I had never truly believed Jason when he told me about the girl he left. I categorically rejected it. Obviously he was just trying to get me to fall for his prank. Obviously Jason would never request me to break Batman's carefully laid rules for a reason.
God, I was such a douchebag.
I never believed him until we finally managed to hack into the live feed surveillance of a lab belonging to the Psion Corporation in Peru. We flipped through feed after feed of scientists staring at computer screens, typing up papers, and drawing graphs. You know, science stuff. Finally, we got a live feed of a girl sitting with her legs crossed on a bad.
"Is that her?" I asked, unable to make out any colors through the grainy feed. Jason leaned closer to the screen, his leather jacket brushing my shoulder.
"I'm not sure…" He trailed off. I shrugged and flipped to the next feed. Another girl, this one laying down. Tears streak down her face. "That's her!" Jason's fingers jabbed at the screen. He turned to me, desperation in his face. I knew what he was going to ask before he did. "Dick, we have to save her."
We both turned back to the screen, contemplative. I thumbed the intercom's button and waited for Alfred to answer.
"Master Dick?" came the soothing British accent of the Wayne Manor's Butler and only servant, Alfred.
"Yeah, Alfred, I was just wondering how long Bruce was going to be out of town." I replied, smoothly.
"Three weeks, I believe he said, sir. Would you like me to contact him?" I rapidly shook my head, a guilty look on my face, before I realized that Alfred couldn't actually see my face.
"That won't be necessary. Jason and I will be taking the Batplane for a spin, we should return sometime tomorrow." I could feel Alfred's disapproval, but he didn't say anything, so I started setting up the plane before he could forbid me. Jason raised his eyebrows at me, but didn't complain, and before the end of the hour, we were setting out.
The trip to Peru felt short, though it was actually about seven hours or so. Jason put on the auto-pilot and we plotted our entrance. As far as we could tell, the scientists retired to separate wing at night, and it looked like only two or three guards were left to patrol the compound.
The compound itself was high in the Andes Mountains, almost completely cut off from civilization. Despite the building's altitude, it was a squat, ugly, gray building. Fortunately for us, the compound had its own airstrip.
It was almost midnight when we landed, our descent completely silent compared to the sound of the winds hitting the mountains. The lone outdoor guard was disabled softly and silently, a blow to the back of the head.
I retrieved my lockpicking kit, expecting to need it on the main entrance, but Jason tried the handle before I got over to it. The door swung open.
"I guess they weren't expecting visitors," I joke, trying to break the tense silence. Jason just shook his head, clearly nervous. I looked at his face before I realized: this was his first mission. He'd never been out with Batman before. I groaned internally. Batman was going to kill me.
Without too much more effort, we found our way to where their experiments were held. We passed hallways of empty rooms and rooms that smelled like death before we finally found the right room. I picked the lock and Jason strode in.
"Cori?" He asks, only to be greeted by a shout in a foreign language and the sound of someone falling. I walk in behind Jason to see the girl Jason had described: a skinny girl with orange hair and bright green eyes. She was huddled on the floor, as if she expected Jason to attack her, and she was sobbing, one word over and over: "Beklager… beklager… beklager." She hadn't seen me behind Jason.
I pulled Jason out of the room. He was shell shocked, unsure what had just happened, why Cori had reacted like she had. I pushed him down the hallway, towards the room where the other girl we'd seen had been held.
"Let me handle this for now, okay?" he nodded, his face carefully blank. "Go get the other girl." He turned to go, his face beginning to harden into stone. I allowed myself a deep breath, and then returned to the room.
With Jason gone, she had returned to her bed, but she didn't know what to do with me. She stared at me, mutely. I approach her, slowly, the way I would a wild cat—hands up, empty, and from an angle—but she remained impassive as I approached.
With no effort, I pull her out of the bed to standing, and lead her out of the door and away from the direction that Jason headed. I just needed to get her on the plane and plan from there.