Teen Titans Presents; Renegade – Prison Break – Break Out!
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Chapter Five: Dr. Sleep; The Bogeyman Cometh
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So…. warning here! Wyatt DID inject Dick with a drug formulated to work on Richard as a hallucinogen, but the kid is going to see things from a different panel over (fun way to say angle.) As from before, this will get trippy for one or two chapters as the slow acting drug only works at night, similar to the dust in "Haunted." See if you can keep up, and the Dr. Sleep part? Scarecrow, duh. Enjoy!
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He was up at daybreak with a set list to accomplish. Day five waned into the hours of night finally, small drops of sweat on his pillow, and the smell of urine intensified as he vomited into the unused toilet connected to his cell.
His first counseling session was with Harley in her old lab coat of a Ph. D. He gave her a look showing that he was…not that impressed, yet his face looked like it had been run over by the Bat mobile…thrice over.
"You aren't getting the normal insomnia all of the other guys here have! What if I told you that you can get some zzzs with a trick I learned in my years as a shrink?"
She had all kinds of ideas. Some were hit or miss, others were ok, but then lost steam a few days later.
Something was wrong with Dick every time he rose to greet the day, so Deadshot had to come to Harleen's room to put in his two cents.
"We need cameras in the kid's cell. I think he's been drugged. Or hypnotized."
"How could you tell?" Dick sighed and knew it too. His episodes to losing sleep and having dreams while waking up thinking it was daylight already? He had to have gotten a shot from a few…
Dick was about to say something more on the case, when the landline rang right on the desk of the former psychologist.
She went to grab is and started to put on all the charm.
"Y'ello? Dr. Quinzel's office! Oh, Waller! Yeah…you should –
"Uh…. uh – huh. Yep. Right away, chief."
She hung up and shook her head. "We're gonna get you checked out with the medics." She turned to Richard as he put his head in his hands. "Slade probably did something…" he muttered into his palms. "I'm not giving up."
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Day six, and the tests were still not back yet. He was slotted to meet with Babcock since it was nearly a full week. One more day to gloat in the boy wonder's petrified face. One more day to deliver the countdown to when his friends would eventually be wiped off the face of the earth.
Dick was escorted in with Boomerang by the door, the sound on as this shady fella took to his ruse very carefully. Babcock or Wilson, he was a good actor and a better interpreter of fact over fiction and theory.
His wordplay was flawlessly delivered, yet he was in character. The few had to catch him in the act before they'd come in with guns up and blazing high.
"Hello, Rick. How did you sleep last night?"
"You wanna know?" Dick sneered at the criminal, boldly willing to knock out a few teeth.
"I slept like I was already on death row. Something messed with my mind and I KNOW you had something to do with –
"Whatever are you talking about, Rick? I'm on your side." He nervously asked the boy. "Sleep deprivation can –
"I'm not tired! I'm pissed!" Dick slammed a fist into the table top.
"That kind of attitude won't help deliver your sentence, kid." The attorney con man shook his head at the teenager. "I can't help you if you won't –
"First…" Dick felt his body move on its own as he let his knee raise off of the floor, his face inches from the man's masked expression.
"TELL ME. What did you put in that drug you gave to those thugs?"
The lights went off as the power was at a surge in the room. When it came back, sans noise.
SANS SPEECH.
Floyd and George clambered for the knob, yet it was locked up – overridden.
The room was still flickering dark….
Light.
Then dark.
Then, no more Babcock as Dick stood with his palms clenched, spewing what looked to be curses into the open air.
The lights returned and the door was unlocked; the only trouble was that the file that the Attorney had left, gave everyone quite an eyeful.
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"I have taken the defense attorney in question and demand that every one of my demands be met in full…"
"Oh…this is, interesting?"
"It's a threat to kill!" Dr. Psycho shouted at Harley. "He's obviously trying to freak us all out – that was supposed to be... But Babcock…."
The two looked at each other, then at the guards as they continued to investigate another stage being rewritten.
"Was he really the same person the kid saw before?"
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Dick had been so out of sorts that he had to be held down, tied to a bed with straps and checked over for the injection site –
"Wait!" The doctor that had spoken to Rick's attorney called to her staff from the door.
"This was not authorized! –
"He's seeing red, sister!" The one nurse by Rick's right arm avoided the kicking teen as she gritted her jaw and hauled him into the medical bedding.
"HE'S gonna need an extra dose!? What happened??" The doctor on Rick's other side was afraid to ask, yet did anyway as the first was already in over her head. She grunted and had an arm out by the monitor, telling her colleagues to keep going.
"I'll put him out for a bit…but Waller's client is going to have a fit if he sees this…"
The syringe was filled as Rick's flailing stilled slowly while the drug took him on a ride…back into his nightmares. Back to where Slade could drag him down…
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The next day, Bruce was contacted and had a delay, yet the man posing as Rick's father showed up with his hat off. And he didn't look at all as the one before…
Waller watched from her side of the room as Wyatt, Harley and Bruce all stayed by. Their eyes darting between them, very suspicious of one another until, Harley of course couldn't handle that exact silence in her own little world.
"Mandy!!! Say something, already!!" She whined to Waller, who moved across to her desk as she stood over it to gaze upon a mix of emotions set before her.
"Well." The warden cleared her throat, Harleen pouting while a brooding Wayne anticipated, and an anxious jailer Wyatt was forced to keep his jaw iron clad.
"How." Bruce began instead.
"Just, how!?"
This "Mr. Wilson" spoke out, voice near hysterical.
Amanda rubbed her temples. "You are all here now, so that means you should already know."
Wayne turned to the man beside his right.
"Bruce." Waller lowered her gaze, the others taking note of this attitude she wore.
"Oh…. I totally get it, A! We got us a lil' conspiracy going on, eh?" Harley had guessed it as Waller turned to his Wilson character and began to speak to him in a strange fashion.
"Mr. Wilson; your boy Rick is being pursued by a criminal who'd made it his mission to thwart our every turn inside my penitentiary."
"That's why he has ta' go free soon, I told him! This hell ain't for kids or teens! Wilma an' I are worried sick!"
Bruce blinked as he saw a pattern unfold. "Who are you, Mr. Wilson. What is your profession."
"I work in construction outside a' Jump city. Have for years."
Waller egged them to watch and see.
"What relationship do you have with Rick, Mr. Wilson?"
"I'm his pa. We adopted the kid from a home in Gotham after seein' the poor boy in the worst time of his life. Lost his real parents, so we raised him from a pup…" The man took off his hat and THAT was what made Harley and poor Bruce see Waller's point.
"Brainwashing.…." Right as Bruce saw it, he asked the next question.
"What was the boy's age of adoption."
"Eight. He was just getting into his own with what his parents did in their business…flying…or somethin…" The man held his skull, looking lost.
"He ain't aware?" Harley looked to Waller.
"A? What's going on here?"
"We were given the same thing as Babcock."
"Ah, what –
"His thoughts…their minds, his voice…he's been controlling these people, not only appearing as them."
Bruce turned to Waller, seeing the face of confusion to his left while sighing.
"Dick Grayson's pursuer covered their tracks, and we missed some very important clues earlier on. Babcock was here this time, the one blindly made to believe he was Rick's attorney. Someone found the perfect sense, and also…"
Waller started to trail off.
"Rick was injected with an untraceable, unknown drug. We are still in the process of removing the substance -
"Let me help them, I can crack it faster." Bruce beseeched to Amanda.
"I'm sorry Mr. Wayne." Waller shook her head. "You can't put yourself too deep into –
"I'll contact the authorities. Have something –
"Sir." She knew this was the right time, just as Harley moved to keep her cool. To fool the one watching them dance the dance of hopelessness. "Have to ask ya to leave, Mr. W." As Harley's attitude changed, both caught each other's glances, her ow stare very genuine but not of a crook's.
"I'm very sorry…. if you need –
"My boy is gonna be a vegetable?? Awgh! I'm calling MY lawyer an' having your asses –
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Harley let out a sigh, Bruce nodding as they took their cue and Waller's mercy on purpose to go into the med wing.
To grasp themselves some evidence.
No masks, as a hacker hacked into the footage quietly from miles away.
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"They took it a step too far; don't you think so…D. A?"
A gagged and flailing man tied to a chair in the center of the man's temporary haunt, gurgled out a response. His face was beaten raw. His black eye easy enough to heal up while Slade worked his magic from afar.
With a convenient safe house pinpointed out in Louisiana to keep an eye on his two extra targets, though be it genius, no one had realized that his tampering with the facility's security and lighting couldn't be traced back…yet, one Psycho.
He mused over the details in his impressive mind, definitely twisted around more than one concern...
Could become a small flaw if he took to locating that memory by sheer force.
"My apprentice won't allow them to succeed." Slade turned to his blithering puppet in a chair, tied up and begging for dear life to know where "his" client was.
Fault it onto others; Wilson only believed his son was on trial, while his brainwashing had only one catch.
"Unless you'd known everything hidden in plain sight, Mr. Wayne…there is now real answer however, and… you're far too late to decode my plan." He singled in on his Renegade, sleeping with a sweating brow in the next room over while door opened to reveal…
A bat, and a jester girl.
"Maybe this would be enough, but you're far too late to end things amicably with me." He turned his masked eye to the man chained to a chair, speaking a phrase from his lips without a single stutter.
"My client's case will be solved in record time. The trial will happen. The boy will plead not guilty."
With those words, the man before him went limp as a wet noodle, his head soon rising to speak up as Slade tore away the gag.
"Wha…...why am I tied to a chair – where is my client??"
" Patience, Mr, Babcock." Slade spoke in a mesmerizing hiss. "We'll continue with your conditioning and, I promise…"
Smiling below the mask, this attorney saw no mask or villain, just a case he had to solve.
Slade bots emerged with equipment to fine tune Slade's current instrument, a small drill and a chip.
"We just have to keep you from falling apart before the big day…now…. hold still."
The drill sounded, while Slade's puppet nodded as the man worked to finish with his plans in secret.
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Batman used Harleen as his way in as she distracted the guards with her banter.
Batman swiftly made his way in with a scrambler to avoid a welcome brigade as he, searched for his objective.
The boy slept on; wires and ivs set up to bring back painful memories, looking pale, deathly still.
Right there, Bruce saw his chance and took to a small pin shaped instrument from his belt as he silently dipped it into Dick's gowned thigh. No one would look there as he took the sample, hoping it was enough to analyze with his own tech.
"There is bound to be some answer…hang in there, Dick…"
The door swung back a crack as Harleen dipped her head in, panting and out of breath.
"Hurry it up!" She hissed in a whisper. Eyes dodging behind her as Batman had gotten the memo.
She was surrounded by three other doctors, all eyes on her as she shut the door and faked a presently nervous smile.
"How can I help you –
"That is our patient…" The tallest was a lanky looking pin, his eyes as a dead fish who brought a chill to Harley's backside and spine.
She was…. something was a bit fishy by how he stared her down…
"I don't believe I know your face. New to the division, here? Doctor…?"
"Quinn." She held out a hand. "And, yes. I'm a psychologist for my patient, just heard the news and felt awful…"
"He's resting from his latest episode at the moment." The dead fish eyed doctor informed the new gal. "Quite a spell, he definitely took us all by surprise. I'd gladly have my assistant set you up in about…three days to do your good work, or once he is stable enough to have a decent conversation?"
She blinked. "Is he that severe, Dr…"
"Webster." The dead eyed man smiled weakly back. "I'm just checking his vitals for now…would you –
"Ah, don't mind lil' ole me! I am so, so sorry but sure." She tried to give Bats enough time to git and escape the med bay.
The door opened a crack wider as Bruce Wayne coyly popped his head through to blink owlishly at the two nurses beside that other strange character.
And he didn't mean Harley for once.
"Sorry…I'm actually a good friend of Mr. Wil –
"Why, the billionaire in the flesh!" Webster chuckled. "Yet, Waller gave you permission? His case is a very dangerous one. We still have yet to come up with a solution ourselves." The two nurses nodded as Harley looked to Bruce from over her shoulder with a goofy grin.
"What are the chances, am I right?"
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"Why…."
She watched Bruce's suv pull out as the Bat had gotten a whiff of something foul beyond those walls. He picked up unit and started to talk into it, not stopping as he drove past water ways and back to the hotel where his partner was waiting to hear the latest.
"Alfred, I need Jason to analyze a few names through the computer's database." Jason was no hacker, yet it was good practice to get him started in.
~ Is everything alright, Master Bruce? ~
Bruce mumbled his reply, the answers quite heart - gripping.
"Mostly not, Alfred. I fear that right now, whoever is pulling the strings, knows what we're after to find. Dick isn't safe yet unless I abduct him and risk the Titans' safety…. none of us will be. Search the database for a doctor Webster. Six-foot, dark brown hair and eyes, anything you find please report back to me."
A, plea? Why, he was in dire straits as Alfred nodded. Feeling a cold dread refuse to diminish right as he was reluctant to end their communication, the master looked dreadfully upset. So much, that Alfred took it upon himself to tell Jason none of it as he got to work weaning out suspects.
The computer took the bait –
And it was all moot.
Alfred gawked.
"Not a single blasted…" He typed up more, yet the man.
This Webster fellow…
He simply was imaginary. He did not exist, none whatsoever.
"Who then….is handling, Master Dick's initial recovery?"
It wasn't until a file came through, one from a server…
In Louisiana.
An image popped up from the talk in the hall. The lanky fellow…
He enhanced, stretched, thinned down every particle.
Until.
"Dear god…. this, is not good, not at all…!" The answer was there. The image made clear as Alfred reconnected the link.
While Bruce Wayne had just arrived at his suite until his cell in his pocket, rang.
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Bruce picked up the innocent call, thinking it Alfred as he let the man's voice –
A voice; one hungry to see him hurt, answered with a cackling laugh.
~ Dead wrong, detective…. dead…. wrong…~
Getting a whiff of something with a cooler temp to it, Bruce began to feel his heart race. The room billowing over with a clear gas as he was only feet to the bed…. his body going slack, coughing by the odorless smoke as his form ended up actually hearing Alfred once the other interference was no more.
~ MASTER BRUCE! ARE YOU THERE? YOU MUST RETURN AT ONCE! THIS WEBSTER IS NONE OTHER… THE SCARECROW ! MASTER…. ~
Yet, it was too late.
Far too late, as his master of Gotham's hope had walked right into the Bat's own undoing.
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He is not dead! Just keep reading to find out more!