The Last Laugh
Chapter 5: Big Fish
By, Frank Hunter
The Batmobile roared through the streets of Gotham, weaving in between traffic and down side roads and back alleys at the speed of thought. Tim sat in the passenger's seat with his hands clenched at the panels beside him. Not that Bruce's driving made him nervous. He knew any car that wound up in an altercation with the Batmobile would come out on the bottom of the ordeal. Mostly, it was just the nervousness that crept into him before any encounter. Preparing for a fight. It wasn't something you ever really got used to. It was especially hard when you couldn't be sure what you were walking into.
"How would someone go about freezing the feed?" he asked the Batman as his mentor stared single-mindedly into the road ahead. His stare was so deep it would put the Man of Steel to shame. "They'd need to find the cameras first to do that, right?"
"Cameras that size, it would be like a needle in a haystack," Bruce answered. "Unless someone already knew where they were."
"Is there any way to intercept the video data if they knew where to look?" Tim asked. "Track it down that way?"
"Transmission waves off something that small would be near invisible on most detectors," Bruce said matter-of-factly. Knowing that such detectors existed and what their capabilities were was just a part of his job. "It's possible some military models could be honed to identify EM signatures that low, but that's not the kind of tech that should be available to corporate spies or terrorists."
"So what, then? Mercs?"
"Be prepared for anything," Bruce answered.
It only took a few minutes at those speeds for the car to pull up beside the building in question. It was commercial in the smallest kind of way. A humble, white sign was nailed above the door, the words "Life 2.0" written on it in cursive, black lettering.
The pair sat in the car for a long moment, scoping the building in question. It was dark inside, but Batman and all his disciples knew better than anyone that darkness did not in any way ensure stillness. Inside the car, they were surrounded by plate glass and armored steel. If anyone were waiting to ambush them, it would be worth goading it on while they had their protection. Once they were out of the car they were sitting ducks, a serious predicament if there was somebody watching and waiting.
The Batman raised a scope to his eyes and surveyed the front of the building. "The front door is unlocked," he said. Robin squinted in that direction, trying to make out the details from this distance. As far as he could tell, it looked as though the doorknob and locking mechanism had been blown clear off. He could see blast marks and carbon scoring around the center of the door.
"They'll be expecting us this way," he said. "We should go around back, no?"
"No," Batman answered. "There are only two entrances to this building. The back door goes straight into the company's warehouse. It's too exposed. The hallway in front is better cover. But we make for the door quickly. Understood?"
"Yeah," Robin answered. Apparently Bruce shared the same concerns he did about ambush.
Without another word, the top to the car slid open and Batman had lunged forward from the driver's seat. Tim was close on his heels, and they moved like two shadows in the night, between the ambient glow of two overhead streetlights. Upon reaching the door, Bruce drew back his foot and kicked it in with a solid strike. It flew back on its hinges, crashing and swinging open, banging against the wall in back. Normally, the Batman preferred a much more subtle and silent approach, but Tim knew that with evidence of military involvement here, Bruce would have no choice but to adjust his formula. The kick was intended to set off any trip wires or traps that may have been set just on the inside of the door. As the pair made for the inside, Tim flipped on the NVG lenses inside his domino mask, a special green vision that would highlight electronics and heat signatures. Perfect for detecting hidden claymore mines or explosive booby traps waiting to be set off. But there were none that he could see.
A quick check to the wall beside the door showed Tim a security alarm that, at first glance, still seemed completely functional. But it was still showing green. It hadn't detected the first break-in, or Batman and Robin's subsequent intrusion. Whoever had busted into this place must have tampered with the system on the software side, or disconnected the alarm company's systems from this box entirely. He hadn't even bothered worrying about the physical alarm itself.
With mounting concern at the ongoing display of technology and skill, the duo pressed further and further inside the building. They checked offices and rooms as they went. Most of the building was just cubicle space, long since evacuated by employees moving to their new offices at Wayne Enterprises. Bruce tensed only a bit as they approached the record storage room, where he knew Life 2.0's documents and files were still being held, still not shifted over into his company's custody. But the records room was as vacant as everything else. When the two finally pushed back into the warehouse, the final unexplored space in the building, hugging the walls for what cover they could afford, the anxiety was eating Tim up. This was too quiet. The perp had obviously wanted them to know he had been there. He'd made that clear enough with the door. But there was no sign of ransacking or violence anywhere. If he was gone, what had he taken? If he was still here, what was he waiting for?
The warehouse, unlike the records room, had been emptied. It was now just a graveyard of empty shelves and aisles. Batman and Robin split to cover the room as thoroughly as possible, but still the NVGs showed Tim nothing out of the ordinary, and he met up with Bruce again at the entrance, defeated and confused.
He shut off the goggles and was about to say something about a wild goose chase when suddenly the voice reverberated out from behind him. From back in the room. It was deep and hoarse and mature, and tinged with the bemusement of a confident soldier in a seat of superiority. It was a voice Robin recognized and it filled him with dread.
"Long time, Batman," it called out.
Bruce and Tim spun, both of their hands instinctively shooting to their belts. Bruce would have grabbed hold of a batarang, his trusty go-to. Tim instead reached behind his back to grab hold of his staff. It was, he thought, possibly his only chance to survive this.
Standing atop one of the shelves, in a place Tim could say with utmost surety had been empty mere seconds before, was the man he knew owned the voice. His outfit wasn't military. It was armor, and custom. Made up entirely of deep blues and bright oranges. A bandolier flowed across his chest and all manner of pointed and projectile weapons strapped to his back and his belt. A headband streamed out behind him and a full mask covered his face, two-toned straight down the middle. But only the left side, the orange side, had an eyehole. Only that side of his face had an eye.
Looking down on them with his own staff in hand was perhaps the most dangerous mercenary in the world. Slade Wilson. Deathstroke.
"Slade," Batman growled at him. Tim stood still as a statue. Said nothing.
"What are you doing here?" Bruce went on, injecting as much venom as possible into his own voice.
"Calling you out," Deathstroke responded, casually. If he was intimidated in the slightest, he didn't show it. He turned his gaze on Robin. "How's it hangin', junior? You're looking well." Tim just tightened his grip on his staff, behind his back.
"What do you want?" Bruce asked.
"You should be flattered, Batman," Deathstroke answered, turning his attention back to Bruce. "You've become quite the big fish in Gotham's proverbial 'small pond. There's still an impressive economy of drug runners and arms dealer that move regularly through this city. And all of them make a habit of taking you into account. You'd be amazed at how many calls I get. How many people that are out there looking for a little bat insurance." He took a step forward, balanced on the lip of the shelf with apparent ease. "It was refreshing when someone could actually foot the bill."
"Don't expect me to believe you're just here for a fight," Bruce said to him.
"No, I'm running errands," Deathstroke said. "But we'd have crossed paths before too long. Better to get this out of the way now. On my terms."
"Who's your client?" Bruce asked him. "Who's so interested in this little company that they'd bring you into town to get at it?"
"Oh, come now," Deathstroke spat. "You don't really expect…"
Bruce didn't wait for him to answer. It was just a bait question, designed to get the merc to lower his guard. While Deathstroke was busy gloating, the Batman's hand was flashing up, the shuriken batarang held within rocketing toward the other man's good eye.
Against any normal opponent, the ploy might have given Bruce the initiative he needed to inflict a mortal wound. But this wasn't a normal opponent. Deathstroke's reflexes weren't human. As the batarang closed in on him, Slade's wrist twisted in a motion faster than was traceable. His staff spun like an airplane propeller and he knocked the projectile harmlessly away. As he did, he released something else from his own hand that had been palmed from God only knew where.
The object flew not toward Bruce, but straight at Tim. He didn't have time to take note of what it was. He just pulled his own staff out from behind his back, extending it to full length and, in a clumsy attempt to reconstruct Deathstroke's own defense, used the staff to bat the item from the air as though it were a baseball.
As metal clanged on metal, Tim felt a brief pang of relief from within. But something still wasn't right. The staff was too heavy on his follow-through, not balanced properly. It felt as though it were being weighted down. He twisted it to examine the end he had used as a deflector and his eyes went wide. Whatever it was Deathstroke had thrown at him, it had somehow adhered to the end of Tim's staff. And a little red light on it was now rapidly blinking.
"Crap!" he swore, and did the only thing he could do without putting too much thought into it. He threw the staff away.
As Batman's body propelled forward, having grappled up to the shelf to engage the mercenary, Robin's staff exploded in an expansive fireball of incendiary powder and flame. The concussion of it shattered the weapon into nothing and blasted Tim backward against the wall. He felt the heat of it scorch his cheek and the front of his suit, and felt the air knocked out of his lungs as he bounced off the hard surface and collapsed to the ground in a heap, dazed. The world spun around him, his ears ringing like church bells.
Tim shook his head and struggled to come to his senses, to get back into this fight. Bruce was going to need him before the end, and he'd need to bring his "A" game if he was going to stand a chance of competing at this level.
If only his vision weren't so mercilessly fuzzy.