Chapter 17 - Running softly

Cassandra slid smoothly underneath a nearby parked car and waited. The shadow that had been following her ran past, but she was not fooled. Rolling out from under her hiding spot she took off back in the direction from where she came from, dodging the depressed or frustrated passersby as she followed the rumbling noise in the distance.

Dashing around a corner towards the familiar sound, she threw a quick look over shoulder to find her pursuer hot on her heels. The man's intentions were obvious to her, even at a glance. He was determined to catch her and also angry that his ploy had fallen through. To chase her was not something he truly desired, but he was afraid to fail whoever gave such orders.

Snapping her eyes back onto the road, Cassandra jumped onto another car and leapt at a bus driving by. Swinging herself upwards onto its roof, she continued running and catapulted herself off of it. For a long moment she felt absolutely weightless – like one of those slimy animals that lived underwater... Then her shoulder impacted the roof of a car and she needed to roll to bleed off momentum. It hurt, but pain had stopped mattering to her after her fourth birthday.

On and on she went, speeding through the cold and uncaring city. People regarded her with fear and distrust all around and how could she blame them when they were totally helpless against her or the shadow running behind her? They were all so much slower, so much less focused than them. As sure as the sun would rise in the morning, the weak would always fear the strong; she knew that to be true.

And that also was precisely why she avoided harming them. Cassandra had seen the fear in a dying man's eyes, how pitiful and desperate his emotions had been in his last moments. She could not do that to anybody. To force somebody to die was simply... wrong. If anybody had bothered to teach her proper words she might have known a better expression for that repulsed, agonizing feeling in her chest, but she didn't need fancy terms to be certain on her stance on the matter.

Despite how easy it would have been to use these random humans as meat-shields or distraction she would do no such thing. Her legs burned from the strain and she could feel her hunger-cramps getting stronger. As if to mock her, Cassandra's mind conjured up a step by step plan on how to distract a driver in order for him to crash his vehicle behind her and delay the shadow by a mere second. No, never again...

The rumbling sound had stopped and she could see the train station up ahead. She basically flew up the stairs, her feet a blur as she pushed past her limits to reach her only hope of escape. A measly dozen meters separated her from her goal when the doors began to close in front of her eyes.

She would not make it.

Slamming against the merciless hull of the great machine, Cassandra began hammering against the opening button but it yielded no result. The thing would not let her inside.

Hurried steps announced the arrival of her adversary and with grim resolve she turned around to face him.

Schadenfreude was oozing from his every pore as the shadow man tried and failed to hide his glee.

He was panting, a disgusting fake smile on his pale lips as he spewed lies meant to placate her. Cassandra could not understand his noises, but the meaning was still obvious. This wretch wanted her to quietly surrender. To give up.

Behind her the train picked up speed, rumbling out of the station.

The shadow stepped closer and she let her back brush against the accelerating metal.

His greedy hands stretched out for her...

And she simply let herself fall off the ledge.

He cried out but it was already too late.

Hanging onto the windshield wipers she looked back at her pursuer's slumping body, frozen in disbelief. Rapidly his form grew tinier and tinier until a curve of the train tracks hid him entirely from view.

Cassandra allowed herself to breathe deeply, even as the icy wind tore at her lungs. She had shaken the shadow. For his failure and the exposure of his identity, the man was sure to be punished severely, which meant that she would most likely never see him again. However others would take his place. There were always other shadows – be they full of fear or rage or even regret. Father would never stop looking for her through them.

Cassandra knew that to be true as well.

Shaking her head free of those depressing thoughts, she concentrated on her immediate future. There was always a next step she could take to escape him. Not wanting to risk riding all the way to the next station, she kept an eye out for an escape method on the streets below.

Her opportunity came in the form of an open garbage truck. In a scant few seconds its path would cross the suspended railway and she would need to hit it perfectly. One miscalculation in her jump here would see her splatter all over the concrete.

Steeling her overworked muscles, Cassandra's legs tensed and she shot forwards, pushing herself off the train and into the open air. Distantly she noted that a young child was pointing at her in excitement, but the majority of her attention was on the vehicle rushing towards her. With a force that stole her breath away she impacted inside the gaping maw of the garbage truck.

The only reason this move did not kill her outright was the mixture of rotting leftovers and stuffed plastic bags cushioning her fall. Sprawled out limply as she was, Cassandra's entire awareness was consumed by the disgusting smell coating her from head to toe. Ah well, she had worse beds before...

Just one short nap surely wouldn't hurt...

-W-

He pointedly did not grumble as he stepped over the police tape. It seemed that recently he had to share his investigations with the police more often than not which while annoying was also as Dick had put it 'a hopeful sign that they were actually getting off their asses and doing their job for once'. Batgi- no, Barbara had half-heartedly protested that accusation on behalf of her father, but they all knew that Commissioner was the exception and not the rule when it came to integrity and willingness to work at the GCPD. The average officer was far more likely to sweep anything that required effort under the rug than possibly face overtime.

Batman dispassionately stared at the melted and charred plastic remains stuck to the kitchen floor. The smell was enough to convince him that this was indeed where the crack cocaine had been burned. It was a strange thing to do for White Lady whose psychological profile was not one centred on justice. Oh sure, she cared about fairness when it came to her own treatment, but to go out of her way to remove hundreds of kilos of hard drugs from the streets out of pure altruism was abnormal.

What did she stand to gain from this? The Bratva would not be crippled by this loss, – far from it sadly – but it would piss them off. Was this revenge? After all, she had knocked out the gangsters and callously left them inside a burning building.

On the other hand, she had called the police to take them into custody so maybe that had been her plan all along. Injuries among the Russian gang members were within the norm, some cracked bones and one slight brain haemorrhage. Nothing suggested her toying with them or similar vengeful behaviour. They would all live even if the evidence discovered in their dormitories and the main office was sure to land them in prison for a few years.

Could she be working for another criminal organization that hired her to weaken their competitor? After he denied her the reward money she seemed truly desperate for more. Could this be a distraction while another assault occurred somewhere else? He had no way to prove or disprove that theory for now, but he would tell Dick to keep a lookout for how the situation developed.

Supporting this idea was the robbery of the mafia's central office. The safe had been blown open by the rapid contraction and expansion of the metal in response to switching temperature extremes. Batman could understand where the heat came from as the remnants of an emergency torch lay on the scorched floor boards nearby. What he could not as easily explain was what had caused the unnatural cold which preceded it. Only Mr. Freeze had been capable of such immense temperature manipulation, but his destroyed Freeze-Ray had been recovered from the site of his death.

Where was White Lady getting that tech from?

Hopefully her supply of whatever chemical or tool caused this spontaneous formation of ice was limited. Then again, when had Gotham's villains ever made the fight easy for him?

His gut was telling him that that was not the case however. Wallets had been stolen and personal stashes looted, as some rooms on the third floor showed. Robbing gang members for petty cash were not the actions of a confident mercenary. They indirectly portrayed a woman who was scrounging up every bit of income out of either unadulterated greed or immense desperation.

Another conundrum he had to consider was the girl that White Lady had mentioned over the phone call. Where was she?

When police forces arrived at the scene they found everything as described except the mysteriously missing abuse victim. Had she run off on her own, confused and scared by her newfound freedom? There were all manner of unscrupulous scum out at night that could have snatched up such a distraught girl, but he would search for her regardless.

He had personally seen the suspiciously well secured room in the basement of the house. It was a room from the depths of hell: Bare concrete, without lights or furniture. It was dank and the only source of warmth was a water pipe near the mouldy ceiling. Blood-stained cardboard served as a stark reminder that whoever had been imprisoned there was treated like an animal – no, worse.

Batman felt the strong urge to punch the bastard responsible for subjecting a little girl to such depravity. Yes, he would pay the Bratva a visit in the near future. He had clearly ignored them for too long if they thought such deeds would go unpunished.

Unfortunately that would have to wait a little while longer. Word was getting out on the streets that Scarecrow was planning something again and the madman was a far more immediate danger to the safety of all of Gotham.

Hopefully they wouldn't do anything especially terrible before he dealt with the bigger threat.

-W-

Her first sensation upon waking up was something slimy dripping onto her cheek. Cassandra slowly opened her eyes and found that she couldn't move. Panic spread through and she began to struggle out from under the weight pinning her down. Sitting up, she greedily sucked in air and regretted it instantly as something foul entered her mouth.

Hacking and coughing she wiped the foul ooze of her face and took stock of her surroundings. It was nearly night time again which meant that she must have passed out for far longer than anticipated. The only reason why she hadn't frozen to death was that she had apparently been half-buried inside of a massive mountain of trash. Rotting foodstuff, plastic and metallic parts were all piled up in one stinking – but decently insulating – ocean of human waste. A fitting resting place all things considered, because she was definitely feeling like garbage too.

At least nobody would look for her here.

Though... What was she supposed to do now?

She didn't know where she was, so Cassandra started examining what she had on hand. Which sadly wasn't much at all: Her now soggy and stained clothes, a sharp rock in her pocket and the stack of colourful paper pieces.

Intellectually, she knew what these small things were. People traded them for stuff, like yummy bread or other food she wasn't sure of how it was supposed to taste. Her experience with unspoiled dishes was rather small. She was also sure there were many more uses for this weird paper than what she had been able to observe, but she had no clue what those were. Without being able to communicate via sounds, it was unimportant anyway.

The silent woman had given them to her, but her intentions had been hard to read. She talked with her mouth, but her body was lifeless and stiff. To be honest, it had scared Cassandra a little. Never before had she met a human who she couldn't read. But the silent woman had clearly thought that the paper would help her; just as the warm clothes had, so she couldn't be too bad.

Her stomach grumbled as a wave of nausea hit her. She was so damn hungry...

Cassandra longingly stared at the remains of an apple to her right. Never before had the brown and leathery flesh of a spoiled fruit looked so delectable to her. But she knew that it would only make her stomach cramps worse.

When those men captured her she had not dared to eat anything they threw into her cell, because that had been how they caught her. At the time, she had been with this group of other girls who were like her. They were also running away from their past. They all had scars and for a while she thought she had found something special. Of course it couldn't last. That guy behind the counter of the soup kitchen had been shifty, but they all had been so hungry... And then...

No, she didn't want to think about it. She needed to get out of here and find the other girls. Only that mattered. She owed them that much...

Her lofty aspirations were once again crushed by her cramping belly.

With shaking hands, Cassandra reached out for the disgusting and yet wonderful apple and-

A noise!

Flinching away from the tempting treat she scrambled to hide herself from the unknown person wading through the landfill. How had another shadow found her so soon!?

In her haste however, she inadvertently knocked a piece of debris loose which rattled painfully loud against a bunch of tin cans.

She was so doomed.

Too weak to escape there was only one option...

Through some miracle her numb fingers found the sharp rock and drew it from her pocket.

"Hello?" the unfamiliar woman called out and Cassandra hesitated.

She knew that word. The other girls had explained it to her for hours on end until she was finally able to distinguish it from other human noises. It was supposed to be a friendly sound. A nice but not too nice word. What else the woman said was conversely completely lost on her.

As she came closer, effortlessly climbing up the hill of trash, Cassandra was able to get a better read on the intruder. On the surface level she was beautiful, her hair strikingly red and figure curvaceous. That kind that made men act all funny when they saw women like that.

Though, underneath that...

There was something... inhuman about this woman that she had a hard time describing. She was more than a simple if beautiful human. Putting that disquieting though to the back of her mind, Cassandra concentrated on reading the woman's emotions. Reluctant compassion radiated from her posture, clearly wanting to help her, but unsure of if she should actually touch her. Furthermore, there was some buried shame and self-loathing mixed with rage and tenacity, but the woman was clearly not angry with her...

Once again she said something which sounded like indecipherable gibberish to Cassandra's ears and smiled in a way that was meant to be comforting, stretching out a hand for her to grab. Should she trust this vaguely inhuman woman?

Well, the silent woman had also been nicer than Cassandra had at first anticipated. She didn't have much to lose at this point anyway. Reaching into her other pocket she closed her fist around its contents and held out the-

-W-

Money. The little homeless girl presented her with a bundle of money and Pamela had absolutely no idea how to react. Was she supposed to take it? She didn't want the money! She just wanted to help.

Holding up her hands in a hopefully non-threatening way Pamela slowly shook her head.

"No, you don't need to give me your stuff. I just want to help you if that's alright? You won't survive the night out here. I have a warm bed and something to eat if you're interested?"

A look of confusion crossed the scarred face of the gaunt girl, but she pocketed the cash. Or at least attempted to as the paper slipped from her weak fingers at the last second. The poor thing must have been half dead!

Picking up the slightly dirty bundle, she held it out for the girl to take again.

"Here."

They shared a long look and Pamela began to feel pretty stupid; like she was missing something obvious.

To fill the uncomfortable silence her tongue gained a will of its own: "Yeah, I know. It's Gotham. You can never trust a stranger's kindness here, but I promise I'll leave you alone after you had a good sleep. Most of the time I just want to be alone as well. People can be a real hassle you know? Yeah, you definitely know. Scars and all... Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned that. That was rude. It's just I have been stressed a bit lately and..."

Oh god, she was rambling! This was so awkward!

"Ehm, anyways, I'm gonna lift you up now, alright? Please don't stab me with whatever you have in your other hand there while I do it, pretty please."

The homeless girl herself seemed surprised by her clenched fist and hesitantly dropped the rock she had hidden in her palm. Pamela oh so slowly inched forwards, uncomfortably keeping eye-contact with the silent child as she reached under her armpits and pulled her to her feet. Starved and beaten as the poor creature was, she dared not to remove her support in fear of her slipping and tumbling down the garbage heap.

Together they made their way down to stable ground, though the girl only ever tripped once which was admirable. Looking down at her ruined jeans, Pamela sighed. She would need to make a pair of new ones, because these were definitely beyond saving now.

Turning her attention back to the child still clinging to her arm for support, she was suddenly reminded of another far more serious problem. How was going to get the girl back to her home? Shivering and weak as she was, there was no way she would be able to make the journey all the way to the Narrows on foot! Getting on a train was also out, because they were full of cameras and most taxi drivers sold interesting information about their clients to the gangs. Pamela personally detested cars, so she had never bothered to own one which of course came now back to bite her in the ass.

There was only one option...

"Okay, this is gonna sound weird, but it's a bit far from here to my home, so... I'm gonna carry you."

Crouching down she took the half-insensate girl on her back and draped her limp legs over her hips. Sneakily she grew a few vines from her skin to secure her further which she hopefully wouldn't notice in her state. Grabbing her arms tight, Pamela was satisfied with the setup and began to run as fast as her legs were able to carry her. Which was pretty fast. Olympic athlete level at least.

As she sprinted through the dimly illuminated city one nagging thought wouldn't leave her alone:

Why was she doing this?

Never before had she simply picked somebody off the street to save them. She knew she was somewhat of a misanthrope, so why had she felt the sudden urge to protect this child which had been thrown away like garbage? Was she doing this just to feel better about herself? To – in a twisted way – make up for how badly she had failed Tanya? Wow, she really was pathetic if that was the case...

Narrowly skimming past a speeding car, she finally arrived at her home district. Steadily the streets grew emptier and emptier as anyone who could, fled the dark streets. A few punks tried to stand in her way but she hit them with a dose of sleep pollen and they hit the ground before they were even able to touch her.

Rushing through the familiar rubbish-filled alleyway, Pamela unlocked her door from the inside with a twist of her hand and carried the now unconscious girl into her greenhouse. Leaves wrapped protectively around her lithe body as she gently set the child up against a tree.

She basically flew the stairs up the kitchen to start heating up some chicken broth and then she frantically tore her storage space apart in search of every blanket in her possession. Clearing the stairs for the second time in one big leap, she poured the warm soup into a bowl and hurried back to her new charge's side.

Pamela gently shook her awake and slowly fed her the broth, taking care to do so in small sips, so she wouldn't swallow it the wrong way. Then, freeing her of her damp clothes she wrapped the girl in the fluffiest blanket she could find and had a few vines crawl inside to measure her pulse and body temperature. Soon she passed out again; her status no longer teetering on death's door and Pamela found herself unexpectedly relieved.

Originally she had come to the garbage dump to see what happened to the illegal dumping site that she had closed down with Gabrielle's help so many years ago. Of course it seemed to be up and running again, despite what the mayor had promised. Same old Gotham... Always found a way to disappoint her.

One could call it a nostalgic trip down memory lane, she supposed. After messing up with Harley, she really needed a distraction from all the bitter feelings gnawing away at the insides of her chest. Smiling down at the sleeping child in her lap, she sent a quick thank you to Gabrielle's spirit for sending her one.

-W-

Tanya looked at her table with both awe and amazement. Neatly stacked rows of bank notes were arrayed next to each other, signifying their value: A staggering two million dollars. She had dreamed of more or less this exact image for years, but her wish had always seemed out of reach. This was her ticket to freedom, the key to a life unchained by criminal mob bosses or ignorant employers.

And it was beautiful!

Sadly, after a short moment of introspection, she came to the sobering realization that the money wouldn't last. She wouldn't be able to pay off her debt with the mafia in one fell swoop, even if she wanted to, because at the beginning of the next year, Mr. Freeze's annual contracts were going to be due.

The pharmaceutical research he outsourced to multiple laboratories was certainly not cheap and seemed to have only increased over the years if his bills were anything to go by. Presumably the new technologies and methods developed in one of the most competitive industries in the world were to blame for that.

She had half a mind to simply ignore the payment date as she was not particularly invested in developing a cure for Nora's affliction, but after researching some of the companies on her new base's computer revealed that they were all affiliated with LexPharmaceuticals in some way, shape or form. They were either funded or partially owned by the tech giant, proudly proclaiming their association with the world's leading company in the medical field on their websites.

That put a wrench in her plans; because she had no desire to mess with Lex Luthor. He was famously known for his zero tolerance policy when it came to being swindled in any way. For example, when the Canadian government had denied him the already negotiated rights to build an oil platform near their coast because of rising ecological concerns, he had instantly halted all imports into the country and shut down every local branch of his business empire, essentially damning tens of thousands of people to indefinite unpaid leave. Without saying a word he crashed Canada's economy for an entire week until the masses of angry protestors wore down the spirits of the parliament and they rescinded their decision.

Of course, this was a pretty extreme example, but the man was very obviously ruthless and highly dedicated. The best lawyers in the country were on his payroll to crush any threat to what he saw as his property with impunity. Such a brutal deterrence policy obviously worked wonders, as Lex Luthor had become the richest and perhaps even the most influential man on earth in just over a decade. He was a true role model of the American dream, carving out his place in history through the power of his intellect and the free market.

Consequently, sharks were circling Luthor from every direction, looking for any moment of weakness to exploit in order to bring the giant down. So, it would not be a stretch to assume that if she failed to meet the deadlines and make a payment on Victor Fries' behalf then there would be some form of investigation into where their indebted client went. Stealing a tiny sum from his subsidiaries would never cross the man's desk, but the smaller companies in question would need to explain where the money went and seek somebody to blame. Someone would come sniffing sooner or later, possibly stumbling over ancient paperwork trails left behind by the supervillain in his civilian identity.

How annoying...

Tanya could not be sure of how thorough the man had been with his data security and if any of the shipping documents he signed could be traced back to her new lair. She could not take the risk of relying on a dead man's competency, so she would need to fix this issue herself. It was best to pay the researchers and let them quietly forget this whole affair.

Thus all of her beautiful, wonderful, life-changing money went down the drain. Again.

Hopefully this wasn't going to become a trend or she might as well rename herself to 'Broke Lady'.

There was no use in crying about spilt milk however. She needed to move forward and carry on despite the setback. In the end, the plan for her immediate future was simple: Regardless of the two million dollars in her possession she still needed more.

The Bratva were most likely going to be more on guard after the loss of one of their facilities, but if their general ineptitude was anything to go by then they shouldn't be too much of a challenge... No, that was a bit too arrogant of her. Tanya would not suffer defeat at the hands of idiots just because she underestimated them.

Maybe she should call on Pamela again for backup should things get too dicey?

So far she had viewed the botanist as more of a freelancer, but her talents might make her a good permanent subordinate instead. Her mishap with Harley aside, she had proven her usefulness. With a bit of cultivation she could bloom into a wonderful asset.

Yes, that idea had a lot of potential...