Paige sat back from her monitor and rubbed her eyes. It was six P.M., past the time a salaried employee with no commission should be staying, but the numbers kept pulling her back in. Around her, the floor of the Gotham Stock Exchange hummed, as busy now as it had been when trading opened this morning. Traders and analysts with bags under their eyes sat slouched at their screens, or hurried back and forth to consult with other team members. She'd learned within the first week how to tune out the constant roar of voices, but for a moment she let the roar back in, let it rush through her ears and reinvigorate her. She closed her eyes and, for a few seconds, only listened. The sounds were oddly soothing, almost hypnotic. Almost…
A sharp rap on her desk brought her back. "Hey, Carter, don't go falling asleep on us! Dinner is on its way in, and you wouldn't want to miss that." It was Steven, smirking at her. He was one of the traders on her team, a handsome thirty-something with blond hair and an unparalleled grasp of Gotham economics.
"Dinner already?" she asked. "You overachievers don't usually order till nearly eight."
Steven snorted. "You overachievers? Madame Carter, you're the one who's stayed late every day this week. We're just playing in your wake."
Paige rolled her eyes and shooed him away. "Ha. Of course. Just let me know when dinner gets here, alright? I promise I'll stay awake till then."
Steven gave her a mocking salute, and sauntered off. Paige rolled her eyes again. Steven was alright, as traders went-kept himself safe behind three layers of irony, but she knew he was a bit of a softy behind it all. She reached for her coffee mug, then grimaced to find it empty. A fresh cup from the cantina would keep her awake till food, which should bolster her through the end of the day's trades. Sighing, she slipped her heels back on and stood. She began making her way through the crowded floor, dodging businessmen in suits and businesswomen in sharp heels.
And then, halfway to the cantina-chaos.
There were too many sounds, too much motion to parse in a moment. Screams, staccato blasts, a sudden rush of footsteps. Paige was caught up in the press, jostled away, and found herself huddled under a desk before her brain caught up with what was happening. Her glasses were gone, the moment of their loss forgotten. A man—no, two—three?—carrying large handguns were spraying bullets into the air. The screens showing the NASDAQ numbers showered sparks, and Paige's ears began to ring. Through her straggling hair she watched the men with the guns as they prowled through the room, herding people together. Who were they—a resurgence of the Joker's crew, some new mob force, a terrorist group? Why—
And then he was there. The man from the alleyway. The man in the mask.
He came striding through the front doors, unhurried, in command. A hush, an automatic holding of breath, fell over the crowd as he scanned the room. He held a red helmet in one hand, and the silvery tubes of his mask gleamed in the fluorescent lights, even more nightmarish in full view than they had been in the dark of the alley. Paige had begun to think, in the days following her meeting with him, that she must have exaggerated his size, that the darkness must have played tricks on her, that he couldn't really have been so tall, so broad. But she was wrong. The man was huge—terribly huge, a living Goliath, and his eyes glittered like those of a predatory cat as he looked around at the hundreds of stunned, panting people trapped in there with him. His gaze swept near her and she cringed further down, trying to hide her face. Surely he wouldn't recognize her? It had been so dark, and she didn't have a mask to make her unmistakable. Silently, fervently, she began to pray.
The man paused, looking around slowly, and then he turned to fix his eyes on one man in particular, not more than fifteen feet away. Paige cringed. Steven was still sitting on his stool, the only one doing so, clearly stunned into stillness. He regarded the huge man with shock.
The man walked forward.
Paige barely contained a yelp as he loomed over Steven. Steven, to his credit, managed to speak. "This is a stock exchange," he said. "There's no money for you to steal."
"Really?" the masked man asked, reaching into Steven's coat and pulling out his ID. His voice was just as strange as Paige remembered: staticy and metallic, heavy with an unknown accent. "Then why are you people here?"
The huge man's hand clamped down on Steven's collar, and Paige couldn't stifle a gasp as he dragged Steven on his rolling stool—towards her. She cursed her luck as the man flung Steven into the desk right beside her, narrowly missing her leg. She kept her head down, and scrunched herself further under the narrow desk. She just had to hope he wouldn't look down. Just cooperate, Steven, she thought, they have no reason to hurt us if we—
The man grabbed Steven by the back of his shirt and slammed his head to the desk. Steven instantly went limp. Paige jerked, aghast, and watched in dumb silence as the man slotted Steven's keycard into the scanners. Another one of the men, bald, approached with a laptop and knelt almost directly in front of her, setting his laptop on the desk.
He could have just taken the ID, she thought. Her legs were going numb. Her mind felt frazzled. He didn't have to hurt Steven at all.
She watched the big man through a thin curtain of hair as he turned away and began pacing through the room. He walked slowly, each step a rolling motion of muscle. If Paige had only seen him walking like this, she would have been unable to believe the speed with which he had knocked Steven unconscious—the viciousness of it. Steven was on the other side of the kneeling man, and she craned her head to try to see him. Was he still breathing?
To her horror, she saw a slow trickle of blood running off the desk to patter on the floor by her shoe. She couldn't see Steven breathing.
Paige clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming, and pushed herself away from the blood until her back hit another part of the desk. The kneeling man shot her a quick glance, but apparently deemed her not to be a threat, and went back to typing.
Tears pricked at her eyes. Steven hadn't been much to her— a work friend at best, not more than an acquaintance. Still, she had picked things up, here and there. He had claimed to like his coffee black, but secretly put in three creams and sugars when he thought no one was watching. And he had a mother in Detroit and a father in Delaware, and a sister with kids in Blüdhaven. He'd been a good uncle—Paige had been able to tell. A photo of his sister and her kids stood front and center on his desk, and he had mentioned, once, with pride, that he already had college funds set up for all three, almost a quarter of the way filled and they weren't even in middle school. He had said all of this to brag about how good his trades were, but Paige had seen through it. She'd seen why he had done it. A driven young professional finance man with no time for love, no time for a family—yet desperately wanting one anyway. He'd done his best to provide for those kids like his own.
And now he was bleeding a lifeless stream of blood onto an old desk, and those kids would never see their uncle again. And the man responsible, the hulking presence just out of her line of sight, was only able to kill him because of what Paige had done two weeks ago.
She turned to look at him, and found him staring straight at her.
Paige froze. Her hand was still covering her mouth, and she had to clamp down to contain another scream. The big man cocked his head, analyzing her. Remembering her?
Look away, Paige told herself. Look away. It was dark. There's no way he could recognize you. Look away.
But she couldn't look away.
The big man walked towards her with that same deliberate, rolling gait, and Paige pressed herself further back into the desk panels.
He stopped right in front of her, his boots less than a foot away. His eyes were bright, almost manic, over his mask. He likes this, she thought suddenly, he likes having all these people trapped and afraid. He was like a fox inside a locked henhouse, taking all the time he needed.
"Stand up," he said.
Paige stared at him, her breath frozen in her throat. Get up, she told herself, get up, or he'll grab you and ram your head into a desk like Steven, knock your brains out on the wood and then you'll be bleeding that slow, steady little trickle-
Paige drew in a ragged breath and forced the thoughts away. She focused on the physical movements necessary to stand-uncurl her legs, swing them out from under the desk, find a patch of floor not littered with glass, plant her hands, and push herself up. She had to grab for the edge of the desk to keep herself from toppling, but at last she was standing steady, lightheaded but upright.
Paige was tall for a woman, a little over six feet even without her heels, but the big man still dwarfed her by more than a head. He somehow looked even bigger when she stood next to him than when she was on the ground. She tilted her head back to meet his eyes, conscious of the tear tracks on her face, and waited.
He regarded her, his expression still inscrutable. Then he reached towards her throat. She flinched away, thinking of Steven, but he was faster. He caught the lapel of her blazer and drew her back. He paused for a moment, looking at her, and she felt him pick up the small cross hanging at her neck. Then he reached into her blazer, pulled out her ID card, and looked at it for a moment.
The man cocked his head, then met her eyes again. "Miss Carter," he said, pronouncing each syllable with the delicate care of a man dissecting something. "A pleasure to meet you. What a coincidence that we should see each other again."
So he did recognize her. Paige closed her eyes, despair making her legs shake. She had hoped, somehow, that he might not realize it was her. But the cross had most likely given her away. She opened her mouth, intending to ask what he was going to do with her, but what she said was, "You killed Steven." It came out flatly, a statement.
His eyes flicked behind her to Steven's body, then back to her. "Yes," he said. "He was the sort of person we have come to eradicate. A vulture."
To her surprise, Paige felt anger rising in her, bringing blood back to her cheeks. She stiffened. "You have no idea what kind of person he was."
"Do you?" he asked. He sounded amused, and he still held onto her blazer with one hand. "Did he pour out his heart to you? Do you know all his thoughts and secrets? His lies?"
Paige blinked, taken aback. "No," she said. "But—"
"Then I will judge him by what he did, as must you," he said. "Profiting off the work of others while doing none. Enriching himself by lies and false dealings. Promising one thing to one investor and then doing something else to please another." He looked down at her, and his grip on her blazer tightened. "Much the same thing as you, I suppose."
Paige's mouth went dry, and she could not respond.
From behind her, blessedly, the kneeling man spoke. "They cut the fiber," he said. "Cell's working."
The big man's eyes left hers, looking back towards the other man. "For now," he said. "How much longer does the program need?"
"Eight minutes," the man said.
The big man glanced around the room, looking towards the other men. "Time to go mobile."
Paige heard the laptop click shut behind her. Then one of the other gunmen shouted, "Everybody up!"
Paige jerked as rapid gunfire sent flashes of light across the room again. She twisted in the big man's grip, terrified to see if more people were dead—but the man had sprayed the ceiling. Screams erupted, then quickly quieted again as the gunmen began herding people towards the front entrance.
The big man moved suddenly, pulling her along by his grip on her lapel. She almost fell, but managed to catch herself. She had the flash of a thought that he would have simply dragged her if she fell. "Where are we going?" she managed to ask.
The big man ignored her and continued to tow her along behind the crowd of people. He turned to look at the laptop man, who had caught up to walk beside him. "Tercio?" the big man asked.
The bald man pulled a walkie-talkie from his coat pocket and keyed it on. He spoke into it in rapid-fire Italian. A moment later, another voice responded. "On his way up," the man said, returning the walkie to his pocket. "Thirty seconds."
The big man nodded, still striding forward. "Secure the prisoners," he ordered, glancing at the other gunmen. "One minute."
He pulled Paige to a stop, then pulled out a handful of zip ties from his pocket. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw the other gunmen do the same.
Paige felt her heart skip a beat. It hadn't occurred to her that she might be leaving the stock exchange with this man. "Please," she said, "don't—"
He ignored her, spinning her around. In a few efficient motions, the zipties closed over her wrists and pulled tight. She didn't dare struggle—what would be the point? Even if he hadn't had five other men with him, she couldn't hope to overcome him. The other gunmen were securing prisoners as well, always with at least two men standing guard over the crowd. She didn't recognize the others they grabbed—two women, two men. They looked as terrified as Paige felt.
The two elevators from the parking garage dinged, and Paige did a double take as they opened to show, not people, but motorbikes. Two of the men stepped forward to help pull them out of the elevators, while a tall man with dark eyes stepped out of one and began rolling the bikes forward as well. In moments, the bikes were distributed among the gunmen. One by one the engines came roaring to life. The air soon smelled of exhaust.
The big man pulled his red helmet on, hiding his mask. "After you," he said, gesturing at the bike. He held the handlebars, keeping it steady.
Swallowing, Paige awkwardly lifted a leg and managed to lurch onto the bike. The big man climbed on behind her, and she found herself pressed up to the steering column. His chest felt rigid behind her, as if he were wearing armor under his clothes. A bulletproof vest? His huge arms walled her in on either side. At least, she thought, she wasn't liable to fall off. She was able to get a slight grip on the seat even with her hands tied, and that was a comfort. The other prisoners—hostages?—were soon on the bikes as well.
One of the gunmen lifted his pistol and sent another short spray of bullets into the air. "Everyone out!" he shouted.
The crowd surged towards the exit. The people in the back pushed and shoved to get out faster—a few fell—but there seemed to be something slowing them outside. Most of the people were still piled up in the foyer.
The big man raised his hand and made a forward motion.
Paige screamed as the bike suddenly jolted forward, directly towards the crowd of people. Men and women dove to the sides, crying out, their faces blurring as the bike ripped through them. Some didn't get out of the way fast enough. Then, with a gut-clenching drop, they suddenly emerged out into the fading sunlight and dove down the front steps of the GSE.
Paige caught only a snapshot image of what had slowed down the crowd. Police response—SWAT teams and beat cops and armored vehicles ringed the building. She could see their eyes opening wide in surprise but couldn't hear their shouts over the roar of the bikes. The bikes ripped straight through the police line as frustrated officers watched, their guns tracking, but no shots rang out.
Paige felt her lunch coming dangerously close to returning as the big man took them around a hair pin curve, tilting the bike towards the ground. Screaming, she dug her fingers into the seat and clenched her knees tight around the body of the bike. She felt more than heard a rumble coming from the big man's chest as he laughed—at her, or in ecstasy from the chase, she had no idea.
He's a psychopath, she thought. I'm on a bike with a psychopath.
They were at the front of the group, the others close behind. The big man took another turn, swerving through traffic, and plunged them into a long tunnel. The bikes roared as they weaved around cars. Paige could see the shocked eyes of the drivers and passengers as they jerked away reflexively from the bikes. She craned her head to stare into the bike's side-mirrors, and saw flashing lights begin to pursue. She eyed the pavement speeding by. Was there any way she could safely dive off the bike? Or could she thrash enough to cause them to crash, preferably without maiming herself in the process? She didn't like the odds of either.
She looked into the mirrors again, and saw lights vanishing in a line far behind them-the ceiling lights, headlights, the flashing blue, everything. She thought at first they had topped a rise and the lights were simply falling out of sight, but then she saw them coming back in the distance. What?
The line of darkness caught the last motorbike. She couldn't see much in the mirror, but she thought a dark shape slammed into the driver, knocking him off. The hostage was gone. The big man maneuvered the bike, and she lost sight behind them. What's happening?
They continued on, exiting the tunnel after a few moments. The sun had dipped behind the tall skyscrapers, leaving them in darkness, and without the fluorescents of the tunnel it was impossible to keep track of the bikes. Were there fewer than before? She was sure they'd lost some-had the police managed to catch them? What about their hostages?
Another bike pulled up next to theirs, matching speed, and the driver handed the big man a tablet. Paige squinted to bring the blurry display into focus and caught sight of a progress bar, almost full, before the big man shoved the tablet back at the other driver. The big man gunned the engine, then performed a stomach-turning twist that left them facing the way they had come, while the other driver peeled away behind them. Paige reeled, confused, as he roared forward-directly towards the oncoming police.
Before she could process this, a dark shape zipped by them, too fast for Paige to make out. She thought it might have been trailing fabric in a dark cloud, or was it exhaust? The big man turned, following it behind them for a moment, before apparently dismissing it and plowing on. What was that? Paige wondered. The same thing that had taken out the last bike?
They finally came on the line of police cruisers, and Paige straightened, trying to make sure they saw her. After a moment, one cruiser peeled off, tires squealing as it made a tight turn to follow. Paige grinned. Should she try to unsettle the bike? Give the police time to catch up? She tensed, readying herself, only to be thrown off-balance as the bike veered. The big man made a sudden turn towards a small exit ramp, and then, with an unexpected heave, popped the front wheel over a low concrete barrier. The bike lurched over with a roar of effort, and then plowed into a concrete tunnel. Paige heard the tires of the police cruiser screech to a halt behind them, unable to follow.
The tunnel wasn't meant for traffic. The bike roared through a small channel of water, sound bouncing off the enclosed space, and the concrete was lit only by the bike's headlights. Panic almost overwhelmed her, but she fought it down. This was her last chance-she had to get off this bike. Gritting her teeth, she brought her left leg up, intending to plant it on the seat and kick herself off to the side.
Before her heel could get purchase on the leather, the big man wrapped an arm around her and squeezed. She gasped, the air leaving her in a rush. She tried to struggle, legs flailing, but they barely teetered. Her weight was simply no match for the big man's. A moment later, the bike rolled to a stop, water sluicing away from the front tire before settling back into its steady downward roll.
The big man stood, pulling her off with him, and let the still-running bike topple into the water. His arm loosened slightly, and Paige sucked in a breath. "Help!" she screamed, still trashing, knowing the sound would likely reach no-one. "Somebody help me!"
The big man ignored both her shouts and her struggles and simply hauled her off to the side. There was an unassuming metal door set in the tunnel wall, covered in chipped red paint. It had no handle or discernible means of entry. Tucking her under one arm despite her frantic movements, he lifted his other hand and knocked three times. A moment later, it opened from within. A woman poked her head through, pale, with blonde hair that shone white from a light behind her, washed out by urban fatigues and carrying a large, menacing rifle. Paige stilled at the sight of it. The woman's eyes rested briefly on Paige, then returned to the big man's as she swung the door fully open and stepped aside to let him through. "The others?" she asked.
"Abdul might have made it," the big man said. He strolled forwards, pulling Paige along like she was nothing. "The others…"
The woman shut the door behind them with a resounding clang. She grimaced. "They could give it all away."
"They will reveal nothing," the big man said, with an almost paternal patience. He rested a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You have much yet to learn about our ways."
The woman flinched as if receiving a rebuke, and lowered her eyes to the floor. "I understand," she muttered. "I apologize for my ignorance."
"You will learn," the big man said. He left his hand for a moment more, then gave a brief squeeze that made the woman flinch again before releasing her. He turned away from her, looking deeper into the tunnel.
At last, he released Paige from under his arm. She stumbled away and almost fell on her face, but managed to catch her shoulder against the tunnel wall. Her chest heaving, she peered up at him through straggling curls of hair. He reached into a pocket of his coat and withdrew a black flashlight. He clicked it on and angled the beam down the tunnel ahead.
"After you," he said, his voice echoing.
Paige swallowed convulsively. She thought about screaming again, but there hardly seemed a point. Even if the policemen from the cruiser had followed them down the tunnel, their handguns wouldn't do anything against the woman's rifle. She'd gun them down the second they got through the door. The only thing she could do now was play along, and try not to get herself hurt. Or killed. So she pushed herself off the wall and then, staggering as her heels hit uneven patches of pavement, she started down the tunnel, her shadow stretching into infinity before her.
The journey down into the sewers was ever after imprinted on Paige's mind with the awful, hallucinatory clarity of a feverish night. Her body, not particularly strong or enduring, was frigid and spent. The patent leather heels soon turned her feet into two stubs of distant pain. And then there was the sound. Neither of them spoke. There was only their footfalls and their breathing; but the mask amplified and distorted his breathing into an unsettling rasp. It could have been funny, if it had sounded like Darth Vader's respirator or something like that, but it didn't. It sounded at once like the gasping breath of a dead man and the low snarling of a wild animal. Its only accompaniment was Paige's increasingly ragged gasps for air as the walk stretched on, and on, and on, as they continued their endless walk downwards through tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. At some point the big man grabbed her arm and began hauling her along, and by the end of the journey, Paige largely dangled from his grasp. She wasn't sure, when she found herself being lowered onto a soft surface, if she was awake or dreaming. In either case, her consciousness slipped away, and she fell into dreamless sleep.
"May I ask why?" Barsad said, nodding at the woman currently lying on Bane's cot. He had been eagerly awaiting Bane's return, looking forward to his account of the operation, but he had been surprised to see the leader of the League of Shadows carrying in this woman. She was a scrawny thing—stick thin and tall, all arms and legs. Her cheeks were hollow and pale, and she unconsciously drew herself into a tight, gangly knot as she lay there, shivering.
Bane didn't look away from her. He was silent for a moment, and Barsad thought he might not respond, but then he said, "She was the woman in the alley, two weeks ago. Gotham's kind heart."
Ah. "What are your orders?" he asked. Poor thing, he thought, without much sympathy. It'll be that wretched Sudanese girl all over again. She'd lasted a good three weeks before cracking and killing one of the men; she was one of their best snipers now. Barsad doubted this stick of a woman would fare quite so well.
"Have Arnaud or Pryinka outside the doors when I am not here," Bane said. "Regular food and water. And find whatever information you can about our Paige Carter."
Barsad nodded. "I'll get started at once, sir."
Bane waved a hand, and that was Barsad's dismissal. As he turned away, he saw Bane reach to the hook on the wall and pull off his heavy wool coat. He tossed it onto the woman, burying her completely, and that was the last Barsad saw before the door swung closed behind him.
As he went in search of Arnaud and Pryinka, he thought again, but still with little pity, Poor, poor woman.