To Play the Fool
Chapter Twelve
The caller ID showed only a blocked number, but Tex answered it anyway. "Hello?"
"I was going to check the docks tonight. Make sure you do a thorough sweep."
"Batman? How did you get my number?"
"The docks are a popular place for drug smugglers."
"What drugs? You shut down the Red Triangle a couple weeks ago and everyone else is too scared to smuggle anything else."
"Just go check."
"I'm slightly occupied at the moment." She tightened a harness on her waist.
"With what?"
"I'm about to jump off a thirty story building."
Batman paused. "Why?"
"Later. You must have just made it home, so do me a favor and go get some sleep." She promptly hung up before he could argue. She could tell he hated being trapped in bed and refused to let go of what control he had left. Still, tonight was her turn to keep an eye on Gotham City her way. She tested the line, and then took a running leap off the roof.
The line slowed her descent and stopped her at the 14th floor. The window had already been cut open, so Tex crawled through and unhooked the line, attaching it to a nearby desk to keep it there. The room was a darkened personal office with plenty of furniture and plants to keep the occupant sane in this cutthroat corporate environment. She looked through the propped open door to check for any security guards. There was one making his rounds, but he went around the corner and left the coast clear.
Tex took off on a silent run down the hall, made a sharp right, and stopped suddenly, pressed against the wall. On both sides of the hall were sterilized rooms with glass walls. Inside were lab equipment, computers, and specialized drawers for hazardous materials. Three of those drawers were open and their contents missing. A fourth was being opened by one man in black clothes and a white full face mask while two similarly dressed others stood by to raid the contents.
The door slid open when Tex approached it. The sound startled the men and they drew their guns on her. "Freeze! Hands on your head!" one of them shouted.
Tex casually walked through the room, inspecting the vials and lab equipment. "Careful, gentlemen. You wouldn't want to break anything. There are some nasty diseases in here." She picked up a test tube of a clear liquid. "Influenza. Quite a deadly strain, I believe. My helmet filters out airborne pathogens. I don't think your plastic ones from the costume shop do the same."
"I'm a good shot," one of them threatened.
"Oh, no doubt, but this isn't about talent. It's about skill, speed, and knowing – Catch!"
Tex tossed the vial like a hot potato at the men. They scrambled to catch it before it shattered, and she took the chance to run and jump-kick them before they could think. With a couple quick blows in succession, she dispatched all three just as the vial fell safely to the ground.
Tex kicked their guns away, handcuffed each of them to a bolted down desk, and pulled off each of their masks. Then, for good measure, she stepped on the vial. "No!" the screamed.
"Relax. It's just saline." She picked up each of the removed samples of virulent bacteria and carefully returned them to their proper containers. No need for an accidental disease outbreak. "Out of curiosity, how did you get in here? This system doesn't even look like you guys tried to break it." A noise in the hall cut her musings short, and she checked the clock. "Ugh. No time. Don't go anywhere." She pulled the door all the way shut so it automatically locked, and ran back down the hall.
A second later, a guard happened upon the would-be thieves. The vigilante responsible for their capture was already out the window and on the ground by the time they raised the alarm. The next minute, she was on her bike again and sailing around the city.
"Have you gone to the docks yet?"
"Gee, has it only been two hours since you last called?" She looked at her watchless wrist. "What do you know? It has."
"I take it you mean no. What have you been doing?"
"Stopped three muggings, returned five purses and wallets, beat up a rapist, and encouraged a few kids to go back to school."
"Those are little crimes. You need to be looking for the big ones."
"Do you know where big crimes start? Little crimes. I'm just dealing with the ones the police won't catch."
"There are better things you could be doing."
Tex clenched her jaw and struggled not to crush her phone. "Fine. I will take a look when I get a few minutes."
"What could you possibly be doing now that's so important?"
Tex looked at the rising number on the gas pump, then to her beloved Ducati, and decided to bite her tongue on the subject. "Important things."
"That better mean you're stopping an armed robbery," he growled. He sounded even nastier, like his head was acting up.
A beat up white pickup truck pulled into the gas station and parked away from the building, out of the way of the security cameras. Two wannabe gansters jumped out of the truck and approached the store. Their pants were so baggy, they easily concealed a handgun and a shotgun. Tex checked the time on her phone. 12:03 a.m. "Right on time. You're very good. Now go get some sleep." She returned the gas nozzle to the pump and moved her bike over to the door of the gas station before she went inside.
The men from the pickup each had a gun trained on the store clerk, a skinny 17-year-old at his high school job. The thug with the shotgun ordered him to, "Get everything out of the safe!" The one with the handgun was already emptying the register drawer. When he heard the bell ring as Tex entered, he pointed the gun at her.
"Hands on your head! Get down!"
"Easy boys. You still have a chance to walk away from this." She walked towards them slowly with her hands halfway raised.
"Get in the back and empty the safe," the shotgun thug ordered the clerk. "I'll take care of him."
The one with the handgun pushed the kid into the back room. The other shoved the barrel of his gun into her face – er, helmet. "Her, not him." She pulled the gun out of her face, punched him in the nose, then used his gun as a bat to hit him in the stomach. "And … you lost your chance."
Hearing the commotion, the second man came out of the back room with his gun pointed at her. "Drop it!" he ordered.
Tex disassembled the gun with one foot on the first man's back to keep him down. She set each piece on the counter. "Safety's on."
He came around to her side of the counter. "I'm not falling for that. Get on the ground!"
"No, really." She kicked his hand up, caught his gun, and fired at his stomach. There was only a small click. "See?"
She let the guy on the ground up and the two of them took off in their truck. The store cashier slowly came out from the back room. "Are … are you the police?"
"Nope." She broke down the second gun. "Are you alright?"
"I think so. No one got shot or anything. I don't know, I still haven't registered that they were trying to rob me."
"Okay. Do you feel like pressing charges?"
"Well, nothing was taken and no one was hurt. I don't see the point."
"Alright. Let the police know, though, so they can be on the lookout. I think they were in a white Toyota." She turned to leave.
"Wait. Who are you? Do you work with Batman?"
"I'm Tex, and what gave you that idea?"
She took her bike and rode it across the street into the business complex. It was a place for small, but steady businesses. This particular area all had electronics related businesses, from elevator switches to computer motherboards, to just the monitors. After 5pm, most of these buildings were empty with only their automated security keeping an eye on things.
Deep into the complex, Tex noticed one of the doors to a business specializing in cyber security was propped open, and a man in a black hoodie was leaving with a computer tower. She was far enough away that he hadn't noticed the sound of her motorcycle, so she parked it in the shadows near a building and snuck up to him.
The first man put his computer into a nearby SUV. He was followed by another man dressed similarly carrying an armful of hard drives. A woman was returning from the vehicle to go get more stuff. The first man saw something in Tex's general direction. "Do you see that?"
"See what?" said the woman.
"A couple red lights. They look like eyes. Were they there before?"
"It's nothing."
But Tex saw something more when he turned to her: a full-face white mask, much like the ones the thieves had in the bio-tech facility. She stepped into the light. "You guys again?"
The three of them panicked. "Take what you can and run!" the other man shouted, pulling out a knife. "I'll hold him off!"
Tex rolled her eyes, but approached the man, carefully analyzing the people running in and out of the building as well as the one daring to attack her. His voice was distinctly different from anyone in the last crew, and this one had a woman. Different crew, different target, same costume. He thrust his knife at her neck, she ducked and kneed him in the groin. Then she stepped over his body, which was curled in the fetal position, kicked away his knife, and got in position to take the other two on.
They must have decided that they had enough because they were already trying to speed away in their SUV. The driver aimed the vehicle at Tex and the man on the ground. She ran at it and caught it by its side-view mirror. It only took her a second to realize that she was not exactly in a position to stop them. Also, they were about to run over their friend.
Tex punched a hole into the driver's side window, punched it again to make a bigger opening, and grabbed the wheel enough to re-direct the SUV so it avoided hitting the man on the ground. Fortunately, this was long enough that he survived. Unfortunately, it was long enough for the driver to find a gun and fire at her face. She tumbled away and the SUV sped up and got away.
Only a little bruised, Tex got up and stumbled over to the man on the ground. He was still moaning and clenched in a ball. A quick search of his pockets produced a phone, which she used to call the police and report the robbery.
"What are you going to do to me?" he demanded when she kicked him over onto his back.
"First off…" She pulled off his mask. Definitely a different guy from the last crew. He was Hispanic, but spoke with a strong Southern accent. "I need to ask you a few questions."
"I don't know anything!"
"Let me put it this way: Batman's off for tonight, but he'll be back tomorrow. He doesn't mind hurting people as much as I do, and I will give him your name."
"I don't know my boss's name, but I can give you the rendezvous point."
"Except you're compromised, so he would have changed it. Have you met your boss? How did you arrange all this?"
"We didn't meet in person. He e-mailed all of us and we met here. The door was even unlocked when we got here. We were told to get as much high-tech computer stuff as we could."
"Huh. This is a company that's in business to protect against hackers and the like. They wouldn't have just forgotten to lock their door." Tex's phone rang an alarm which she quickly silenced. "Dang. You guys have gotten me off schedule." She grabbed his arm and dragged him over to the door which she pushed closed. She tested it once to make sure it was locked this time before zip-tying him to the handle. "You'll explain everything to the police, right?"
"Uh, yeah. Think they'll go easy on me?"
"Sure. Why not."
Tex parked across the street from a SunTrust Bank with a white mask in one hand and her phone in the other. It had almost been two hours since Batman had called and she half expected him to ring her any minute. That, and the mask she thought was cheap earlier was a bit more sophisticated than she thought. The face was made of plaster and took its expression from the comedy face. There was a microphone hidden by the mouth and a speaker by the ear. Additionally, there was a camera next to the eye, a small battery in the cheek, and an antenna in the string that held it on his face.
Her phone alarm buzzed, and a white van stopped in front of the bank. Five men got out, each dressed in white clothes and a white mask. They weren't even trying to be subtle. The five of them marched up to the door and … just walked in like it was daylight and normal business hours.
A second later, Tex raced across the street and into the bank after them. The door wasn't even shut when she slipped in and slid across the lobby. "Large withdrawal planned, I presume?"
"Yep," said one of the men.
"That's not going to happen."
"And who are you to stop us?"
"Haven't you heard?" She took a fighting/heroic stance. "I'm Tex."
"I don't care. You three, take care of her." He and a second man went into the back while the last three men blocked her way. He must have been the de facto leader.
The three men were built like Navy SEALS and wore masks with stony expressions, but that was most likely what they always looked like. The one in the middle took the first swing. Tex dodged the blow and brought the heel of her right hand up to shatter his jaw – or at least that's what she was aiming for. Instead, he grabbed her wrist and twisted her arm. It would have been enough to break it if she hadn't kicked him in the groin to make him let go.
All four of them paused and had one thought: This isn't going to be as easy as I thought it would be.
The three men in masks attacked at once, and Tex ducked and danced away. Then she tripped one with a nearby stanchion and wrapped the rope around his neck. The other two followed her lead and used the stanchions as clubs. Tex dragged her man backwards to avoid the swings from the other two, and finally released the rope and jumped away when he passed out from lack of oxygen. One man swung the stanchion down and Tex took the moment to give him a kick to the jaw while he was transitioning from one attack to the next. He absorbed the blow well and twisted her leg. She went with it, but the second man grabbed her arm and threw her across the room.
Tex rebounded off the massive table in the lobby and attacked them again, managing to grab hold of one man's neck in a rear naked choke. He threw her over his shoulder and his partner punched her face into the floor. That hurt his hand more than it hurt her head. Thinking that was enough to take care of her, they stepped back, but she leaped to her feet, ready to take more.
The three of them caught their breaths and waited for someone else to make the first move. Then the one on the ground regained a bit of consciousness, so Tex punched him in the abdomen to knock him out of the fight again. She was rushed again in a double tackle, but she leaped in the air, using their bodies as leverage, and knocked out their feet with a drop-kick. One fell to his face while the other just stumbled and returned his own kick to her face. Tex rolled over and snagged a potted plant which she cracked over the shoulders of the man trying to recover his footing. It dazed him enough that she could focus on the last man for a minute.
He grabbed another stanchion and brandished it like a mace. Tex got to her feet, ran to the tellers' windows, and jumped behind their desk before his metal club shattered the marble countertop where she used to be. Tellers always have their own security system not including the panic button, which she pressed. She had a split second to choose between mace, a metal bat, and a taser. Their mask and clothing made the mace and taser useless, so the bat it was.
She jumped back over the counter and hit his arm as hard as she could. There was small, satisfying crack, which may or may not have been the bat. Either way, he dropped his weapon. Tex grabbed his other wrist with both hands and just squeezed. This crack was a lot louder, and left him screaming in pain.
The other two men recovered – mostly. They were still unsteady on their feet, but coherent enough to form an attack that pushed Tex into the wall and off her feet. One was trying to strangle her while the other punched her in the stomach repeatedly. She kicked the second one in the head, the first in the kneecap, and when she was dropped, she head-butted him. When he was down, she punched him in the face and threw her other elbow into the second man's nose, completely breaking it.
Tex quickly tied each of their hands behind their back with some heavy-duty zip ties. By the time she was done, the other two were coming out of the vault with a few bags of valuables. The man in front scanned the destroyed lobby, his defeated men, and the victorious Tex approaching them. His partner pulled out a handgun and emptied his clip at her. Five of those shots actually hit her, but she just absorbed the blows or let them bounce off her head and just kept walking. When she reached him, she took his gun in her hand and crushed the barrel.
The other man took this in and made a smart judgment call. "I'll give you one of these if you let us go." He held out one of the heavy bags, knowing full well brute force wasn't going to get them anywhere.
Tex looked between the two men, silent for a moment. "Do you remember how I told you that you weren't leaving with anything?"
"We may have exchanged some words to that effect, yes."
"I still haven't changed my mind." Then she took each one of their heads in her hands and knocked them together. When they collapsed to the ground, she tied them to a table and left them behind.
The police came a minute later, but Tex and her Ducati were long gone. She checked her phone for any messages, but there were only three missed calls from a blocked number. After that, the caller must have given up and gone back to bed. Tex groaned, realizing that it would be another two hours before Batman would call again, and this time, they really needed to talk.
"Hello?"
"Did you make it to the docks?"
She rubbed her temple in a feeble attempt to get some sleep out of her eyes. "Yes, I'm at the docks now. No one's here, no one has been here, and no one's going to come here tonight."
"How long have you been there?"
"Almost two hours. It's 4 a.m. and I'm getting tired. Are you happy now?"
"If you were done, why didn't you go home?"
"I've kind of got a problem and I wanted to run it by you."
"I can give you two minutes." He sounded like he wanted to give her more time, as problems intrigued him, but due to the nature of his injury, he had to be back in bed soon.
"I stopped three robberies tonight. One was at a Bio-Tech Lab, the second was at a Cyber Security Facility, and the third was, surprise, a bank. Thing was, all the thieves were wearing the same mask. It's a full face mask that looks like a cheap one from a costume shop, but it's custom made from plaster with communication equipment embedded right in. I think they were all working for one person, which means we've got a new, big-ish player in Gotham City."
"How many did you catch?"
"Nine. Two got away from the second robbery. I also hung on to one of the masks."
"Alright, I'll alert Commissioner Gordon. How do you want to play this?"
"I don't know. I don't really handle big operations like this. I'm a 'little crimes' sort of vigilante." She took a deep breath, which was more like a yawn. "Do you have the resources to back-trace a signal? I'm afraid this mask is going to broadcast my location."
"Leave it somewhere I can find it on the docks. I'll pick it up later."
"Okay. I'll leave it under a shipment for Alison Church. I'll go see if I can find more evidence from the other scenes."
"Right. We'll talk tomorrow."
"Not at my home, though. Jenny's going to be pissed for the next couple of weeks. Oh, um, are you feeling any better?" The line went dead on Batman's end. "Hello?"