Disclaimer
I don't own anything. DC Comics, and anything that it publishes, is not in anyway owned by me. It is all owned by rich, talented people. I'm a nobody. Please don't sue me.
The Sky is Low
Cassandra slipped from shadow to shadow, carefully observing her target. She used every skill she had ever learned to make sure her stalking was absolutely perfect, without even the slightest hint to give away her presence. Even Batman wouldn't have known she was there.
Stephanie Brown was no Batman, which meant that all of Cass' efforts were extreme overkill. She didn't care. She had to follow her friend, and she couldn't risk being noticed.
Ever since their argument the week before, things had been extremely strained between the two girls. Cassandra hadn't meant her statement the way that Stephanie had taken it, but every time she tried to explain herself, she hadn't been able to find the right words, and things had only gotten worse. Cassandra could tell that the things Stephanie had said to her had only been because she felt hurt, but that didn't make them any less painful, and she had gotten angry as well.
They were no longer talking at all, and Cassandra really missed her friend. Stephanie could chat with people at her work, making at least casual friends there to fill her time. Cass had gained a reputation as being weird and nearly mute at her job, and she wouldn't know how to approach the older male workforce even if they didn't mostly avoid her.
Even worse, however, was the way that Stephanie had taken to going out alone at night as Spoiler, hunting for criminals without letting Cass work with her. Stephanie had always been reckless, and Cassandra was very worried about her. In the end, instead of confronting her and risking making the situation even worse, she elected to follow her friend everywhere on patrol, so that if Steph ended up in over her head she could swoop down and save her. She had even practiced pretending to have stumbled upon her by accident just in case Stephanie was suspicious of the rescue.
To her great relief, however, Cassandra hadn't needed to carry out any such plans. While Stephanie was still the least skilled person ever trained by Batman, she had made great progress while serving as Robin, and time training with Cass every day had done wonders for her combat abilities. While she still had a long way to go, she was more than a match for the muggers and other low class criminals that she was beating up each night.
Their training was still continuing as well. While literacy practice had become an extremely tense affair, as it was difficult to make much progress with reading when neither party wanted to speak, the angry tension in the air did wonders for driving Stephanie to fight harder during sparring. Cassandra had been impressed that her friend no longer lost control when she was angry, simply channeling it into her fighting skills.
Eventually Stephanie pushed the top of her glove down, exposing her watch. Cassandra could read the sudden loneliness, sadness, and general pain that seeing the time gave her friend, as she realized that it was the time that they had established to meet and listen to the bug that they had planted at the crime infested dive. Even if she hadn't wanted to make up with her friend for herself, seeing how much their estrangement was hurting Stephanie would have made Cass keep trying.
Once she was sure that Stephanie had her current thugs in hand and was about to head towards the bar, Cassandra slipped away and began to run, heading with full speed towards the meeting site. She arrived with enough time to carefully check the area for any observers or other dangers before standing and waiting for her friend to arrive, the very picture of casualness.
Less than a minute later Stephanie appeared, landing fairly lightly on the roof not far away from Cass. They stared at each other awkwardly for a minute while Cassandra watched her friend try to think of something to say that would fix things between them. As upsetting as the situation was, Cassandra took a certain amount of solace in the fact that she wasn't the only one who couldn't find the words to make things better.
Finally, Stephanie looked down to concentrate on pulling out her receiver. "So! Think we'll learn anything good tonight?"
"Maybe," Cass said sadly as she approached her friend. She really wished that life didn't always have to be so hard.
The two of them stood awkwardly together, looking at anything except each other as they listened to the criminals speaking below. The information was similar to what they had gained on previous evenings, although they both noticed that the criminals sounded more strained than before. Their efforts were obviously beginning to make a dent in the local organized crime.
Eventually the room grew quiet as someone entered. The two crime fighters looked at each other for the first time since they had started listening in, their troubles forgotten as someone that they hadn't heard before entered the room. Whoever it was obviously commanded a great deal of fear and respect from the criminals below.
"My boss is growing very displeased with the recent... setbacks," the man said.
"Please," one of the other criminals said. "We tried, but it's like they ain't even human. The one in gray took down three of my best men like they was nothin'."
"Mr. Mandragora does not accept excuses," the man answered coldly. "Deal with this situation, or he will find someone... more capable."
"Look, you still gettin' the goods in," another voice said. "Long as nothin' stops that, we can make up the losses."
"Yeah, things still aren't as bad as when that no-faced freak was around," a different man chimed in.
"That was before Mr. Mandragora took an interest in this town," the first man said. "He does not tolerate such interference for long. Deal with them, gentleman. Soon... for your sakes."
The rest of the conversation was unimportant, and the two girls looked at each other. "I've heard of Mandragora," Stephanie said excitedly.
Cassandra tilted her head questioningly.
"It was part of the stuff Batman made me memorize when he was training me as Robin," Stephanie explained. "Mandragora is one of the biggest crime families in the country. They have a bunch of people in New York, Gotham... other places too. Looks like Hub City's on the list."
"They all feared... his name," Cass said. "We bring him down..."
"And we break organized crime in Hub City!" Stephanie finished for her.
Cassandra walked over to the edge of the roof, watching the people coming and going. Stephanie bounced excitedly next to her. After a minute, Cass pointed at a man as he left the bar. "Him."
They studied him closely for a minute. He was a tall man in his early thirties wearing a nice black suit. They could see from the way that his clothing lay that he was wearing a shoulder holster. He went to a nondescript black car and climbed in, driving quickly away from the downtown area.
"Do we follow him?" Stephanie asked.
"No," Cassandra said. "Car... too fast. Don't know enough shortcuts yet."
"Still, we should be able to follow up that lead," Stephanie said brightly as she pounded her fist into an open palm.
"You good cop... I bad cop?" Cass offered.
"Sure," Stephanie said as they pulled out lines. They quickly moved across the roofs to an area that they had noticed usually had drug dealers. The two observed the people on the street for a minute before Cassandra led them to a rooftop overlooking a dark alley.
Cass gestured for Stephanie to wait, before setting her line and crouching like a gargoyle on the edge of the building overlooking the street. When the dealer that she was waiting for started to walk by, she suddenly dove, swinging out wide from the buildings so that she came streaking at him from over the street like a comet, trailing her gray cloak behind her. When she struck she grabbed him by his belt, swinging them both into the dark alley even as she withdrew the line. The two landed on the rooftop a moment later, the dealer in a pile at Stephanie's feet, while Cassandra crouched like a hawk on the raised edge of the roof.
The dealer had been so shocked that he hadn't been able to let out more than a brief yelp, and it took him a long moment to pull himself together enough to even roll over. When he saw Stephanie looming over him in her Spoiler costume he let out another choked scream of fear before scuttling backwards like a crab. He stopped when he bumped into Cassandra's leg, whimpering in terror when he saw her gray form crouched menacingly above him.
"Hello!" Stephanie said brightly. "We've got some questions. You've got some answers. I think you see how this works."
"I don't know nothin'," the man said angrily.
Cassandra's hand darted forward, grabbing him by the ankle and slinging him over the edge of the roof. For the first time he was able to let out a full-throated scream as he was left dangling for a second before Cassandra shifted her body to heave him back onto the flat roof. He lay there, trembling in fear, as Stephanie moved closer.
"See, that's what happens when you lie," Stephanie said. "Silent over there... she doesn't like liars. And she always knows."
"Please... don't hurt me..." the dealer whimpered.
"If you don't want her to hurt you, you need to tell us what we want to know."
"Just- just keep that thing away from me!"
"See!" Stephanie said cheerfully. "Now you're getting it. So! First question: What do you know about Mandragora?"
"Ah... no... not that," the man stammered. "Not that. Anything but that!"
"But that's what she wants to know," Stephanie said. "I don't want her to hurt you... but I can't stop her if you don't talk."
The man turned his head slightly, jumping in fear again as he realized that sometime when he had been looking at Stephanie, Cassandra had moved closer so that she was crouched a hairsbreadth away from him. He whimpered slightly, then began to talk. "Mandragora. Big crime family. Guy named Joseph Mandragora... he's in charge in these parts."
"How much does he run?"
"Everything!" the dealer said. "He came in right after that no-faced man left town a couple years back. He brings everything illegal into town somehow. Flooded the streets with discount goods until nobody could compete if they didn't buy from him. Now everybody follows his lead."
"Guns? Drugs?" Stephanie asked.
"Everything," the man said emphatically. "There's not a drug or weapon on the streets that he didn't put there. And if someone wants something moved in or out, he'll do it for a fee."
"How?" Stephanie asked. "Where does he bring the shipments?"
"Nobody knows," he said, his eyes suddenly widening in fear as he turned to look at Cassandra who now loomed over him menacingly. "I'm not lyin'! Nobody knows! It's why nobody else was able to muscle him out! However he does it, he can bring anything in or out without anyone bein' the wiser!"
"Still, he's gotta have enemies," Stephanie reasoned. "Even if they can't figure out how he does it, someone's gotta be trying to undermine him."
"They tried," the dealer said. "Last time a gang didn't want to pay him, tried to do their own thing? Mandragora's people tore 'em apart. They found 'em in pieces. Littlepieces."
"Where is Mandragora?"
"He's got a mansion right outside the city," the dealer said. "Fulla guards. Not even the feds would wanna raid that place."
Stephanie looked at Cassandra, who nodded. They both pulled out their lines and fired them, swinging away quickly. Behind them the dealer shouted, "Hey! Don't leave me up here!"
Stephanie laughed as they swung over the streets, and Cassandra soon joined in. For just a moment, it felt like everything was alright again. Like they hadn't been fighting at all.
The next morning the easy camaraderie that they had shared the previous day had slipped, although it wasn't quite as icy as it had been during the previous week. They had both remembered how good their friendship was, but they also didn't know how to actively return to that state. Stephanie handled the tension by being extra polite, while Cassandra was simply frustrated that she didn't know what to do.
It was nearly a week later when Cassandra showed up to work and noticed something slightly odd. A man that she hadn't seen before was present, and he was talking to the foreman. She wouldn't have thought anything of it except the foreman, to her eyes, seemed unusually uncomfortable. No one else seemed to notice.
A few minutes later the foreman walked over and called out several names, including Cassandra's. She noticed that the group included mostly the hardest workers, but also had an unusually high percentage of those for whom English was a second language. When the selected people had gathered he began to speak. "Alright, new warehouse load to do. Follow me."
Cassandra and the rest followed the foreman and the man who had been speaking to him in the beginning. As she walked, Cassandra observed the man, noticing that he walked like someone with a fair degree of combat training. He also seemed extremely confident, strolling along like he felt he was a wolf among sheep.
When they arrived at the warehouse, Cassandra didn't notice anything unusual. It was close to the harbor, and their job would be to load the warehouse with goods from a recently arrived ship. It was something that she had done nearly every day since she had first been hired, but for some reason something about the job was making her uneasy. As she began her work she made sure to appear nonchalant even as she took in everything around her.
The crates were heavy, but not unusually so, and didn't rattle. While she didn't take the time to carefully sound out the letters as she would need to do to read any of the labeling, she didn't see anything different from other loads that she had transported. Even the ship seemed normal, at least until she took her time to carefully observe the crew.
The people from the ship were nervous, more so than they should have been for a routine delivery. Even the agent of the port authority who had inspected the cargo was tense as he spoke with the man who had acquired the services of the foreman. The only people that didn't seem to feel that something unusual was occurring were the people doing the unloading.
While nothing jumped out at her that something was truly wrong even after protracted observation, Cassandra knew to listen to her instincts. It was something that Batman had been trying to show her when he began teaching her to be a detective, although he had barely begun her lessons before he fired her. She found herself desperately homesick for a moment, wishing that she could call up Oracle or go find Batman or Robin and let them know that she had found something.
As she considered that, she realized that she could still call upon Robin. While Stephanie may have also been fired by Batman, she was far better at the detective work than Cass was, and would probably be able to figure things out. As she considered that, she decided that it might be a good way to get them working together again, as their group efforts the week before seemed to have helped things.
That evening, when the two of them had suited up, Cassandra approached Stephanie. "Found something... not right."
"What is it?" Stephanie asked.
"Don't know," Cass said. "At work. Just didn't seem... right. Check it out?"
"Together?" Stephanie asked.
"Yes," Cassandra agreed. "Together."
They quickly headed to the port area, where the two of them spent several minutes carefully examining the warehouse from the outside. Cassandra hadn't seen anything more than the basic security that all of the warehouses had while loading that day, and after a time they concluded that nothing unusual was happening that night, either. No additional security, and no more guards that the standard night watchmen that patrolled the area.
"How 'bout we check the manifest before we go in," Stephanie said.
"Manifest?"
"Yeah, it'll list what the ship was supposed to be carrying," Stephanie explained. "If it's wrong, then we know something isn't right, even if we don't know what."
"Okay," Cassandra agreed before leading her friend to the port authority building. Its security was laughable, and in a matter of minutes, they had located the records office. While the building had computer records, they also had file cabinets containing paper copies. Stephanie quickly picked the locks on the cabinets and began to flip through the records.
"According to this, the ship should have been carrying a shipment of sugar from Brazil," Stephanie said. "It's signed off like it's supposed to be. If the shipment is illegal, then they've bribed a lot of people..."
"Mandragora," Cassandra said.
Stephanie nodded thoughtfully. "If they managed to pay off enough of the port authority office to get shipments of drugs and guns and stuff in without any hassle, it'd explain how they flooded the streets so easily."
After putting all of the documentation away, the two girls quickly headed to the warehouse. The security for it was just as easily bypassed, and the two girls took in the room. It was full of crates. "Wow. You loaded all this stuff yourself?"
"Whole crew," Cassandra said dismissively. "And forklifts."
Cassandra grabbed a crowbar, and the two girls selected an out of the way crate. She swiftly pried it open, revealing a number of bags packed with white powder. She pulled one out and Stephanie held up a tiny flashlight to the label.
"Well... it claims to be sugar," Stephanie said.
Cassandra used the sharp edge of a spoilerang to open a corner of the bag, pouring a small amount onto her palm. "Is sugar," she said finally.
They spent ten minutes breaking into a number of additional crates and found them to all contain exactly what they were supposed to. After resealing one last crate, Stephanie walked over to Cass, who had climbed up onto a catwalk, staring out across the warehouse. She hesitated for a second before putting her hand on her friend's shoulder.
"Hey, not even all of Batman's leads pan out," she said consolingly. "You should have seen some of my first tries at being a detective!"
"Feel stupid," Cassandra said quietly.
Stephanie reached over and pinched her friend, who glared at her for a moment. "Hey, I said I'd show anyone who said you were stupid! Even you!"
Cassandra was quiet for a moment, before speaking slowly, trying to make things come out right. "Know you able to protect self. Didn't mean you couldn't. I mean... you important. To me. Can't lose you. All I mean."
Cassandra could see the happiness her statement gave Stephanie. "I overreacted. It's just... not too long ago you were knocking me out to keep me out of fights..."
"Not my fault... you sucked," Cass said. "Not suck... so bad now."
"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" Stephanie asked, amused.
"Yes," Cassandra said nodding.
"Fine, fine," Stephanie said. "Let's get out of here. I bet I can show you how much better I've gotten!"
"Okay," Cassandra said. As she started to walk away, she paused, noticing something. She slowly turned around, taking in the room again.
"What is it?" Stephanie asked.
"Crates... missing," she said slowly.
"What?"
"There were more... before," Cassandra explained. "Crates are missing."
"Someone took them already," Stephanie said excitedly. "They moved the illegal stuff out the same day! No wonder we weren't finding it!"
