Their best bet, Dick thought quickly as Tim froze beside him, was to act as if they had no idea that there was something sinister going on. They were simple backpackers, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their names had been down to be hiking in the region, after all, and if it came down to it he was relying on that simple fact to back up their story. They were looking for a better rescue point from the shaken land, and that was it; no harm intended. If they could stick to that story, maybe they would be left alive long enough to try and do something.
"Um...hi," he tried to smile, raising the hand that he wasn't holding himself up with. "Were you hiking out here, too, when that quake hit? It was pretty nasty..." The woman said nothing, but kept brandishing her shotgun, so he went on. "Anyway, uh, we've just been looking for a good place for rescue to pick us up. The falls seemed like the first place they'll search, so...uh...I'm sorry," he apologized, "that looks like it's great bear protection and all, but could you maybe point it somewhere else?"
She stared at him coldly for a long second. "You," she addressed Tim, "put down your backpack. Can you walk without that stick?" she directed at Dick as Tim complied.
"Nope. I'm afraid I'm pretty tied to it, at least until I can get a doctor to look at my leg." It was a lie – after a day of walking the wounded limb was relatively limber, and while he wouldn't be running any footraces he could probably have managed to limp along without support. Still, she didn't need to know that; if nothing else the crutch might serve as a weapon if she ever let her guard down enough for him to strike without getting one of them killed.
"Then bring it and walk ahead of me. Go towards the cave; you'll see how to get up there when we're closer." With that she gestured in the correct direction. "Hurry up, I don't have time to waste."
"Are you working on a rescue plan, too, then?" Dick kept up the chatter as he followed Tim towards the cliffs. "We've got an emergency locator beacon, but no one's responded...it's strange, I thought they were supposed to come right away when those went off. I guess the quake must have really rattled everything nearby, though." Something that felt horribly like the barrel of their captor's gun prodded him in the spine. "...I really wish you'd point that somewhere else. We're not here to hurt you or anything, honest."
"Is that so? Because you seem oddly unfazed by the fact that I could kill you at any time with a few carefully placed ounces of pressure."
He saw Tim's shoulders tense at that, and answered quickly lest the younger man turn and try to do something about the bald-faced threat that had just been uttered. "Oh, trust me, I'm fazed," he promised. "Most of what I'm saying is nervous chatter. But if it helps any, I'll admit right up front that I used to be a cop. Used to be!" he stressed as she hissed and poked him a little harder. "I'm not anymore, but...well, I've had guns pointed at me before, that's all. Although I have to ask why you've got us like this...?"
"None of your business. Now climb."
A series of roughly cut rock steps led up to the cave mouth. They would have been invisible to anyone who didn't know they were there when the water was flowing, but now that the falls were dry they stood out clearly. "Ah...climbing's not really my forte right now," he demurred, hanging back.
"You either climb them, and fast, or you die. I told you I don't have time to waste."
There wasn't much he could say to that, and he got the sense from her tone that she wasn't kidding about being willing to pull the trigger. If she shoots me like this, he calculated, there's a good chance that the slug will go through me and hit Timmy. We can't have that, then we'll both be out of service... "Oookay then," he agreed. "Here goes."
He hitched himself up the stairs, making the task look more difficult than it really was but not lingering too long lest she decide she was done waiting on him. Slumping against the rock wall at the top, he made a show of panting and holding his leg off the ground. "Oww..."
"You okay?" Tim asked quietly.
"I'll live." He shot him a weak smile and a tiny, hidden wink, hoping that it would relay the fact that he was exaggerating.
"For a little while, maybe," the woman commented flatly. "Get going. Just follow the main corridor until I tell you to stop. And you," she nudged Dick in the ribs this time, the sighting bead digging painfully into his flesh, "try not to talk so damn much. When I want to know about you, I'll ask."
"Absolutely. My apologies." Falling into line behind Tim again, he grimaced. At this rate they wouldn't be getting the jump on her before they got into the heart of the cave, however far away that was. Then again, he supposed that was a good thing, since they would need to have an idea of how the force field was generated before they could bring it down. The earthquakes were something else altogether, but if they could just get Batman and a few other JLAers on the ground that would be resolved soon enough.
Batman... A bolt of guilt shot through him as he recalled the sight of the sleek black jet hovering a thousand feet above the falls. I hope you didn't see us get taken prisoner by a crazy lady with a big gun, Bruce. Please, please don't have seen that...
As the brightness from outside faded away, caged work lamps appeared overhead. They didn't exactly flood the natural corridor with light, but any advantage that the duo might have gained from low visibility was cut down so rigorously as to be nonexistent. They trekked on without argument, their course meandering as if it were following the dry riverbed on the surface above them. Only when they had reached a large, domed room were they ordered to stop, which they did with the obedience expected of men with powerful firearms pointed at them.
Glancing around, Dick had to confess that he was impressed. Along one wall were ranged several cobbled-together pieces of equipment that he had to assume were the machines being used to maintain the force field and, if the threat Damian had perceived was truly as dire as it had sounded, to create earthquakes. One of them was filling the space with a gentle hum that reminded him powerfully of an electric motor; another was attached to the base of a broad, silver-colored pole that ran straight up and into the ceiling. It was clearly the beginning of the tower that ended just below the barrier, but knowing that didn't answer the frustrated question growing in the back of his mind. None of this looks familiar. How are we going to shut it off if we can't figure out how to work the controls?
It was a moot point at the moment, but there was little else he could worry about. Unless their guard had force cuffs – which, judging from the somewhat ramshackle look of her headquarters, she did not – they should be able to free themselves from any restraints she put them in more or less at will. Short of her having told everyone else to hide as if they were preparing for a surprise party, there wouldn't be any opposing armies to get past in order to do their work. In fact, it was almost beginning to look as if the trek back to the falls had been the difficult part of the mission. ...We might survive this, after all, Dick thought as giddiness began to rise in his chest. Us and the rest of the world.
"Charity!" the woman called towards a plywood wall that blocked part of the cave off from the rest. "Come out here, please. We have...visitors."
There was a brief silence, then a muffled, disbelieving squeak and the sound of hurrying footsteps. A face appeared around the edge of the plywood barricade, its narrowed eyes peeking out at them. "...Where did they come from?" the girl, who Dick estimated to be a couple of years younger than Tim, queried with an odd mix of suspicion and excitement in her voice.
"It doesn't matter; they're here now, and they need watched. I'll help you chain them, but you'll have to stand over them while I set up for New Madrid. We'll guard them in shifts; we don't want anyone getting any heroic ideas," she sneered.
Charity stepped into full view, and Dick saw Tim straighten his posture unconsciously. A subtle shift seemed to have occurred in the younger man's mien, and it was so absurd that it took him a moment to determine what exactly had happened. Oh, jesus, little brother, he bit back a laugh as the girl walked forward and he finally figured out what was going on. A perfectly nice airline stewardess and an equally pleasant park ranger both flirt with you, and you're not interested, but if a someone's mother takes you hostage you're suddenly into them? I should have known you were hiding a bad-girl fetish...
Before he could really begin to wonder if Tim was losing his mind, though, he caught the appraising look that Charity was sending right back at her new admirer. It was enough to make him hold his tongue and shift from big brother teasing gear into Nightwing scheming mode. The girl had to know what her mother was up to – she didn't look like an idiot, at least – and if she decided that she had the hots for his brother she might play right into their hands. Especially, he thought, if she knows that what her mother's doing could kill us all. Enough freshly-rescued men and women had come onto him over the years for him to know that the threat of imminent death was the sort of thing that made people hormonal; surely the effect would be amplified when the person in question was a teenager who'd been locked up in an isolated cave with no one but her mother for who knew how long.
Okay, Timmy; I'll wait to tease you about her until this is all over, he decided as Charity accepted the gun with the ease of a professional and then ordered them to walk ahead of her into a side cavern. But even if your little crush saves the day, I'm going to give you so much shit later for falling for the villain's daughter...
Author's Note: Dick may think that Charity and her mother will be easy to overcome, but that doesn't mean that you should. Our boys aren't out of the woods just yet, so stay tuned, and happy reading!