Chapter Six: Out of Order
Bane followed Sofia at a distance in one of the Gotham City transportation trucks. The much lower horsepower engine struggled to keep up with Sofia as she drove at nearly Mach one towards the hangar on the very outskirts of town.
He stayed cloaked in the shadows and watched Talia and Sofia greet each other before leaving the hangar together, heading to where Talia had Pavel secreted away.
Bane continued to follow, gritting his teeth as he wanted to know what the two women were discussing.
Inside the muscle car, Talia sat ramrod straight in the passenger seat as she told Sofia some of the upcoming highlights of her plan to eviscerate Gotham City and dance in its ashes.
Sofia downshifted, merely nodding as Talia talked about the planned activity at the Gotham Exchange.
"I'd like you to keep an eye out on how the operation is running, tell me about it, quietly," Talia murmured to Sofia's profile, gauging the pilot's reaction.
"Who do you want me to spy on?" Sofia asked as she kept one eye on the tachometer before she shifted and passed a chain of slow-moving cars.
Talia chuckled, her voice still holding the rich, dulcet tone of Miranda Tate. "Not spy, just let me know if something catches your eye that doesn't get reported to me, I want to know the second there could be subterfuge."
Talia added a juicy dollar amount for what she saw and sang about, immediately enticing Sofia.
Sofia glanced over briefly at Talia; her full lips twisted into an amusing smirk as she spoke. "Double that and I'll tell you everything you could ever want to know."
The two women wordlessly shook hands as they continued the mostly freeway drive to where Doctor Pavel was being held under multiple locks, many keys, and a fleet of armed security.
Bane returned to the sewers when he saw that Sofia was driving Talia towards Pavel, knowing exactly what his upcoming parts were to play before the heist at the Exchange.
Before the Exchange, Talia didn't have a lot of use for Bane and Sofia.
The freedom allowed Sofia to explore the city, sleeping for the better part of the day so she could spend the night roaming the streets of Gotham, working on engines, and striking up a friendship with the fur trading Squirrel in order to get her hands on some pharmaceuticals she wasn't able to obtain a prescription for from a reputable physician.
Sofia's nearly life-taking chest injury left her with a residual pain from nerve damage before she'd been able to be surgically repaired.
In the space of time before Bane commandeered The Gotham Exchange, Bruce Wayne and Fox had their bantering, bromantic chit chat about better minds and the autopilot setting of the creatively named Bat.
Wayne had his battle worn body examined and decrepit knees before masking up and visiting the injured Gordon in the hospital for a cough drop inducing needed talk.
The beautiful and enigmatic Miranda Tate had her bountiful, fat spread for her benefit gala and batted her eyelashes at Bruce Wayne who tried to walk back sticking his foot in his mouth.
After Miranda had laid some deep, trusting seeds with Bruce, he went and twirled Selina around the dance floor and in a sexual reversal of actions, took back the pearl necklace, leaving the cat burglar's long, swan-like neck bare.
In the twenty-four hours before converging on The Gotham Exchange, Bane was electric, always the closest to being alive when the time for battle was imminent.
He paced his living space within the sewers, what should've been a heady, intoxicating sensation, was lessened with his distracting thoughts towards Sofia. His fingertips tingled and pulled into fists that should've anticipated violence.
Instead, his thick, scarred digits ached with the remembrance of tearing at her clothes and touching her body.
Bane's palms grew warm from where they'd cupped the supple flesh of her breasts, unable to think of not much else than his hurried handling of her body.
Bane shook his head, squeezing his hands into fists until his knuckles popped. He stalked to where he had a ceramic pot of tea steeping, he picked bloated marigold blossoms from the squat steaming mug before lifting it to his face.
If someone had been watching Bane, it would've appeared he was praying, standing still with his eyes closed, head bent over the mug, the tendrils of steam rising to the front of his mask.
Bane was not praying, was not readying himself to bend the knee and be penitent, he was attempting to banish Sofia to the recesses of his mind, to turn her into a tumor in the operable part of the brain.
He took a deep breath of his analgesic serum, opening his eyes to the future and the next task at hand.
Bane walked over to a low table that was covered with schematics and blueprints of the city. His dark eyes scanned the highlighted path on the map before his line of sight moved to the edges and the isolated airstrip and hangar where Sofia's plane was housed, all the power, dormant.
He wondered where Talia was going to have her pilot posted while he ran point on The Exchange, there was no place to land a plane.
Bane's central nervous system was electric by the time he donned the deep cherry red motorcycle helmet and stalked towards the security entrance, a lion looking at the Serengeti, a buffet of gazelles all for the picking.
The overworked security guard rushed up to him, "Rookie, lose the helmet, we need faces for the camera," she squawked.
She didn't get the chance to repeat her command as Bane removed the helmet before thrusting it towards her, knocking her flat on her back, the air rushed from her lungs and out through her slack lips. If one had been close enough, they'd have smelled the soy hazelnut macchiato with a dusting of cinnamon and nutmeg on her breath.
She bought one every morning from Albert who ran the coffee cart right outside the Gotham Exchange entrance.
Bane continued to use the helmet as a weapon, swinging the smooth, glossy painted epoxy resin into unsuspecting faces and midsections, causing gross bodily harm aplenty before proceeding to The Gotham Exchange floor.
Bane continued to blaze a ferocious, violent path towards The Exchange's bustling center, lashing out, growing drunk on the fear he was arousing amongst the money men and women.
He'd make the greedy leeches remember their original fear.
Behind his mask, Bane's scarred lips pulled into a twisted, cruel smile as the terror he invoked became palpable, he could taste it in between his metered aerosolized breathing rate.
He watched the program begin to do its work and infiltrate through the vast currency system, utilizing Wayne's stolen prints to gain access to the veritable world.
Outside The Gotham Exchange, Foley, Blake, and the security chief argued over how to handle the financial marauders.
Inside the heavily secured building, the armed man who had just been shining shoes and was now draining Wayne of money, looked up at Bane.
"They cut the fiber. Cell's working."
"For now. How much longer does the program need?" Bane asked.
"Eight minutes."
Bane watched the armed men mill about, continually keeping everyone in the center of the carpeted floor of The Exchange.
Underneath his mask, Bane's nostrils flared as he caught the sudden aroma of burning cloves.
He whipped his head to where the restrooms were located, his pupils dilated rapidly as his eyes landed on Sofia leaning in the restroom's doorway, a burning cigarette in her scarred right hand, sporting an oversized pair of sunglasses, very much the same type a pink pillbox suit wearing fashionista would wear.
His eyes again found her body a mystery under another coverall, this pair a light khaki, the uniform of the sanitation crew that was responsible for cleaning every nook, cranny, and carpet of The Gotham Exchange.
A grey bucket with brackish water was next to her, the mop head submerged in the dingy water, scum floating on the surface.
Bane's mouth went dry as he watched Sofia raise the oil-infused cigarette to her lips and take a long drag, the end glowing brightly.
The corners of her full lips pulled up into a small smile as she blew out the smoke, at once a fire breathing dragon spending time on the ground before she again took to flight.
She took another deep drag before dropping the still lit cigarette into the filthy water, the burning cloves extinguished in the harsh disinfectant.
"Time to go mobile," Bane finally said, unable to see Sofia looking back at him through the black lenses of her oversized sunglasses.
Sofia watched Bane and the other armed men move with military precision, a dangerous wave as they selected hostages at random from the Exchange floor.
Later, in extensive therapy, many of the people not chosen as hostages felt like god had not chosen them because of their faith and the metaphorical lamb's blood that was painted in their visceral cavity spared them.
Some of the chosen hostages felt they were selected because of their faith, out of those, some of their faiths grew stronger, more resolute and for others they turned their back on their god for he surely had forsaken them.
After Bane and company departed The Exchange on motorcycles with hysterical hostages, Sofia placed an Out of Order cone in front of the bathroom before walking away from the bright orange conical plastic with its square, black rubber base.
Sofia didn't slip out of her coveralls before leaving The Exchange, no one noticed the departing help.
None of the frightened, rattled, and traumatized money men and women remaining on the carpeted floor of The Exchange, didn't notice that a predator was still amongst them.