Hi everyone, new chapter's up :) Thanks to all the lovely people for the wonderful reviews so far (From Rue With Love, Idunn, Fett012000, Shawnee14, Lea-cat12).
I hope the story remains as exciting in this chapter, although it's a bit different. It reveals a lot more about Ann and what you can expect from her in the future. I know the big action starts next chapter so this one seems mostly filler, but it's really necessary filler which I hope you will enjoy :)
Please review if you have any thoughts!
II.
John had taught her two essential things to do in captivity: first, if you've been unconscious for a while (and she had), check if you have undergone any serious injuries, like internal bleeding or broken bones. Second, you must search and locate all possible exits.
The first part she managed to cover in the first few minutes when she came to. She was very tired, hungry and thirsty, but other than that, her body was in perfectly good condition. She had been searched, obviously, since her clothes were disheveled and her pockets were inside-out, but they hadn't stripped her.
The second part was problematic, to say the least.
She was standing in a cubicle. There was no doubt about it; it was a small square of four beige walls. And there were other several cubicles to her left and right.
The door was missing, so she crouched down and got near the opening, to have a better look at her surroundings. She was in a large office-area crammed with cubicles. There were shredded papers and torn wires lying all over the floor, some abandoned hard drives and laptops, all broken down, smashed into smithereens and a dozen empty dustbins rolled up into a corner.
The area seemed familiar, but she couldn't place it yet.
She looked up and down the corridor between the cubicles, but she couldn't see or hear any of Bane's men lurking about. But there were other sounds: light snoring, heavy breathing and someone was moaning softly. She was reminded of a hospital at night.
She was not sure if it was night, though. The windows were sealed up and no light came through. There was only the artificial light coming from the ceiling.
There must be others like me, trapped in this room, she thought. They're waiting for someone to break them out.
Except, the odd thing was that, raising herself a little on her toes (there was no furniture inside her cubicle), she could see the double doors at the front of the room and they were open. There was no one guarding them.
So, by the looks of it, they were free to go.
Of course it's a trap, she thought. But what kind of trap? If I went along and pretended to fall for it, could I somehow fool them into letting me go?
Well, if she anticipated it, she was already one step ahead. But Ann sighed despondently, knowing that was not nearly enough.
She bent down and extracted the small folding-knife she kept in her boot. John had given it to her as a birthday present many years ago. She had sewn it into the fabric of her boot, in a hidden pouch that was very hard to find, so she was not surprised they hadn't noticed it when they had searched her. It was something she always carried around, not only for safety reasons, but because her brother had carved her initials on the handle.
She tried to form a plan in her head. You always needed a plan, something to go by. Her thoughts were muddled and she needed to straighten them out.
From what she could glean, the only exit from this room was through those double doors. Any other window or door was sealed.
The double doors weren't guarded, but there could be shooters right around the corner.
There were other people in the cubicles around her, people who might, under special circumstances, pose a threat to her, but she wasn't worried about that now; they were obviously not strong enough to pass through those doors, seeing as they were still here. Most likely, they were just harmless victims.
Even if they rounded up on her, she could go through the double doors and they wouldn't follow her. The open corridor was probably a lot more dangerous, but at least she had a way out.
Of course, if they were just harmless victims, maybe they could help each other.
But what if you knew them? What if - her heart suddenly stopped.
What if the children were here?
She felt cold beads of sweat forming on her forehead. She had to find them. She had to make sure the children hadn't been caught.
She pressed the knife to her palm and slowly crawled out of the cubicle on her hands and knees, trying to make as little noise as possible.
Sure enough, three cubicles further down, she found three people, two men and one woman, all in their thirties, sleeping. Two of them were huddled together in a corner, while the third sat near the doorway, his chin in his chest. He was probably supposed to keep watch.
Ann didn't want to wake them, not yet. Maybe these were the only hours of sleep they were getting. Maybe this was the first time in ages that they could sleep.
She carried on in silence.
She found five other people, most of them middle-aged, sitting round a dustbin, trying to set fire to some bits of paper. They were arguing in hushed whispers, but none of them actually cared what the other was saying.
They turned their heads softly in her direction when she passed by, but she pressed a finger to her lips.
"New one, eh?" one of the men asked. "Thinks she can go by unnoticed?"
Ann shook her head and whispered:
"Have you seen any children around here? Teenagers?"
They all looked at her strange. Perhaps they hadn't expected this to be her first question.
"No, Miss, it's only us here, old and young, but no children," another man replied.
"They don't bring children here," a woman spoke up. She was wearing a very scruffy-looking cardigan and her eye sockets were sunken and blue from exhaustion.
"Where is here?" Ann finally asked.
"The City Hall," they all answered together.
Now it made sense why she had thought it looked familiar. She and the orphans always visited it around Christmas to sing carols.
"So what did you do? It must've been pretty serious if they brought you here," another woman opined.
"What do you mean?"
"Part of the Resistance, maybe? You must be political, anyway," someone else chimed in.
They all looked like ghosts to her, ghosts who had died a long time ago and were not allowed to leave the scene of the crime.
"Are you?" Ann asked. "Are you part of the Resistance?"
"Aren't we all, one way or another?" the woman in the cardigan replied sharply.
"Don't worry, most of us here are just harmless college professors," the woman from before intervened appeasingly. "Apparently, we were filling our students' head with the old drivel of democracy."
"Instigating them against the new order of things," a man added cynically.
"No, Harry, we were keeping them in the dark, that's what they said, that we were preventing their "natural evolution"," she corrected him.
"Oh, thank you, Alice, I've mistaken one idiocy for another."
Ann stared at them in disbelief. They were locking up college professors? But then, it made sense, of course, as the intellectuals were always the most dangerous.
"Well, mind you, they did find out about the Alliance. What's yours called, dear? You must be part of one. Everyone is."
Ann cleared her throat. "Tell me about yours, first."
The woman called Alice looked back at Harry and smiled in sadness.
"Well, there's not much to tell. It's been quashed irrevocably. We're the only members left."
"My husband, Robert," the woman in the cardigan suddenly interrupted them in a broken voice, "he was the one who founded the Alliance. He was Vice Dean of Gotham University. He - they took him. I don't know where, but they took him, so there's no point in hiding it."
Alice patted the woman on the shoulder as if to soothe her, but she looked at them without flinching, as if she was proud of her tragedy.
"The Alliance for Gotham," Harry spoke, dissipating the silence. "History already."
"Mine was Brothers of the Knight," Ann blurted out, her stare still fixed on the woman in the cardigan with the sunken eyes.
There was a visible reaction among the group. They hadn't expected that.
"Supporters of...of Batman?" Alice asked, warily.
"Yes."
"But isn't he supposed to be dead?"
"It's never been confirmed. They never found a body, so we can't be sure. And even if he were, we would still believe in him. We follow his example," Ann told them, feeling a small surge of pride well up in her chest.
Harry snorted. "Sounds a bit like a religion, doesn't it? Is he your promised Messiah?"
"No, we don't want to crucify him for our sins, if that's what you mean. We don't want him to save us; we want him to help us do that ourselves."
"But can he do that? Even if he's not here anymore?"
"Of course," Ann nodded her head. "He gives us strength."
"Inspiring words from someone so young. I don't suppose you ever believed then that he killed Harvey Dent."
"I never did," she said firmly.
Harry smiled. "Admirable. You knew it before we did. Before that masked freak announced it to the world."
Ann knew he was talking about Bane. He had told everyone about Harvey Two-Face Dent.
"What else do you believe, hmm? Do you believe the Batman will kill the man with the mask?"
"His name is Bane," she said fearlessly. "And Batman won't kill him. We will defeat him, one way or another."
"We? You and what army? Your Brothers?"
"Not just us. Your Alliance too. This whole city."
"Ah, that's the stuff of fiction. The city has never been whole to begin with."
"Doesn't mean it can't act as one."
Harry shook his head. "Such blind faith, where will it lead you?"
"In the same place as you, apparently," Ann replied coolly.
Alice chuckled. "She's got you there."
"Are there others in this room? Others like us?" Ann asked.
"Not in here, but there are other rooms out there. They're all occupied with dissidents "like us", although I would say we're quite different."
Ann shook her head. "Different or not, they can't get out either, can they? It's a trap, isn't it? The open doors?"
They all shared a conspicuous look.
"Not exactly," the woman in the cardigan muttered, looking down.
Ann furrowed her eyebrows in confusion.
"What do you mean not exactly?"
"There's no one on that corridor," Harry explained. "I mean - you'll find men further down, but they only guard the main entrances. You can go and see for yourself. They don't touch you unless you want to go through any of the main doors."
"Are you telling me that we can walk freely as long as we're not trying to escape?"
"In a way, yes. But it's - it's worse than staying here. At least here we stick together and we know where we are, but if we go out there, well... who knows."
"The guards change places," Alice clarified, "so you don't know if you're going to come back the same way you went down."
"It's ingenious, if you think about it. They separate us and kill us slowly. We're like rats in a labyrinth," the woman in the cardigan added bitterly. "You have nowhere to go, nothing to do, you just wander around aimlessly, until you collapse somewhere alone, forgotten."
"They only bring food and water to larger groups," Alice clarified once more. "But they don't allow too many in one room. That's why there's only a handful of us here."
"Others have left, trying to find a way out. They haven't returned," Harry said grimly.
There was a pause during which Ann mulled over what she had heard.
"So, the only way to stay alive is to do nothing," she concluded angrily.
"By all means, try if you must! Try and find out!" the woman in the cardigan snapped, her eyes darkening. "Go ahead and fight your way out! We'll never see or hear from you again!"
"We won't be seen or heard from again anyway," Ann argued. "We're only prolonging the inevitable if we choose to remain here."
"You're not actually serious?!" Alice exclaimed. "You're not thinking of - "
"Why not? Why shouldn't we try? If we're a larger group, we can find our way back easier," Ann suggested.
"There's no we! If you're on a suicide mission, I'm afraid you're on your own. We can't help you."
"But don't you see how vulnerable we are here?" Ann asked, incredulous. "If what you say is true, then we're at the mercy of a group of armed strangers who can very easily stop sending food and water any time they want. They don't even have to shoot us. They just have to be cruel or careless enough to do it. And you're telling me you'd rather bet your chances on that than see what's out there?"
"We know what's out there," Harry retorted.
"No, you don't, obviously, since you probably never got too far, or only heard stories," Ann replied incensed.
Harry looked as if he had been slapped.
Ann quickly realized her mistake and regretted her careless words.
"I'm - I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to say such things. I'm sure you gave it your best, I didn't mean to take it out on you. It's just that -"
"No, it's fine," Harry sighed, turning away. "You're not completely wrong. We didn't get too far. We didn't have to. We were smart enough to turn back."
"You probably think you've got more chances than us," the woman in the cardigan said, sizing her up. "You're younger and stronger maybe. But you're naive and impetuous. You don't know what's right for you."
"Whatever's right can't be in this room. Not when there's a chance - " Ann argued, but someone interrupted her. Someone who came from behind her.
"There is one chance. But it's pretty damn insane."
She almost jumped out at him, knife ready in her hand, but she stopped when she recognized him. It was the man she had seen sleeping in the other cubicle. The one who was supposed to keep watch.
"Oh, it's you Charlie, I thought you were asleep," Harry said, greeting him placidly.
"Nah, only slept for about ten minutes."
"What do you mean it's insane?" Ann asked, turning to Charlie.
The man scratched his head and made a noise between a chuckle and a cough. "Because it can't be done."
"Charlie, this girl doesn't need to hear about that stuff. She's already got it in her head she should leave," Alice warned him.
"She's right, Charlie, leave it be," Harry agreed.
"No! Please, I want to know, no matter what it is."
Charlie sighed. "They have a point. You shouldn't bother with that. You can stay here with us."
"Look, if you don't tell me, I walk out that door anyway. At least give me something to go on, unless you want this on your conscience," Ann told him coldly.
He whistled in amazement, but it was a broken, hollow whistle.
"You're a tough one, aren't you?"
"No, I'm not. Not really. I just want to be able to say I tried, at least," she said, looking downcast. "I can't just stay here. I don't have that kind of willpower."
"Now she's being modest," Charlie mocked her. "Fine, I'll tell you, but you won't like it. There is an exit on the ground floor. Well, it's not really an exit, but it's a way out, theoretically."
"Theoretically?"
"It's the only place the windows aren't blocked."
Ann was about to interrupt him, but he held up a finger. "Not so fast. The only way to get to the windows is to climb up- "
"The marble plaques," Ann finished for him in a bleak voice, her face ashen. Her worst fears had been confirmed.
"Well, yes. How did you know?"
"I've been here many times. I've seen the museum and there's no other place with high windows."
It was true. The museum was situated near the main entrance and there was a wall in it that was adorned from floor to ceiling with plaques of former mayors and war heroes. They were thick enough to climb, but very slippery.
And she realized why Charlie and everyone else thought it was pointless. If you ever did get up there and you broke out through the windows, you'd find yourself trapped on the roof, because there was a considerable distance between City Hall and the building next to it.
"Okay. I understand now," she replied bitterly.
Charlie pressed a warm hand to her shoulder. "Don't torture yourself thinking about it. It's all a big mindfuck anyway."
The others flinched at the word, but said nothing. She looked up.
"I mean they obviously did it on purpose. I think they even want you to make it to the ground floor just so they can watch you struggle for nothing."
Ann closed her eyes in frustration. "Sounds like something they would do."
But then, if this was something they would do, then maybe...
"Not so high and mighty anymore, are you?" the woman in the cardigan asked, smiling.
"No, but I still want to try it."
Everyone gaped at her.
"You're insane," Charlie blurted out, shaking his head.
"What do you mean you want to try? Are you mad?!" Alice exclaimed. "Did you not hear Charlie? The only way out is their idea of a sick joke!"
Ann hesitated, wondering if she was indeed going mad.
But, no, it was logical.
"If what Charlie says is true and they really do want you to climb those plaques just so they can watch you make a fool of yourself, then it's possible to reach the ground floor without being stopped. That's still something."
"But what does it matter if you get there?! It's still in vain!" Harry wailed, shaking his head.
"Perhaps, but don't you see? They've left an opening. That is their mistake. If they can risk security just to enjoy some "sick joke", then they're not bent on keeping us here. Or at least it's not their main goal," Ann explained, hoping they'd understand.
They all gave her blank stares.
"Look, they haven't considered all the variables. Not if they're letting people get to where they want. They're acting too confident and that means they're going to slip."
"Well, why shouldn't they be confident? It's not like any of us are a threat to them. And anyway, how do you know all these things?" the woman in the cardigan inquired, eyeing her suspiciously.
"It's just logics," she said wanly, trying to avoid the subject. Now was not the time to think of John and how they used to train together.
"It may sound smart in theory, but it can't get you very far, kid," Charlie said, shrugging his shoulders. "You're unarmed and on your own, you won't get past them, no matter how much you think it over."
Ann frowned. "Don't call me kid. And don't talk down to me. I know it's very unlikely that I'll get out of here; that's not my goal now. My goal is to get to the ground floor."
"And I don't have to be on my own. You could join me," she added, staring at them expectantly.
Alice shook her head, as if dismissing an errant child.
"I don't know who you are, but I haven't met anyone so stubborn in my life. Can you at least postpone your great mission until we get some food and rest? You look like you need it too."
Ann was about to protest, but her stomach growled with hunger and her entire body felt sore.
"If you could spare a bit of food, I would be grateful," she spoke reluctantly, looking down."But I can't postpone it for long."
"You won't find any food or help where you're going," the woman in the cardigan interrupted again furiously. "You talk big but I'm sure you'll be sitting here with the rest of us for a long time."
"Oh, stop it, Helen!" Alice chided her. "She has the right to do whatever she wants, even if we don't agree with it."
Ann was grateful that someone seemed to be on her side and smiled at Alice weakly.
"I should go back and see if Sarah has some spare bread for you," Charlie said suddenly, turning back to his cubicle. "I'll let them know we've got another "tourist"."
"Tourist?" Ann asked confused.
"It's what we call the people who decide to leave," Alice clarified.
"Dorothy! Is there any cabbage left?" she called to a younger woman in the back who was busying herself with some wrappings.
Soon, they were all gathered round the dustbin (which Ann found out was their dinner table) to eat what was left of their food. Charlie brought with him the man and the woman who had been asleep. They both greeted Ann rather coldly, because they heard of her plans to leave.
Clearly, being a "tourist" here was considered selfish and idiotic.
"We should save up. It'll be two days till we get more food. We usually count it up like that. I suppose they feed us twice a week. Not every week though," Harry explained.
Ann was eating in silence, thankful for even those small morsels that were so crucial for her survival.
She was beginning to have second thoughts about leaving, naturally. Helen's constant rebuttals were getting to her. And it wasn't just Helen; these people were being kind to her, sharing their food, giving her advice, trying to persuade her not to go, and all she did was oppose them.
"You? Work with children? In an orphanage?" Charlie asked, astonished, when she told him what she did for a living. "I'd never peg you for someone patient."
"I know, it seems hard to believe. And I'm not that patient, I guess. But that's what I do. And I love my children. They love me too."
"Well, no wonder they do! Young people always respond to shakers like you," Harry commented, winking slightly.
"Oh, definitely. My students would follow you everywhere," Alice agreed, chuckling to herself.
"Maybe that's not such a good idea..." Ann trailed off miserably. "I lost my kids. I think they managed to escape, but I don't know what happened to them and it's killing me."
"I don't think you should worry too much, they don't have any use for children," the woman named Dorothy told her.
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"You have to worry about yourself now. And you have to stay here. You know that by now, don't you?" Alice asked, raising an eyebrow.
Ann sighed, placing her head in her hands.
"Look, I admire you all for keeping your hopes up and being so brave, sticking together, but I can't do that. Maybe I'll come back, maybe I won't make it, but it's too much for me. I - I guess Charlie's right. I'm just not very patient."
They didn't talk much about it afterwards, because the conversation went along the same lines and Ann was simply not giving in, even though she was tempted at times.
Charlie and Harry thought she might change her mind after she had some sleep, but Alice felt she'd leave very soon.
As for Helen, she only said one more thing to her during their provisional dinner:
"If you get up there, if you reach that window, jump. It's what I'd do."
Many hours later, she was lying awake next to Sarah, the woman from Charlie's group - Charlie had invited her into their cubicle - and she was counting the moments until she could get up unheard. She needed a drink of water or some form of liquid to quench her thirst.
After that, well, she knew she had to leave, but a part of her wanted to stay here with them. She knew she wouldn't bear it for long, but they reminded her of her children, somehow, and she almost wanted to stay for them.
She recalled what Bane had told her that night.
A living body, with a living mind, can be damaged much more than a lifeless corpse.
Ann chuckled. Bane didn't know her very well.
Maybe they'd get her body, but never her mind. And she would make sure that, either living or dead, her body couldn't be used against John.
Half an hour later Ann was standing in front of the double doors, knife between her fingers.
She had also broken down the insides of a Hard drive and taken out the actuator, which was pretty sharp and could be used to stab or hit someone effectively. It was stashed in the back pocket of her jeans. Then there was a pin she had found on the floor - probably from Sarah's hair - which could be quite useful too.
She would have liked to take more wire, but she couldn't hide it all on her, so instead she had cut it in portions and taken a small roll she could stuff in her jacket. It would come in handy in climbing or tying up someone. Even asphyxiation. She didn't want to resort to that, though.
As for the shredded bits of paper, she had put some in her boots. She would leave a small trail behind if she wanted to go back or remember which doors were being guarded.
She took in a deep breath.
"I'm ready."
So, I think everyone's noticed the parallel between the Pit and the City Hall museum. Hope it's not too heavy-handed. It seemed fitful to me.
Oh and for a cooler read, you should play L'Arena from the Kill Bill soundtrack right towards the end of the chapter :)
Hope you enjoyed it.