Supremedalekdunn
The Dark Knight: Knight of Gotham #5
Officer Kenneth was most forthcoming in the end. The fear of death is often when people are most honest. The natural survival instinct we possess is a wonderous thing. We’ll do anything to avoid death. Whether it’s squeel to the man dressed as a bat, stab our Friends in the back, or take a dip in a pool of a ‘magical’ compound. Curiously I’ve faced death quite a few times over the years yet I've never done any of these things. I like to tell myself that it’s because of my training and the strong moral principles my parents raised me on, or I'm just lucky enough to have never found myself attacked by a guy in a batsuit. Well, beyond when Alfred wore the suit once early into my career so a large number of people have seen Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same room to prevent any suspicion from being aroused. Deep down though I fear the reality of the situation is that after all these years as Batman I’m anything but human. Mentally anyways.
Physically I’m the same boy who needed Tommy and Harvey to help me fight back against a single bully. I wonder if Clark ever had to deal with bullies during his early years? I’d imagine that whole boyscout routine really bugged quite a few people at school. Hell it bugs me to this day. I wonder when he started to develop that boyscout persona as he sure didn’t have it when we first met. He still had that killer throw though, at least now I know where he got it from. He said he got it from baseball camp, yeah the baseball camp of Krypton. He keeps talking about the league having a game one day. I wish he knew how stupid an idea that is, especially when both he and Barry are faster than a speeding bullet nevermind a speeding baseball.
It took a few minutes for the batwing to scan Gotham and pin down the only exposed signal that matches the specifications of the trackers used by Wrath. Curious that I can only track one though. That should have been my first warning but I quickly brushed it off. From the time I spent dissecting Wrath’s technology last year I know how they work and that when surrounded by Lead the signal is blocked. Presumably Baum knew this as well and has his caches stored in lead containers. A Smart move really, it prevents me from tracking them and a Kryptonian from finding them should he inevitably swing by as he likes to do. Dick’s had him acting as a sniffer dog a couple of times to help him crack down on human traffickers.
With the signal found I quickly make my way to Dixon Docks, Cobblepot’s old shipping area before Sionis claimed it. I wonder if this was the place that Jason supposedly killed him. His memories are a tad sketchy in certain parts thanks to the bullet so he’s not overly sure where it was that killed Sionis but I know he didn’t do it. I’ve had a few sightings of Roman Sionis around Bludhaven and Dick’s been keeping an eye on him ever since I learned where he was hiding. At the moment he’s nothing. His empire is in tatters thanks to Jason and the last thing I want is for him to begin a resurgence. After circling the skies for a few minutes to scan the área I exit the Batwing and make it to the warehouse where the trackers signal originates from. The building is old and a scan with my thermal vision gives me nothing just static, clearly there’s something affecting my connection to the batcomputer so entering the building is probably going to cause me to lose comms. I inform Alfred of my position before I enter the building and he mentions something about Tim’s father. Apparently he’s back in Gotham and at the Manor. Regardless of this I press on and enter the building.
I don’t bother try to use the sensors in my cowl to scan the room as without a connection to the batcomputer they can’t tell me much. Fortunately though I don’t require the sensors to notice the explosives rigged up to blow behind a set of hastily placed fake walls. It’s clearly a trap, but not a desperate trap. If the one behind all this was keen to get me off their trail they would have detonated the explosives the moment I entered the buidling. Whoever is behind this wants me to investigate. Given the amount of explosives it’s clear the intention is to bring the whole building down on me so naturally the one behind this won’t be here. That means he’ll be detonating the explosives remotely so he’ll be sending to a reciever somewhere in the building to trigger the explosives. As I walk further in to the warehouse the lights begin to come exposing more and more of the inside and it’s then that I see the scale of the trap. Every single pillar of the warehouse is covered in military grade C4 as well as large cans of petroleum placed in the walls. Unwilling to risk the culprit getting trigger happy I start throwing down jammers from my belt every few steps. It’s once I run out of jammers that a light comes on in the middle of the room showing a table with what I can only asume to be the gun I’ve been tracking.
Cautiously I approach the table and after checking that there’s no mechanism attached to it, I lift it off the table to inspect it. It’s the standard pistol of the US army corps I’ve seen quite a few of them before mainly as Bruce Wayne rather than Batman though. I still remember the weight this gun carries and as I inspect it I can’t help but notice it’s heavier than usual.
I remove the clip and it’s missing two rounds so it’s clearly been used only to execute the ones who killed Mayor March. Delving deeper in to the gun I finally find the tracker that Officer Baum had placed in the firearm and I must admit it’s very well concealed. Only someone who knows this firearm well would able to spot it. My hope is that these trackers still keep a record of where they’ve gone in the last seven days so I can hopefully find where the one behind this is hiding. As I start to pack the parts of the pistol into my belt to be analysed back at the cave a voice begins to speak over the tanoid.
“Congratulations. You’re faster than those pigs at the GCPD I’ll give you that. I hope you didn’t hurt Officer Baum too much, I am rather fond of him.”
The voice is male. That much is clear but there’s no distinct accent to help identify him from the words he just spoke so I try to engage him in a conversation to get him talking. Hopefully then he’ll slip up and expose any accent that he’s hiding.
“He’s fine. For the moment at least. Why’d you have Mayor March killed?”
“Why did you choose to start dressing like a bat one day?”
“I asked you a question.”
“I know but the answer isn't important so I chose to pose a more interesting one.”
“Why did you kill your own gunmen?”
“What does any child do once it grows tired of its toys? I merely disposed of them.”
“Disposed of them? They’re not your puppets!”
"Not anymore they’re not no. Now they’re nothing more than a couple of wood chippings since I threw them out.”
“Why did you kill them?”
“What can I say? I like to be entertained and those puppets got boring so I cut their strings. All they wanted was money but you……you’re far more interesting. Judging from your attire and equipment, such as that big jet of yours far above us, you don’t have a funding issue so you’re not merely driven by money like those other two clowns. No. What drives you is your desire to help this city, god only knows why.”
“Gotham can be a god place. it just needs protecting from monsters like you.”
“Monsters? Look around you, who’s the one dressed like a rodent?”
I fall silent for a few seconds and in those few seconds of silence I can feel his smugness through the tanoid. It is a valid point really as much as I do hate to admit it.
“Now Dark Knight, it’s been fun having this little discussion with you but alas I must move on. Thus I have no choice but to cut your strings now.”
As he says those words I hear the familiar click of a remote detonator being pressed. Most people would have begged for their lives when he revealed his plan to off me, but I’m not most people and I’m more than adept at getting keeping the odds in my favour.
“Most impressive Dark Knight, you’ve managed to block my detonators signal from reaching the transmitters.”
That sure didn’t take him long to figure out and I didn’t hear any more presses of the detonator. Clearly he’s confident in his own abilities. Most people I know would have pressed the detonator two or three extra times before realizing I’d done something rather than their detonator being faulty.
“It looks like you will be a fun play mate.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“Of course it is. Life’s nothing but one big game of chance. You manage to stop a bomb one day you don’t manage the other day! You manage to save the Commisioner from the clown, his daughter’s less fortunate.”
As he continues monologing to himself I take the momento to disable the reciever for his detonator. I have complete faith in Lucius’ equipment but these days it’s better to be safe than sorry. A quick inspection of the device reveals it to be a modified Amertek reciever. These things usually can only recieve the specific signal of its matching transmitter from a 500 meters away thanks to a limiter installed in the device by order of the US government to prevent it being using as a tool for terror attacks. This reciever though has had its limiter disabled. Not an easy task to accomplish. You need to know the complete specifications of the device to modify it not short out the device, believe me I’ve tried. As I rip the device off the wall and start to leave the building with the bombs difused I notice the familiar red dot of a sniper on the barrel in front of me. Great. Looks like this looney had a back up plan. With the jammers active I can’t signal the Batwing to intervene so I race for the nearest window as the the red dot disappears and I hear the sniper rifle let off it's first shot…
The Dark Knight: Knight of Gotham #5
Officer Kenneth was most forthcoming in the end. The fear of death is often when people are most honest. The natural survival instinct we possess is a wonderous thing. We’ll do anything to avoid death. Whether it’s squeel to the man dressed as a bat, stab our Friends in the back, or take a dip in a pool of a ‘magical’ compound. Curiously I’ve faced death quite a few times over the years yet I've never done any of these things. I like to tell myself that it’s because of my training and the strong moral principles my parents raised me on, or I'm just lucky enough to have never found myself attacked by a guy in a batsuit. Well, beyond when Alfred wore the suit once early into my career so a large number of people have seen Bruce Wayne and Batman in the same room to prevent any suspicion from being aroused. Deep down though I fear the reality of the situation is that after all these years as Batman I’m anything but human. Mentally anyways.
Physically I’m the same boy who needed Tommy and Harvey to help me fight back against a single bully. I wonder if Clark ever had to deal with bullies during his early years? I’d imagine that whole boyscout routine really bugged quite a few people at school. Hell it bugs me to this day. I wonder when he started to develop that boyscout persona as he sure didn’t have it when we first met. He still had that killer throw though, at least now I know where he got it from. He said he got it from baseball camp, yeah the baseball camp of Krypton. He keeps talking about the league having a game one day. I wish he knew how stupid an idea that is, especially when both he and Barry are faster than a speeding bullet nevermind a speeding baseball.
It took a few minutes for the batwing to scan Gotham and pin down the only exposed signal that matches the specifications of the trackers used by Wrath. Curious that I can only track one though. That should have been my first warning but I quickly brushed it off. From the time I spent dissecting Wrath’s technology last year I know how they work and that when surrounded by Lead the signal is blocked. Presumably Baum knew this as well and has his caches stored in lead containers. A Smart move really, it prevents me from tracking them and a Kryptonian from finding them should he inevitably swing by as he likes to do. Dick’s had him acting as a sniffer dog a couple of times to help him crack down on human traffickers.
With the signal found I quickly make my way to Dixon Docks, Cobblepot’s old shipping area before Sionis claimed it. I wonder if this was the place that Jason supposedly killed him. His memories are a tad sketchy in certain parts thanks to the bullet so he’s not overly sure where it was that killed Sionis but I know he didn’t do it. I’ve had a few sightings of Roman Sionis around Bludhaven and Dick’s been keeping an eye on him ever since I learned where he was hiding. At the moment he’s nothing. His empire is in tatters thanks to Jason and the last thing I want is for him to begin a resurgence. After circling the skies for a few minutes to scan the área I exit the Batwing and make it to the warehouse where the trackers signal originates from. The building is old and a scan with my thermal vision gives me nothing just static, clearly there’s something affecting my connection to the batcomputer so entering the building is probably going to cause me to lose comms. I inform Alfred of my position before I enter the building and he mentions something about Tim’s father. Apparently he’s back in Gotham and at the Manor. Regardless of this I press on and enter the building.
I don’t bother try to use the sensors in my cowl to scan the room as without a connection to the batcomputer they can’t tell me much. Fortunately though I don’t require the sensors to notice the explosives rigged up to blow behind a set of hastily placed fake walls. It’s clearly a trap, but not a desperate trap. If the one behind all this was keen to get me off their trail they would have detonated the explosives the moment I entered the buidling. Whoever is behind this wants me to investigate. Given the amount of explosives it’s clear the intention is to bring the whole building down on me so naturally the one behind this won’t be here. That means he’ll be detonating the explosives remotely so he’ll be sending to a reciever somewhere in the building to trigger the explosives. As I walk further in to the warehouse the lights begin to come exposing more and more of the inside and it’s then that I see the scale of the trap. Every single pillar of the warehouse is covered in military grade C4 as well as large cans of petroleum placed in the walls. Unwilling to risk the culprit getting trigger happy I start throwing down jammers from my belt every few steps. It’s once I run out of jammers that a light comes on in the middle of the room showing a table with what I can only asume to be the gun I’ve been tracking.
Cautiously I approach the table and after checking that there’s no mechanism attached to it, I lift it off the table to inspect it. It’s the standard pistol of the US army corps I’ve seen quite a few of them before mainly as Bruce Wayne rather than Batman though. I still remember the weight this gun carries and as I inspect it I can’t help but notice it’s heavier than usual.
I remove the clip and it’s missing two rounds so it’s clearly been used only to execute the ones who killed Mayor March. Delving deeper in to the gun I finally find the tracker that Officer Baum had placed in the firearm and I must admit it’s very well concealed. Only someone who knows this firearm well would able to spot it. My hope is that these trackers still keep a record of where they’ve gone in the last seven days so I can hopefully find where the one behind this is hiding. As I start to pack the parts of the pistol into my belt to be analysed back at the cave a voice begins to speak over the tanoid.
“Congratulations. You’re faster than those pigs at the GCPD I’ll give you that. I hope you didn’t hurt Officer Baum too much, I am rather fond of him.”
The voice is male. That much is clear but there’s no distinct accent to help identify him from the words he just spoke so I try to engage him in a conversation to get him talking. Hopefully then he’ll slip up and expose any accent that he’s hiding.
“He’s fine. For the moment at least. Why’d you have Mayor March killed?”
“Why did you choose to start dressing like a bat one day?”
“I asked you a question.”
“I know but the answer isn't important so I chose to pose a more interesting one.”
“Why did you kill your own gunmen?”
“What does any child do once it grows tired of its toys? I merely disposed of them.”
“Disposed of them? They’re not your puppets!”
"Not anymore they’re not no. Now they’re nothing more than a couple of wood chippings since I threw them out.”
“Why did you kill them?”
“What can I say? I like to be entertained and those puppets got boring so I cut their strings. All they wanted was money but you……you’re far more interesting. Judging from your attire and equipment, such as that big jet of yours far above us, you don’t have a funding issue so you’re not merely driven by money like those other two clowns. No. What drives you is your desire to help this city, god only knows why.”
“Gotham can be a god place. it just needs protecting from monsters like you.”
“Monsters? Look around you, who’s the one dressed like a rodent?”
I fall silent for a few seconds and in those few seconds of silence I can feel his smugness through the tanoid. It is a valid point really as much as I do hate to admit it.
“Now Dark Knight, it’s been fun having this little discussion with you but alas I must move on. Thus I have no choice but to cut your strings now.”
As he says those words I hear the familiar click of a remote detonator being pressed. Most people would have begged for their lives when he revealed his plan to off me, but I’m not most people and I’m more than adept at getting keeping the odds in my favour.
“Most impressive Dark Knight, you’ve managed to block my detonators signal from reaching the transmitters.”
That sure didn’t take him long to figure out and I didn’t hear any more presses of the detonator. Clearly he’s confident in his own abilities. Most people I know would have pressed the detonator two or three extra times before realizing I’d done something rather than their detonator being faulty.
“It looks like you will be a fun play mate.”
“This isn’t a game.”
“Of course it is. Life’s nothing but one big game of chance. You manage to stop a bomb one day you don’t manage the other day! You manage to save the Commisioner from the clown, his daughter’s less fortunate.”
As he continues monologing to himself I take the momento to disable the reciever for his detonator. I have complete faith in Lucius’ equipment but these days it’s better to be safe than sorry. A quick inspection of the device reveals it to be a modified Amertek reciever. These things usually can only recieve the specific signal of its matching transmitter from a 500 meters away thanks to a limiter installed in the device by order of the US government to prevent it being using as a tool for terror attacks. This reciever though has had its limiter disabled. Not an easy task to accomplish. You need to know the complete specifications of the device to modify it not short out the device, believe me I’ve tried. As I rip the device off the wall and start to leave the building with the bombs difused I notice the familiar red dot of a sniper on the barrel in front of me. Great. Looks like this looney had a back up plan. With the jammers active I can’t signal the Batwing to intervene so I race for the nearest window as the the red dot disappears and I hear the sniper rifle let off it's first shot…