It's a teeth-grindingly long drive into the city. I hadn't grabbed a helmet, so the wind is streaming into my eyes at blinding speeds, and even though I'm crouching down, I feel like I'm going to be blown off. But no matter how fast I ride, I still feel like I'm going too slow.
I barely even know where I'm going. Batman is probably tracking her using the signal he put in the Batmobile. I can only hope that the first altercation I come across is the right one. As I dodge around cars and run reds, I'm also hoping that no one wonders why Bruce Wayne's fourteen-year-old adoptive son is speeding into the city in the dead of night.
When I reach the Gazette, it's dark and empty. The batmobile isn't here, so neither is Bruce. And apparently neither is Tana. Did she… go somewhere else? There's a solitary man sitting at the desk inside the building, in a small office filled with dim fluorescent light. I'm tempted to go and ask him if Robin recently came by to ask access. But then I can see by his body language—he's upright, likely waiting. There are two chairs next to him, empty but askew, that people have been sitting in recently. And I notice a single car in the lot—Commissioner Gordon's. I'm watching the stairs, hiding in a bush, and eventually I see the stairwell door open, Commissioner Gordon striding out with the two other officials, holding a newspaper, a folder, and a flashdrive. He would have needed a search warrant to get to the records, but if Robin ordered him there for info pickup, it was fair game. And since he's an officer of the law, he can get the story to safe hands. The employees are red in the face.
Holy crap, I think. She did it. Now she just has to survive it. But she should be able to, right? She just has to call the Batmobile back, and run from the building to the car, and hope that Maroni won't have the road—
The first gunshot sounds, and glass starts to rain from the sky.
Tana must have remained on the upper floors. Why? I don't know. To protect those on the bottom? Maybe. But though I can't see where the snipers are positioned, I can see bullet holes appearing up in the glass walls, and a flash of yellow, green, and red in one of the upper windows. Don't get involved. I activate my signal so that Bruce realizes he's been misled, and can come and help.
I start to hear muffled shouts and gunshots from inside the building. Cobblepot must have put Maroni's men inside, or near enough, to respond to an attack, should Robin make one. Gordon is looking up at the ceiling, radioing something in on his police radio, and getting out his gun. But he's also not willing to leave the records he collected. Tana probably didn't mention how grave Robin's situation is.
My heart is pounding in my throat, and nearly explodes when I hear a crash on the third floor and Tana comes flying out, tackling one of Maroni's thugs. I search out the broken window and see a cluster of what have to be nine more. She got out of the frying pan, sure enough, but now she's out in the wide-open wildfire plain. The thug she was attacking is rolling on the ground now, hunched in pain, not having made the graceful dive-roll landing that Robin did. I'm stunned by how much she looks like me. She's cut her hair to my floppy length, and is built enough like a boy to pull off the look easily. She's taken my identity, inheriting my authority, my power in Gotham. And all of the danger surrounding my life. But she understands what she's doing.
All I want is to be able to choose how and when I die.
Robin is on her feet, and I think that she sees me, crouching in the bushes, before the sniper takes the shot. He uses a silencer, though. There's no report. There's just the sight of Tana's head snapping back, blood spurting from her right eye, and her entire body stiffening as it falls to the ground, and doesn't move again.