents, she seemed to recall.

"Light's going, so we better hurry, again," John said. "Though we have these stuff I mean."

"I'll show you the cave, Shea. C'mon." Alvia took a flashlight from John and led the way in, being careful to point out the fallen and shattered grandfather clock, as well as the fact that the door swung outwards. She stopped at the entrance to the cave, at the start of the descending steps. "I'll go explore the whole area more. Light switch's just to the left, at the bottom. You can't miss the computer."

Shea took the flashlight and started to make her way down as John passed her with a, "Have fun!" and a brilliant smile. Then she understood why Michelle had a crush on him. She shook her head and chuckled, then made her way down carefully, making sure she turned the lights on.

The computer definitely couldn't be missed. So did the other objects in the cave. There was a huge penny held up by a stand: it was the most prominent thing other than the computer. The shadows held hints of other objects, she was sure.

Computer first, she told herself firmly, wondering just what this place was.

Max set the hands of the clock to 10:47, moving to the left just before the clock swung open. The gaping maw of the cave almost overwhelmed her, especially since she knew there wouldn't be anyone friendly waiting in its darkness now.

"Why 10.47? (1)" she had asked Terry once, many years ago, when he first showed her how to get into the cave.

He had given her a look that, for once, she couldn't understand. "'cause that's the time his parents were killed."

She sighed and forced herself to move down the stairs, ignoring the dull ache in her thighs as each jolt traveled through her old body. She had to do this, finish it, before she could get any closure.

The computer was still turned on: it was never turned off, it seemed. The screen—on standby mode—was divided into sections, each monitoring a different pre-programmed function.

No more, she told herself, reaching out to disconnect the functions, locking certain files up and deleting others.

She paused, undecided on the directory for her own diary, and for Terry's own. Should she delete those? pretend that nothing in them ever happened?

After long moments, she shook her head: no. Deleting them wouldn't bring Terry back. She needed the reminder of the effort he'd given to the city, even if she would never come close to these digital mementos.

She had never read Terry's diary: she'd promised him she wouldn't. So, she skipped that directory and went on to spring-clean the others.

That didn't take long, and Max was grateful for that.

She shut down the Batcomputer: the first time in almost a century or so. The black screen seemed strangely out-of-place in the cave, and she stared at her hazy reflection for a moment before stepping away to the glass cases that held honorary suits.

The red bat on black suit felt like a harsh reminder of the curses that had started these crusades, one blending into another until who knows how many have been dragged in, and Max gave one anguished scream, hearing remnants bats screech in fear.

Good. You've scared others for so long, it's your turn to be scared.

Too bad all your death won't bring Terry back.

Note:

(1) Information taken from Dennis O'Neil's novel: Knightfall (Knightquest, Knightsend).