His reputation would be lost if anyone saw Slade now. Hip deep in mud and bat guano, mapping out the elaborate system of caves honeycombing subterranean Gotham. There stands a strong possibility that if he navigates correctly, this cave will connect to Batman's lair. GPS doesn't work under ground, and there's also a strong possibility he will get lost and die down here. The benefits seem worth the risk, and he packed 48 hours of emergency food and water.
When the ceiling gets lower, he moves to his hands and knees. When even that's too narrow, he crawls along his elbows, belly to the ground. It's a good thing he is not claustrophobic he decides. Darkness and earth are pressing in on him from every side. If his light died, he would be blind. His light won't die; its high end and virtually indestructible, the best tool for the job. If he stops and focuses, he can feel a breeze. This tunnel leads somewhere, of that he can be certain.
After an hour of crawling, his armor is scratched beyond repair, but his narrow shaft exits into a large natural chamber. Slade kills his light and switches on his night vision; there is a tiny amount of ambient light from deeper in the chamber. Light is promising.
The crevice he exits out of is so narrow he has to remove parts of his armor to pass through. It doesn't help that it also exits almost forty feet above the chamber floor. After some less then graceful acrobatics, he is in the chamber.
Moving slowly, careful for any security measures, he moves towards the light. When he sees the remains of a deconstructed Batmobile, he knows he found the target. Beyond the defunct vehicle was a garage of similar cars, in various states of readiness. Slade also encountered the first of several security sensors, which he avoids with delicate care.
He could spend days here going through the Bat's discarded play things, but he has a very specific goal. When he reaches Batman's main work area, he can't help but notice the similarities to his own headquarters.
The computer is already booted up. Slade slides a SD card into the correct terminal. Downloading a small amount of software to cover his tracks first, he then proceeds to copy all files with Tim's name on them. There are copious quantities of video files. Moving quickly, he pulls the card out, it's important to get hard copies sometimes, and opens a control terminal cover. Precisely and efficiently he solders a tiny device no bigger then a dime to one of the leads, with the software he uploaded, this should allow him back door access to Batman's system. Even if it functions correctly, and it might not, it won't last long. Batman is as paranoid as Slade is, and Slade had certainly removed a few similar devices from his network. Hence the SD card safely stowed in a special padded pouch.
He's tempted to stay and download more. Batman has more files then Slade could ever lift on micro cards alone, but with time, he could take the best.
He resists temptation; he needs to make his exit as soon as possible. Hoping the ghost patch will do its job, he makes his way back to the same crevice he crawled out of.
It's hours before he sees sky again. Almost eight hours crawling through crevices so tight they seemed almost impassable, and wading through mud and bat guano. His reward was this SDHC card. If he had known it would be so easy he would have done it years ago.
At some point Batman will realize the theft that occurred, he will find Slade's pathway in, he'll fix his security leak. This was probably a one shot only chance to get into the Bat's network, he's glad he saved it until he actually had something worth getting.
When he arrives home covered in filth, he wants nothing more then to see if his ghost patch connected him, but first a shower. When he finally feels clean again, he loads the program, there's no one there to see his smile when it connects. He browses the file names starting to prioritize his download when his screen goes blue. He didn't even have the program going 10 minutes before Batman shut it down.
With a sigh Slade packs up those things he can't live without, destroys those things he can't leave behind, and abandons the building. Batman will be after him now, he regrets nothing, it was worth the shot, no matter the cost, and at least he got the card.
When he's safely miles away, he opens his laptop and slides the card in. Browsing the video files, he opens a file named 'Joker Family Videos'. It's two hours before he's seen the last video. He watched all of them; he forced himself to watch all of them. He knows Batman has done the same. The boy was so valiant. He hadn't realized how similar Tim had been to Dick. Or how he imagines Dick was at that age. Dick was already halfway to a man by the time Slade had finally met him, this kid was only thirteen.
Yet the fact remains clear that while the Joker had certainly subdued him, the kid never broke. Given time, a few more days even, he might have, but the kid never broke. He never revealed the secrets the Joker was trying to get out of him; he never gave the Joker any satisfaction. He was just a child, and he withstood torture for two weeks. Slade could even see it in his face. He could see the hope draining out of the kid. In the first days his struggles were fierce, as he grew weaker the light in his visage dried up. There was one video in particular. It seemed the Joker had left the camera rolling by accident, recording nothing but the boy lying there, panting for breath, blood and vomit drying on his clothes. When he was alone in the room, Slade saw the despair the child felt. When they returned, so did his courage. He gave them nothing.
When Slade could no longer bear to keep watching the videos over, he opened another file. 'Spitzer Surveillance', it read. Slade was expecting to see that Batman had tapped into Spitzer's internal security system. He had not anticipated that Batman had thoroughly planted his own video surveillance to monitor Tim, twenty four seven. The folder contained all the video collected in the four weeks since Tim's transfer to Spitzer. It was low quality, ultra compressed video. Slade could see Tim as he was now. Seven weeks after his rescue, thinner still, than he had been before. The change in physique made him look wiry, not weak. His hair was getting shaggy; it had not been cut since sometime before the incident. The audio had been recorded separately and synched with the video. His voice had resumed some of its original tone, but there was still a throaty rasp when he spoke. Slade would not be surprised if that was caused by permanent damage. Slade sped the video up to four times speed and watched the first few days of Tim's habitation at Spitzer. The boy smiled and interacted, and spoke like he was fine, but he demonstrated an ultra heightened awareness of his surroundings that indicated a hidden paranoia, a useful paranoia. They drugged him to sleep at night, but he still slept fitfully. When he was alone he did Pilates and calisthenics. Barbara and Alfred visited him frequently, Dick less so, Bruce Wayne, almost never. Barbara was apparently tutoring him in schoolwork. The kid smiled at her, the façade of recovery was almost flawless. Slade watched him when others were not there, hands running over the fork or butter knife, eyes shifting. Slade saw the video of the kid testing the sturdiness of the steel window frames, the locking mechanisms. The kid was as trapped here as he was before, and he knows it.
Slade knew he could get out if he wanted to, but only if he was really willing to commit himself to it.
It's become a routine for Slade these past few days, to watch the videos absent mindedly as he went about his normal business. He knows the video is weeks old, but it's easy to forget. He sees the boy hording small items to make tools, he sees the boy retching up their pills when they leave the room. The kid won't be there long; Slade will be ready when he is ready to leave.
………………
Author's note: I totally wrote the words "back door access to Batman". Did you catch it?
Going out of town this weekend! Bringing the netbook with me, maybe I'll write more, probably won't, hate the keyboard on that thing.
Also, I promise Tim's going to have an active role in the next chapter; I just wanted a couple of chapters to set up that situation. I think I am compelled to over explain how things occur in my fictions. You probably thought "I don't actually need all this detail, lets just get to the character interaction" and you would be right, but I am compelled to write this anyway. I always have to think about how these characters would be in a real world setting, which I guess ruins a little of the magic, but that's why they're on my mind so often in the first place!
