Author’s Note: I dreamt part of this!
Legalities: Property of respective owners.
Rating: PG-13 (mostly for graphic-ness)
Summary: Batman is on a case, dum-da-dum! LIKE always! Just read!
One Night
By: Carmen Wayne
I
had no idea how things could change in one night, Bruce.
You’d be amazed at what can happen within hours.
I was beaten.
You got cocky.
How do you say that?
You started rushing into things.
I did not.
You thought you were invincible.
I did not!
Don’t act like that.
We all go through it.
Even you?
Even I.
----------
“This
is the forth murder in five weeks,” Commissioner Barbara Gordon said. “Normally I don’t employ the business of…”
“Vigilantes?”
Batman asked.
“But
this is a chance to prove yourself,” she continued.
“As
if I haven’t already?”
“I
mean on a more rounded scale. You’ve
proven you can handle the reincarnations of insane killer clowns with control
of satellite deathrays… But I’m talking
real detective work, kid.”
Batman
had to quirked an eyebrow at her in question at that.
“That’s
the boss’s job.”
“He’s
not going to be around forever kid. And
if you plan to wear that suit, co-dependency simply won’t do.”
With
that, Gordon turned on her heel and walked away, leaving the Tomorrow Knight
stunned from that. Shaking his head, he
jumped off the side of the GCPD building and started a dive down the hundred
stories of the building. Calmly, he
snapped his wings out and waited patiently for less than thirty feet under him
before he spiraled and arched around to glide to the side and away. In his ear, he heard:
||You’re
getting bold, McGinnis.||
“What
can I say? It’s like walking. After a while, JUST walking gets kinda
boring. You wanna do more!”
||Are
you going to want help on this case?||
“Can
I try to do it myself? She wants to see
if I’m a detective.”
||You’re
no detective.||
“Oh,
gee, thank you for the faith, Wayne.”
****
Terry
McGinnis, wearing his batsuit still, sat in front of the batcomputer with the
pictures of the four murder victims in front of him. Ace, the “bat” dog, sat beside him, watching the screen ever so
helpfully.
“All
four victims had some government position,” Terry said. “One the state, local and federal
levels. We’ve got one four star
general, pentagon-class. Sam Young’s
assistant DA. A police lieutenant… and
the governor of New York. All murders
occurring at eleven o’clock to midnight around beach-ways.”
“Don’t
forget,” Bruce Wayne said, walking up behind him, cane in hand, “that each
murder occurred when the sky was completely clear and the moon was shining
brighter than on most nights.”
“What
does that have to do with the price of ducks?” Terry asked, turning in the
chair to him.
“Nothing,
but it has everything to do with this case.
Our killer is nocturnal. And
prefers the light of moonlight.”
“How
do you figure? Every damn place in this
city is lit up by lights!”
Bruce
scoffed those words with a disapproving grunt and poked Terry with his cane,
wanting him to get up from the chair so he could sit down. Terry pulled out and moved. Slowly, Bruce went over and sat down,
clutching his cane after he was settled in both hands diabolically. With a simple push of a button, he downloaded
a map into Terry’s suit.
“Why
don’t you go to the scenes of the crimes and take a look around for yourself?”
Terry
watched him warily as he pulled his hood up, over his head.
“I
told you not to help me with this case.”
“Everyone
needs help.”
“You’ve
trained me well enough, I think I can do this myself!”
“We’ll
see. Now go.”
With
a sigh, Batman shook his head, turned on his heel, and walked away for his
“batmobile”, or as one time, a long time ago, referred to by Bruce himself as
simply… “the car”.
****
The
scene of the murdered assistant DA was certainly something Batman could have
lived without. The man had been
murdered just the previous day before on the South shore of Gotham, and clean
up was still in process, but it seemed people had forgotten to take the
blood-saturated sand. Slowly, Batman
trailed down from the hovering batmobile by use of his wings, to the sand,
making no noise. This was his last
stop, and the most vivid.
Each
victim was killed in the same way—as brutally as possible. Like assistant DA Presley Anderson II, for
example, had been completely mauled to a point that his skin had become
completely separated with his body.
Batman was internally very grateful to not have seen the body. Commissioner Gordon had almost shown him the
pictures in their briefing, but he adamantly convinced her (“gah”ed and screamed
“No!”) not to show him.
“This
is *really* gross, boss,” Batman muttered under his breath.
Even
though no response came, he knew Bruce was listening.
He
looked through every part of the scene, step by step. Nothing, whatsoever, stood out as a clue.
Step
by step, in a one hundred foot perimeter, Batman searched for strands of hair,
articles of belongings, shreds of paper or fabric, footprints, broken branches
of the nearby flora, anything. There
was nothing different than the others, nothing out of place besides the
obvious. Nothing dropped, no foot
prints. All Batman could do was come up
with one conclusion.
“We’re
dealing with a professional.”
||Nothing
out of the ordinary?||
“Nothing. There’s blood everywhere, but even on heat
sensors… nothing.”
||Sounds
like someone knows how to clean up.||
“Sounds
like a professional.”
||Good
boy.||
“Could
it be a mercenary, maybe?”
||Why
would anyone hire a mercenary to murder random government members.?||
“I
don’t know. But it has to be someone
that knows what people look for in an investigation.”
||A
corrupt officer?||
“I
don’t—hey, wait a minute…”
||What’s
wrong? … McGinnis?||
Batman
didn’t respond as he walked down the beach a bit to an odd structure that stood
up at least twenty feet from the sand.
It was made of thick wood, in the shape of a… something. He couldn’t tell what. Ropes aided in having it jut two round planks
out and then three up, in sort of a pitchfork fashion.
“Boss… I… found our lead.”
||Switch
on your vid-link and let me see then.||
Batman
did so, looking up and down the plank.
“My
god—these were at each of the scenes!
But no one paid any attention to them!”
||Why
would the killer take time to build a wood construct?||
“Why
would the Joker take time to tediously plan out a crime that makes no sense to
anyone but himself? It’s a method.”
****
In
the Batcave, Bruce gave off a very faint smile at his young student’s
words. ‘*Good* boy,’ he thought,
satisfied. As he spoke, he didn’t let
the smile show through his words, he kept his voice as gruff as always.
“Alright,
genius, tell me the connection.”
||I
don’t know yet, alright? Damn, give me
a break here, old man!||
Bruce
would have chuckled had he had the ability.
****
Batman
paced around the construct, trying to figure out what it meant.
“I
looked at each of these EACH time, and I didn’t register it until now.”
||Try
to remember any defining marks.||
Batman
slowly closed his eyes, trying to trace back and over each of the different
constructs he saw. He remember a movie
he saw one time on the Turner Movie Classics station… It reminded him of this.
‘What was it called again?’ he wondered… ‘Oh yeah.’
“This
is sadly Blair Witch,” he muttered.
||Pah.||
“Wait,
I’m remembering something.”
Silence
told him he was being given the time to refresh his memory. Jetting up to the top part of the construct,
he landed on the shaking wood, one leg on each side of the middle plank. Carved there were the letters “CBJG1”. Batman traced the carving with his fingers,
still flashing to the other constructs.
“They
each had different letters and numbers carved in them.”
||Do
you remember the letters and numbers?||
“Kind
of on the letters. The numbers, for
sure. Seventeen, eight, four… and now
one.”
||What
do you suppose those mean?||
“Well,
seventeen, eight and four… and one…
Those equal thirty. About one
month. But the entire layout happened
on a five week time table the investigators had placed this on, and that’s
approximately thirty five day, seven days, five weeks, seven times five.” Batman closed his eyes once more. “Seventeen plus seventeen is 34… Wait!”
||What?!||
“I
know!”
||You
do?||
“It’s
going by halves! Thirty-five divided by
two is seventeen point five. Seventeen
point five divided by two is eight point seventy-five. Eight point seventy-five divided by two is
four point three-seven-five. But the
weird part is that four point three-seven-five divided by two is two point
one-eight-seven-five, NOT one.”
||And?||
“The
general was murdered, then seventeen days later, at 11:30 PM, the Lieutenant
was murdered. His number was
eight. Eight days later, the governor
was killed at 11:45 PM! By these
letters was four, and then the assistant DA was murdered. Now the number one! The killer isn’t going by the moon, the
killer’s set his own pattern in numbers!”
****
“How
in the hell are you adding all that so fast, McGinnis?” Bruce asked, not
letting the very satisfied smile on his face reflect in his voice still.
||…My
dad was a math buff.||
“Alright. Keep going.
What were the letters?”
****
“For
God’s sake, I’m trying to remember!”
||Remember
faster! If your theory is true, today
will be the next murder…!||
Batman
didn’t respond, eyes squeezed shut. He
flashed to the day of the General’s murder.
Four star General Casey Kelley was the first female to ever be awarded a
four star and work as an advisor to the president on Commander in Chief
dealings. She was visiting family, and
had been walking on the beach nearby when she was murdered. The wood construct consisted of the letters,
Batman began to remember…
“LTMB17,”
Batman said. “The construct by General
Kelley was LTMB17.”
||Could
that be the telling of the next victim?||
“…Lieutenant
Miranda Banks. Eight days later…”
||L
and T are the abbreviations of Lieutenant.||
“MB…
Miranda Banks.”
||And
the next?||
Miranda
Banks was one of the few straight cops that had survived the previous
commissioner of the GCPD and became one of Commissioner Gordon’s favorites when
she came into power of the GCPD forces.
She was due to be promoted to Captain the next week, until she was
murdered. Though Gordon assured she
would be given the title anyway. She
had earned it, after all. Banks had
been taking her midnight jog, when evidence showed she tracked a stalker down
to the east shore. Batman began to
remember what the construct near hers said.
“GOVJA8,”
he said.
||Are
you seeing the pattern yet?||
“Governor
John Anvers, four days later… His
construct would then read ‘ADAPAII4’.
Assistant District Attorney Presley Anderson the Second, four days
later.”
||And
now this. CBJG1.||
“Who
is it?”
||Who
do you think it is?||
“My
first guess would have been the commissioner, if it had been just CBG1, but—“
||It
IS the commissioner, Terry.||
“What?!”
||Commissioner
Barbara Janice Gordon, one day later.||
“Oh
no.”
||Get
to her, she should be at home, now!||
“I’m
going!!”
****
When
Batman arrived at the large home of Barbara Gordon and Sam Young, it was
completely dark. As if no one had come
home. Batman landed softly on the roof
and paced to a skylight, slowly and carefully opening it, minding the sensors
of the home security system that they had placed there. He slid in the skylight and switched on his
night vision once he had landed in the middle of the library-like study. Stealthily, he crept along to the door that
led out into the hallway.
Bruce
had cut the connection with him, saying he was going to be going off to
bed. This allowed Batman to concentrate
more on all his surroundings, sure, but part of him said that Bruce was still
there, watching the vid-link without Batman even knowing. Not that he really minded, it wasn’t like he
was going to do anything scandalous.
Downstairs,
he heard a faint beeping from the kitchen.
Carefully, he paced in, looking around in case someone was in the house,
and then looked towards a red flashing light.
It was the answering machine of the house. A sigh of relief escaped Batman’s lips, for he had feared it was
a bomb or something dangerous. He
walked over and pushed the button to hear the one message on there.
“Sam? It’s Barb.
I’m going to be late tonight. I
got a call on that murder case. Someone
who might know something, down at the southeast shore by the docks… I don’t like it, but that’s where I’ll be at
about 10:45 tonight. If I’m not home by
sunrise… call the station. Love you.”
Batman
frowned at that and looked over to a clock.
It read 11:01 PM. Every murder
up until that time had occurred between 11:00 PM and midnight, 12:00 AM. ‘Crap,’ he thought, turning on his heel and
sprinting out.
******
Commissioner
Gordon pulled up to an area where there was little people and little
light. She left her own car lights on
once it set down on the grass and sat back in her seat, doors locked. In her mind, over and over, she had reviewed
the case. The bodies brutalized in the
most inhumane ways, clearly played with like a cat plays with a mouse before it
kills it. All of the victims incredibly
good people, many people understood.
General Kelley, a conservative good-doer, had been the reason the USA
was still on the face of the planet with her advice to the president when
nuclear threats had been made. Her plan
was violent, but assured the victim count would be low. Lieutenant Miranda Banks reminded her of
Detective Renee Montoya, from a long time ago.
She had uncovered the scandal of the previous commissioner of the GCPD
and helped arresting him and helped get Gordon elected as the first female
commissioner in the history of Gotham.
Governor Anvers’ work to put the homeless to work and in homes of their
own was one of the most successful tries ever.
Assistant DA Anderson’s father, the previous DA, was a good friend of
hers, as well as Anderson the Second himself.
Both were some of the best lawyers out there, by her husband’s side.
She
just didn’t understand who would want to murder them all.
When
Barbara looked to her right, out the passenger window, she noticed a familiar
sight. She had taken notice to the wood
constructs near the other murder victims, and one exactly like it was not even
twenty feet away from her car. She
furrowed her brow and looked over the beach slowly, from the passenger window
and slowly across the front window.
Every single condition was the same as it was the same as on the other
nights those people had been killed.
Eyes
slowly going to the window to her left, the wickedly smiling face of a rather
large man holding a pair of escrima sticks greeted her. His wild blue eyes and stark white hair made
him look ever the more crazy.
“Good
evening commissioner! I have your lead
on the case right here!”
*****
The
Batmobile slammed to a stop right above Commissioner Gordon’s car. The bottom hatch slid open and he dropped
down ontop of the roof, which caved partially in. Batman gripped the edges better to steady himself and slowly
looked over the side of the car.
“Whoa…”
he breathed out.
The
door was completely missing from the frame of the car, and the seatbelt of the
driver’s side had been frayed, as if pulled apart. Batman’s heart began to race, fearing the worst. He stood up and began to look around for
anything that would give him a clue as to where the Commissioner was taken—his
answer coming when she was thrown right into his back and he sailed face first
into the hood of the card, Gordon falling off ahead of him on the sand. She groaned and slowly sat up. Batman rubbed his jaw and then touched her
shoulder.
“Gordon…?”
“Be—Behind—you—“
Batman
spun fast to see what was coming, but was still too late. A hand reached down and grabbed him by the
neck and pulled him off the hood, spinning and slamming him into the side of
the car, something in his ribcage in his back snapping right then and there. He was allowed to drop to the ground by the
monster of a man that stood there.
“It’s
about damn time you showed up, Bat-nut.
I was beginning to think I was going to have to clean out the entire
government before you caught on!”
Batman
forced himself to his feet, despite the flaming pain in his back, and watched
the man carefully.
“Who—Who
the hell ARE you?!”
The
man was at least Bruce’s height, and a good fifty pounds heavier in muscle than
Bruce ever was. And Bruce was 6’2” and
about 220 pounds.
“That
doesn’t really matter, now does it? You
can call me Cain, if you’d like.”
Cain
spun on his foot and slammed another out in a back kick that Batman tried to
block, but still was knocked back a bit.
As he tried to recover, Cain pushed forward and slammed a fist straight
across his jaw, nearly breaking it. A
katana was suddenly pulled from out of nowhere by Cain and he spun, slashing
straight across Batman’s chest, and then he reversed his spin and got him
across the left flank. The blade was
enough to go straight through all the Kevlar-nomex and the electronics, right
into his skin. Muscle had been damaged
for sure.
Batman
staggered back and held his chest tightly.
He looked past Cain briefly to Gordon, who was holding her leg in such a
way that gave him the feeling Cain broke her leg. ‘Have to get him away from her,’ was his next thought.
Without
thinking about it, Batman sprinted to the side, out of the way of a down-strike
of Cain’s blade. Cain turned and darted
after him. The batsuit snapped out it’s
wings when Batman gave the mental command and his jet boots flashed on soon
after. He launched into the air, above
the psychotic, and bent backwards so he sailed right over Cain’s head, back
facing the ground. In response, Cain
flung out his katana at Batman, striking his left wing. Before Batman could respond, the wing ripped
and he sailed right back into the roof of the car, slid over it, and crashed
into the sand on the other side.
“Batman?!”
Gordon exclaimed, turning a bit to look at him.
“Aw—gawd—I’m
okay…… car broke my fall…”
Cain
jumped over the roof, landing on top of Batman, hand on his neck. A choke unavoidably escaped Batman’s
mouth. Cain squeezed his neck harder
and grinned.
“This
is pathetically easy.”
Batman
closed his eyes and squirmed to get his feet against the ground. Once there, he slammed the jet boots on and
straightened his legs, getting the ability to swing up and slam Cain into the
side of the car.
Barbara
cringed and then sighed. ‘Great. Another car destroyed!”
Batman
slammed a fist into his stomach, and then his jaw, before pushing away into a
dual flip and landing five feet from the construct, eyes focused the best they
could be on Cain’s face. A smile grew
across his adversary’s face, and his eyes were focused below Batman’s
face. Batman looked down fast, just to
feel and hear a mini-explosion rip across his chest and his suit began to spark
up. With a cry of pain, Batman
staggered back and tried to pat out what was happening.
“Oh,
let me help you!” Cain said, grinning.
He
lunged forward and grabbed the upper part of his weakened suit and literally
ripped it from his body.
“Gah--?!”
Batman cried out in pure shock.
“Why
don’t you take the hood off TOO…” Cain said, yanking the cowl off by one ear,
“…McGinnis…”
Terry’s
eyes widened at that, watching him.
“How--?”
“Oh
stop.”
Cain
slammed another fist right into Terry’s face, right into his right eye and then
kicked him full force into the wood construct.
Terry’s head slammed into the wood before he slammed into the ground
beside it. The unsteady construct gave
way from the impact and fell from where it was based, right onto Terry’s torso.
“McGinnis!”
Gordon cried out.
Cain
chuckled and leaned over the construct to look the barely conscious Terry in
the face.
“We
will meet AGAIN, Little-Bat. And
hopefully the next time you won’t be so… weak and inexperienced!”
Maniacal
laughter following, Cain sprinted away into the night.
Barbara
peered around the car, to make sure he was gone, and then began to crawl the
best she could over, around the construct, to Terry’s head. Gently, she brushed his cheek with her
fingers.
“McGinnis…?”
Terry
groaned weakly, pushing at the construct, trying to get it off. His skin was growing pale from both the
bleeding and the beating. Barbara
pulled her cell phone out and turned it on.
“Who…?”
Terry whispered, seeing the phone.
“Shh…
just stay conscious, kid… Phone, dial
Sam Young,” she ordered. She put it to
her ear, and waited to hear the voice of her husband. “Did you get my message?
… Call Bruce, call Tim… I need
clean up down here ASAP. I also—“
Her
words became muffled as Terry’s hearing zoned out on him. Unconsciousness was coming fast for him, he
knew he must have had a concussion. ‘Oh
great…’ he thought just before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and
all went black.
******
The
next day, heavily bandaged and bed ridden, Terry was just staring at the blank
TV screen of his bedroom. Over the
night, private friends associated with Bruce had cleaned up the area and made
it appear that when Barbara Gordon had been being attacked, Terry McGinnis, not
Batman, came to her rescue as he was passing by on his motorcycle. Mary McGinnis, his mother, was so infuriated
and happy all at once that she just wasn’t sure what to tell him. Even his brother Matt had been on his best
behavior.
His
cell phone rang and he picked it up slowly, turning it on. It would be only one of few people. He checked the caller ID, seeing it was
“Unknown” and knew it was Bruce.
“Yeah?”
he asked drowsily, from his medication.
“How
are you feeling, Terry?” Bruce asked.
Terry
was silent a moment, staring at the screen some more. He wanted to speak, but his voice was lost each time he opened
his mouth. Finally, he shook his head
slowly to clear it.
“I
had no idea how things could change in one night, Bruce,” he asked hoarsely.
“You’d
be amazed at what can happen within hours.”
“I
was beaten.”
“You
got cocky.”
“How
do you say that?”
“You
started rushing into things.”
“I
did not.”
“You
thought you were invincible.”
“I
did not!”
“Don’t
act like that. We all go through it.”
“Even
you?”
“Even
I.”
“What
do I do now?”
“…Take
it one step at a time.”
“And?”
“…And
be prepared. He will come back.”
Terry
blinked at that, frowning. Very softly,
he responded:
“You
know who he is, don’t you?”
“Goodbye,
Terry. Sleep well and get better. And don’t worry. You’re on leave with pay.”
The
other end clicked off. Terry inhaled
and turned off his phone, settling back in such a way that he wouldn’t hurt the
five broken ribs in his upper back and the two broken discs in his lower
spine. ‘Well,’ he thought as his eyes
closed. ‘At least I’m still getting
paid.’
The End