The Batman: Downfall Ch. 02

"Ah, Mr Wayne right this way," the concierge called out loudly a smile plastered below his thin black moustache. The concierge walked with his shoulders pushed back, his smile growing smugger as he lead the expensive suited man to a table in a private corner. Heads turned this way and that, mostly women though Jim noted one or two male movers and shakers taking note at the added attention the new guest was getting. With a theatrical flourish the concierge pulled out a chair and seated Bruce Wayne.

"Now that's someone you should be investigating dad." Barbara said her eyes narrowing as she looked over at the billionaire playboy. "No one is that good looking and that rich without being dirty, wouldn't surprise me if he has ties with the Maroni's."

Jim laughed loudly he held a balled fist to his mouth and coughed trying to mask the sudden burst of merriment. "Bruce Wayne is not tied to any mob boss, not Maroni, not Falcone, not Dimitrov." Barbara arched one eyebrow, "Of course I looked in to him." They both laughed together then, like father like daughter it seemed.

First course came and went and their main course went down just as easily. Once the plates were cleared off the table Barbara asked, "I need to come over to your headquarters tomorrow, a small matter of the public records system and the Police system not running in synch maybe we can meet up for lunch."

"You don't waste any time in your new job do you! I'll let the desk Sergeant know you will be about, he'll get you through with no hassle. But no can do with Lunch, I have a meeting with the mayor and his cronies." Jim replied, Barbara had his drive and she was jumping into her new job head first. He noticed a lopsided smile on Barbara's face that made him turn and look over at Bruce Wayne who was still sitting on his own, now tapping on the table with the one hand that was not trussed up on his chest. "Stood up? First time for everything I guess."

By the time dessert came, Bruce had flung in the towel or in this case an expensive white napkin he stood up and meekly made his way down the restaurant to the front door. Barbara made eye contact for less than a second but it was enough to stop the man in his tracks a smile that Barbara thought would not look out of place on a shark, crossed the chiselled chin and well-bred cheeks. Bruce slowed and Barbara groaned inwardly. "Commissioner," Bruce said pulling up at the table, he held out his left hand which Jim grabbed after fiddling with his dessert spoon. "This is not your usual dining hole?"

"Very true Bruce, but I have a special guest staying with me so I thought it best to show her somewhere a little classier than Luigi's Pizza." Jim replied.

Bruce turned to the redhead he had caught a glimpse of the moment he had entered the restaurant. The dawning realisation and the following embarrassment of being stood up was softened as he sat at the table on his own he found himself glancing her way, even from that distance he got a sense of her beauty and an underlying resentment in the way he caught her glances every now and then. He knew who she was but he played along anyway, "Bruce Wayne and you are..." He held out his left hand.

Barbara gripped the offered hand firmly she was no giddy school girl or vapid news reporter, "Barbara, Barbara Gordon." She was surprised to find a very firm hand shake there was power behind the grip enough to snap her fingers if he applied enough pressure perhaps. "What happened to your arm?" she asked.

Bruce looked down at his right arm as if he had forgotten about the injury, "This? I got flung from my horse playing polo." The answer was stock Bruce Wayne and he loathed saying it.

"I didn't realise the Koreans were big on Polo?" The odd question brought a quizzical look to Bruce's face, his head cocking to one side but Barbara could also see the unease in his eyes "How are Wayne enterprises doing after the North Korea fiasco?" she wanted to laugh as she saw her question hit home.

Jim's mouth dropped open and he quickly spoke, "Barb' just got her doctorate and a new job right here in the City as head of the public library, this meal is sort of a combined celebration." He could feel the tension between his daughter and Bruce.

Bruce gave an easy smile, trying not to draw attention to the fact that Barbara Gordon still held his hand. "That's great news on both accounts. The public library needs young blood in there if it's to survive the digital age."

Barbara nodded and continued on her original line of questioning, "I only ask because I couldn't find much in the papers, North Korea acquiring a shipment of Wayne Tech weapons I thought would have made the front pages the world over last month." She took some delight in the way Bruce's mouth lost its smile. The story had been buried and buried deep, the look on Bruce's face told her he knew it had been too.

"An error our far eastern field office is quickly rectifying I assure you. It seems our background checks were not as thorough as they should have been and the shipment went through a grey company before anything could have been done." The words rolled off Bruce's tongue with ease, he had said the same thing to the ministers in South Korea as well as China.

If he were lying he was very good at it, Barbara could detect no tell in his face, heck even his pulse had remained steady. "Well that's good to hear," she finally relinquished her grip, "There are plenty of bad men in this city Mr Wayne, I would hate to think you were one of them too."

"Christ Barbara!" Jim exclaimed loudly, "Bruce I'm sorry..."

Bruce held up his hand, that easy smile returning but his eyes still looked troubled "That's okay I have been called much worse, but I assure you Miss Gordon I am one of the good guys." He wished them both a good evening and headed off at what he hoped was a steady pace. Barbara Gordon was beauty with a beast of a mind, she we chew through the ranks of Gotham's public sector easily and make enemies along the way.

"What the hell was that Barb'?" Jim demanded in a hushed tone, his dessert now long forgotten.

"There is something not right about him and his company. Who accidently sells arms to North Korea? What's next for Wayne Enterprises, Nuclear warheads to Cuba?"

"Barbara if you want to get on in this City and rise to the top you need people like Bruce Wayne in your corner, trust him, hell trust me when I say he's one of the good guys. This town has not got many of them left."

"It could do with one more," Barbara muttered under her breath as she lifted her ice cream laden silver spoon.

Gotham Police headquarters, Wednesday 11:05am

She had been left in the bowels of Gotham Police Headquarters for over an hour now and not one person had come to check on her. The moment the desk sergeant had gotten her name he had hastily written her visitor pass which she clipped it to her business suit expecting at every turn to be asked to show some ID on her whistle stop tour through the bull pen and through the lower offices. But who she was had buzzed around the headquarters quickly, mostly she suspected because of her dad giving them fair warning that she would be there. It just made her job here even easier. Their five minute walk consisted of the Sergeant telling her what an amazing man her father was, what an amazing job he was doing etc. etc.

He had shown her direct to the lower floors of the police department and into the server room and that was the last living soul she had seen for over an hour. Finding the right algorithm to get both this system and the Libraries system talking the same language had taken Barbara about five minutes, the rest of the time she had spent lazily clearing caches, putting files into alphabetical order and all other mundane jobs that made it look like she was working hard if someone just happened to come down.

Barbara had gotten up out of her chair five times, left the computer room two of those times the second time to get a paper cup of water from a dust covered water dispenser at the end of the corridor, the real reason she was here sat at the end of the long narrow corridor, she sipped the water disliking the old taste of it and scanned the ceiling for any sign of cameras getting a moment of relief when she spotted none.

Getting the schematics for the station had been worryingly easy, that was her first indication of how badly run the public library of Gotham was. The Police Department as it now stood was a new building built upon the foundations of an older structure, a structure that Barbara Gordon was now walking through. When she was Ten she had listened to her dad tell her that the Gotham Police department were tight asses who never threw anything away, they kept it stored just in case.

She now stood in front of a set of iron doors behind which sat the unused, long forgotten and outdated equipment that the department refused to throw away. A rusted hasp hung loosely from one door, the padlock long since missing. Barbara took another look over her shoulder, the stairs leading from the top floor now directly behind her even if she ran she would not make the computer server room without alerting someone. She took a deep breath and pushed one door open.

Barbara reached into her suit pocket and pulled out a small flashlight, she did not want to chance the main lights. Her nose tingled with the years of accumulated dust and she ran her tongue across the roof of her mouth delaying the inevitable sneezing fit that would come. The thin, tight beam of the flash light skipped over equipment that was years old, some piled neatly others tossed haphazardly the further into the room she went. Barbara lowered the flashlight to the floor, footprints disquietingly recent, had kicked up the dust and debris on the floor, somewhere out there a cop or two had added outdated and dangerous equipment to their itinerary in their attempt to catch a man sized Bat.

Barbara sighed, she had plenty of second thoughts about what she was going to attempt but that was when she was going to be the one using lousy equipment now the idea of someone lobbing a twenty year old smoke bomb or worse yet a grenade at her tied her stomach in knots. She found the Kevlar jackets after a deeper search near the door way, she grabbed one and felt the weight of it instantly, without thinking she tossed it across the floor. The next jacket she reached in and found the loose sheets of Kevlar and pulled them out one by one, again tossing them over to where the other jacket now lay.

The next ten minutes went by in agonising slow time. Barbara's heart was pounding in her throat her hands were shaking and she had knocked a box full of smoke grenades to the ground with her carelessness. More time was wasted clearing them up, by the time she had finished she had added a helmet, twenty or so smoke bombs and a swat uniform she thought might be re-used if she could remember how to sow, along with carabineers, rope (that would probably snap on her first use) and other bits of paraphernalia that she had started to take with no idea on how to use it or what it could be used for a small taste of kleptomania spurring her on.

Barbara's next stop was the disused trash shoot for this floor her small sedan was parked right below the chutes exit on the lower level of the garage. She had scrunched up a gym bag into her handbag which she now loaded and dragged down the opposite corridor to the chute, she lifted it with effort onto the lip of the shoot and it took an almighty push to get it to close. She listened as the bag whacked and banged its way down the chute. Barbara walked back as steady as she could to the server room and straightened herself out.

Barbara had walked through the station as if she had not a care in the world. She thanked the desk sergeant when he had waved at her she even spent another few minutes listening to him talk about what an amazing man her father was yet again. Then she was through and out into the car park, the elevator ride was slow, cops and lawyers were all about her, she smiled back at the ones who smiled at her, shot a dirty look to one creepy looking lawyer who was just about to start chatting to her but in general she kept to herself.

By the time she reached her car the cool calm exterior had given way, her legs shook and she dry heaved by the rear wheel of her car. Her head throbbed as the adrenaline rush finally ebbed and cold hard reality sank in, she was now a criminal even if her reasons were good the law would come down hard on her. The bag was where it should have been, the black hole above her car was the exit of the chute, the bag had slid down and right out landing neatly behind her sedan. She heaved it into the boot before sitting behind the wheel of her car taking deep breaths with her eyes closed, when she left the garage the cool calm exterior was back, and would remain in place until she finished work later that evening.

Boone Arboretum,

Gotham's arboretum was a failure from the moment its doors opened to the general public. It was supposed to be a gift to all of Gotham from a botanist who had been born and raised in Gotham only to die in the middle of a rain forest. His inept son though amazing with architecture declined the services of any Botanist in the choosing of what plants would work. By the time the grand opening half of the Arboretum had a serious fungal problem the other half was dying or dead.

It took six months before the doors were shut for the final time. Kincaid Boone the Architect went bankrupt and fled Gotham owing serious money to the Falcone crime family. Over ten years the arboretum changed hands but never re-opened, it sat a glass tri-domed wonder as the rest of Gotham grew around it until it was nothing more than the wreck that Poison Ivy now inhabited.

The soil was still fertile and it took Ivy only a matter of days to start bringing the exotic dead back to life. Now the arboretum was filled with thick, green, jungle life. Creepers and vines covered most of the walls, ceilings and floor. Wolfsbane, Atrope Bella Donna, Nerum Oliander and other deadly flowers sprouted in profusion throughout the jungle canopy. The large office space near the rear of the Arboretum had given way to the vicious growth of the jungle, the door now hung from the ceiling floorboards ripped up and discarded to make way for root systems. But one space still remained clear a long conference table that now held a mixture of chemical, pharmaceutical and medical equipment that Poison Ivy now leaned over her thoughts lost in the minute chemical reactions that were happening beyond her vision.

"No Bats last night," Harley said pouting. She sat on a table legs swinging back and forth aimlessly, her skirt was hiked up way past her thighs in an attempt to get Ivy's attention to the fact that she wore no panties. Instead she had gotten the attention of a couple of Joker's goons who Harley had brought along for back up. She let them stare it was not like they were ever going to get close enough to taste her. "What happens if he's dead Ivy?"

Poison Ivy paid no attention, her cool eyes flicked from apparatus to apparatus her tongue poked out and pressed against her upper lip something that the long dead Pamela Isley used to do when a troublesome formula presented itself. When Harley asked the question again a little louder this time Ivy turned from the lab machinery that worked tirelessly before her, ever spinning, heating, crystallising, separating, evaporating, and condensing. "Then we rejoice, have a party and watch Gotham burn." She smiled at the show Harley was putting on, but it was a weak, forced smile a requirement to keep Quinn from jumping off the deep end, "But have no fear the Batman lives on, he is holed up somewhere licking his wounds trying to work out just what I am up to."

A large white plastic machine beeped softly and Ivy turned back her brow knitting together, she thumped the counter with one fist. "This is not right," she muttered to herself, the vial was almost all empty she had wasted too much of it already in the course of the last twenty four hours.

Ivy tensed as Harley laid her hands onto her shoulders the girl was getting in her way, inane questions were always a breath away it seemed with Harley today, that was always a problem with the psychotic they just never knew when to shut up. "It's okay Ivy you'll figure it out....oh that's a pretty red flashing light."

Ivy shrugged Harley's hands loose, "It's not pretty it's disappointing, the enzymes separate at a molecular level the way they should, but condensing them back into a liquid is impossible, I am missing something, temperature perhaps..." she lost herself in her thoughts, thoughts that Poison Ivy did not realise belonged to Pamela Isley, deep down the weak woman lived on.

"Well I don't know about the enzymes temperature but I am feeling pretty hot." Harley replied in an up tempo sing song and pushed her body against Ivy dry humping her lover's ample backside as she did.

Ivy's hand was flying through the air before she could stop it she had whirled around and delivered the stinging slap to Harley Quinn's face before her brain could engage. "Don't you understand? If this doesn't work the plan is a failure, there is no plan B." Harley stared wide eyed one hand clutching the side of her white face. Her two goons raced forward grabbing pistols that they had sitting snuggly in the belts of their jeans.

From the ground two creepers whipped out finding the goons ankles and wrapping around lifted them high, another two creepers peeled away from the wall and ceiling and wrapped a death grip around the throats of the dangling goons and tightened. Ivy swallowed her anger, calming herself down. She moved forward towards Quinn and as she did commanded with a simple thought for the creepers to lower the two goons. She hugged Harley feeling the tense body beneath and the rage that was making it shiver. "I need you, I cannot do this without you," the rage lessened. "When this is over we can be together, for ever if you want. But right now I need you to help me solve this."

The goons dropped to the ground with an exhalation of what little air was left in their lungs, "You're the brains of this operation not me." Harley said sulkily, her psychology degree for the time being forgotten. "What do you need me to do?" Ivy turned her head and whispered a name into Harley's ear.

Doctor Frederick Zimm had spent his life dealing with the wonders and mysteries of science, he was classed as one of the top ten scientists when he was a young man, his pedestal that was to sit in the annuals of history had crumbled and finally fallen away so that now thirty years later at the age of sixty he found himself teaching college kids the fine art of chemistry. His last class of the day filed out of the room in a display of noise and body parts. Frederick closed his tattered course book and slipped it into his attaché case along with the completed assignment paperwork for his class, just a quick glance had told him that Google had done most of the work, three students work were identical in every fault from a terrible copy and paste effort.

He turned to wipe his white board clean and noticed the young lady stood in the doorway. Her dark hair was tied back in a tight severe bun her eyes covered by thick black rim glasses and her lips a deep shade of red. She wore a pinstripe business suit, the skirt was modest length to her knee's, though the top was a little more daring than Fredrick thought appropriate, the jacket was done up with one button and the white blouse beneath revealed an ample amount of cleavage. "Professor Zimm?" The lady asked with an accent that was jarring in its Brooklyn tones.

"Yes that's me how may I help you?" The doctor asked and the lady walked into his classroom the door slowly closing behind her. She stood in front of his desk and placed a black briefcase flat on the surface. His eyes flicked to the case then to the blue eyes beneath the glasses he caught a glance of the cleavage up close and scolded himself for being so juvenile.