2014.02.10 - Talk, You Dirty Rat

Arkham Asylum. It was a place that Dinah Lance had only been to a few times over the last few years. Unsurprisingly, this had nothing to do with the inmates themselves, and simply lack of reason. The drive up on her motorcycle was freakishly traffic free, and the Gotham police, via Jim Gordon, were surprisingly accommodating. Ever since Dinah apprehended Reginald Whitney, things had been different for her and the police: she'd finally been recognized as a hero, more than just another vigilante. In many ways, due to her open book approach, she was more revered as a Gotham icon than even Bat-Man. Dinah laughed to herself over this notion, and tucked her bike into the isolated parking lot, and soon met herself face to face with five very large, very solemn security guards at the front doors of the facility.

Passing the metal detector, she immediately saw the front corridor of the facility: everything was exactly how it looked a year ago: dark, cold, and alienating. She felt a sense of pity for the inmates, while at the same time praying that most of them were never released.

"Gordon phoned up ahead and said you were comin' by, Miss...uh..Canary," the front desk officer said, asking Dinah to sign-in. She presented her I.D., Dinah Lance, a fact that wasn't a great secret, and she observed a security camera capturing her doing it all.

Dinah smiled at the guard, "Then you know who I'm here to see. A miss Nancy Weland..." Dinah paused, checking if she was getting the name right. She didn't really know much more than some newspaper rumors, but Nancy was a potentially a witness for her investigation.

"Yeah, and The 'Scarecrow'!" the guard said, laughing a bit.

"Jonathan Crane," Dinah corrected matter-of-factly, not showing and humor. "Yes." The guard, seeing that Dinah wasn't in the mood to toss around the monikers of madmen, picked up special, electronically-embedded keys and began walking towards the high-security entrance way. After about 11 minutes of silent walking, Dinah finally reached the first level holding area of the facility, on the second floor. This is where they kept the inmates stamped with a 'lower threat level'. Several of the men barked and hooted when they saw Dinah pass, uttering horrible, dirty, suggestive phrases. The least offensive of which was a simple 'nice fishnets'. At the end of the corridor of villains was a woman with red hair, who glared silently at Dinah. Dinah immediately identified the woman: Carrie Hartnell. Cupid. It was Dinah who put her in here.

Soon, Dinah reached an empty, white room with a few thick, glass windows, a table and some chairs. She thought it looked more like an interrogation room than a meeting place.

"You sure ya wanna meet her without any cuffs on her, Miss Canary?" the guard said, finally saying something.

Dinah nodded, and responded, "If you're worried about someone getting hurt, it wouldn't be me. I'm just here to ask a few questions." The guard looked at her with a confused gaze--he wasn't used to this. He informed Dinah that she had 15 minutes with Nancy, and left to fetch her. Dinah sat and waited.

Ever since she came here, Nancy has sat quietly in her cell. When questioned, she'd cooperated. Her therapy, though, has not been going well. The woman is a paranoid schizophrenic, and her conviction regarding her delusions has remained completely unshakable. The world is full of mutants, aliens, and madmen; many of whom she is forced to see in the cafeteria every day. The only reason she isn't dead, she'd explained, is because it is more useful for the people in charge to keep her alive until her name has been forgotten in all the papers, and they can pump her for all she knows before doing away with her.

Entering the room, the most striking thing about the self-styled Queen Rat is just how... drab, she looks. The authorities have been unable to pin down an exact age, but she looks like she's in her mid-to-late forties, pale, drawn. She keeps herself in shape, but she's wiry. Bad food and worse conditions have taken their toll on her skin, her hair.

There's a glint in her eye though - a manic energy, and she ... twitches, as she looks around the room, looks at Dinah, and over her shoulder. She doesn't go to sit down, not at first. Staying standing, though the guard who led her in lingers by the door, waiting to see if Dinah wants some help in handling the unstable woman.

"Surprised they'd send you." She says, at last. "Ms. Lance. Justice League. Alien connection, but unlikely to have been directly turned. Responsible for the incarceration of ten individuals in these fine, fine walls." She smiles, thinly, and leans over the back of the chair opposite Dinah, brushing her fingers through thick, greasy locks. "May I thank you for taking Cupid off the streets? I'm sure we all feel much safer. Well. Those of us who don't have to share a shower with her, that is."

Dinah tried her best to not show surprise with Nancy's immediate and open candor, but her eyebrow unconsciously went up anyway. She wasn't entirely sure if the reference to Cupid was in fact a compliment or not, so she chose not to address it at all.

"Hello, Miss Weland," she said, giving her a small, sincere smile. Adopting a more slow, articulated tone, she says. "So, you know who I am. But since we've never met, can we agree that the media distorts the portrayals of people? I'm not the take-no-prisoners, terminator-robot they try to make me out to be. I mean you no harm... you have nothing to fear. I just have a few simple questions to ask. You can ask me whatever you like, too. It's about the sewers."

Nancy stays standing, and nods her head at first. "Of course it does." She says, "The media is entirely co-opted by the New World Order, it exists to brainwash the masses into complacency, except when their anger makes a more useful tool." Her teeth worry at her bottom lip, and she looks more serious, trying to weigh up the woman before her... and clearly unsure how to react.

"If they wanted me dead, I'd be dead. They could have sent you to rough me up, I suppose, but I think they'll want me in court again, soon, so bruises would be counterproductive. No, you're not here to hurt me, or kill me."

Her fingers drum against the back of her chair, and she nods her head, slowly. "What do you want to know?"

Dinah had a quick, empathic concern over Nancy, as she listed to her, wondering what it would feel like to fathom an uber-conspiracy of that level. She even fought her own impulse to try to discuss the subject like a reasonable person with her. Instead, however, Dinah was a pragmatic woman, and decided to take the convenient route of submission. Nodding to Nancy's comment about the New World Order, following up with the words, "Actually, very few people know I'm here yet. I took this one of my own accord." Almost true--she just left out the bit about Commission Gordon approving it. "You happened to be in the sewers during a short window of time a few weeks ago. A smuggling operation was bringing weapons through the sewers. Very, very dangerous weapons. I was hoping that maybe you'd know of anything--seen anything. They were mobsters," Dinah said. She was taking a chance here, by laying out so much true information out on the table... but she had a feeling that a leap of faith was the only way she was going to earn any trust from Nancy.

Nancy lets out a short burst of laughter at first, but she soon chokes her laughter back down. The woman's expression falls, and she sucks her teeth thoughtfully. "Well, firstly, you should probably know that there'll be far more eyes on you now. People WILL know you were here. So, watch your back."

Her warning given, the woman slides herself into the chair at last, and bows her head slightly, looking up at Dinah as she drums her fingers on the table. The rhythm is quick, stark, as she considers what to say. "I don't actually consider us to be enemies, you know." She says, at last. "The Justice League, Superman, all the rest... you've got good intentions, I'm sure, but you don't see the big picture. That's the problem. So... yes. I was, in, the sewer, if you like. The sewers were mine, and I took my share to let them through my domain without any... troubles. What of it? They are, in the grand scheme of things, almost irrelevant."

Dinah does her best to appear unphased by Nancy's comments--the last bit particularly striking a nerve. She won't allow herself to break character, however. "I'm always on alert," she says, nodding in faux-agreement. In actuality, Dinah was pretty much on alert all the time, especially lately: in the last month she'd had her home invaded, every family member and friend she had threatened by a stalker, but non-consensually drugged by a variant of the Scarecrow formulae, had a kill-contract for $200,000 placed on her head, and negotiated with a warlord. So, yeah, she had reason to be on edge.

Still, Dinah lets a little bit of her frustration show. "The weapons being smuggled are potential WMAs, Weland. I don't know what you've been through, but I'm begging you... if you know anything. Names, destinations, details the men may have given you."

Nancy raises her eyebrow archly, and she sucks her teeth again. "Interesting." She says, at last. "I was told weapons, but I didn't want to know any more than that. I wasn't having to concern myself with storage, after all." Still, the fingers tap. Always tapping, and now the rhythm is more, insistent. Beating out a heady dance as she considers the people she'd dealt with.

"Of course, if I tell you, I risk an awful lot." She says, at last. "At the moment, I'm shielded by my... usefulness. To some degree. If it gets back to these men that I betrayed them, well. Right now, it isn't as though they don't know where to find me... and if I ever return to business, it would damage things a great deal."

She stops drumming, suddenly, and her fingers gesture in a writing fashion, as she leans back in her chair. "So the question is, why would they want such dangerous weapons? Are you sure you aren't... mistaken?"

"We've already found one stockpile," Dinah admitted, "After a week, we managed to trace their point of origin here in the harbors, and the second shipment... that's still out there." Dinah recognizes the legitimacy of being under-gun, but attempts to plea again, regardless. She leaned in, her voice becoming worried. "Nancy... we don't know what they intend to do with these weapons yet, or where they are. Is there anything I can do to convince you to help?" she asked sincerely. Of course, Dinah didn't expect a realistic answer, but she was running out of options.

Nancy pulls a piece of paper over towards her, and plucks up a pencil from the table. Glancing over her shoulder again, towards the camera in the room, she angles herself such that the writing is completely obscured, and speaks just a touch more loudly. "Ten million dollars, my freedom, and lunch with Tony Stark would be a good start." She says, making careful eye contact, and then glancing down at the paper. She's writing, but trying not to make it obvious for people she presumes are watching and listening.

The note is pretty simple:

You will place a bag with the following items underneath the third sewer grate on 3rd street on your way home tonight - 1 loaded handgun. 3 days field rations. 1 bottle hand lotion. 1 toothbrush. 2 toothpaste. 1 large rolled sheet of plastic. I will write the name here. You will conceal the note about your person and leave having failed to convince me to say anything at all.

Dinah impulsively began an uncomfortable twitch as a response to Nancy's words, but after looking down to read, she quickly recognizes the ploy, nodding along. Followed by the simplest, knowing smile she possibly could muster. She mouth-whispers, "I will," following up with a slightly-too-loud volume for the 'benefit' of the cameras, and placating Nancy: "I'M SORRY, BUT I JUST CAN'T DO THAT," she says, trying to play-act someone who was offended by the request. She sits up straight, pulls her chair back a few inches, as if she were about to get up and leave. "Thank you for meeting with me, anyway, Nancy. You're right--I'm not your enemy. And I won't forget that."

Nancy gives a faint nod, so small it'd be almost impossible to catch if you weren't looking for it. "I'm unsurprised. Even with so many lives on the line, justice has a definite price, eh?" She shrugs her shoulders, and stands up sharply herself. To a certain kind of eye, her movements are impressive - she knows security and surveillance. She knows exactly where to stands so that the paper becomes, almost, invisible.

She's also somehow managed to conceal the pencil somewhere about her person, just in case.

And good to her word, there is a name scribbled on the paper.

Luciano Costa.

Nancy does not smile, though. She also doesn't put up any fight whatsoever when she's to be led back to her cell. Compared to the majority of Arkham inmates, really, she's very well behaved!