2014.01.05 - Plague of Bats

'You've lost perspective'.

Its funny how little phrases like that can bounce around inside a head and make a person crazy. Nancy hasn't slept in days; hasn't slept a full night in weeks, and it has all been in aid of this. Nightfall. The first since she took Jim Gordon, and there's almost a spring in the Queen Rat's step. Tonight, she feels certain, she'll prove The Batman wrong.

Her mask is in place as she pours out gasoline, carefully marking out one of the sewer entrances on the far end of town. Two large men are with her, each wearing armored vests and touting small, vicious-looking sawn-off shotguns. A deadly and dangerous weapon in the close quarters that make up her safe haven. Just a precaution, really, but she HAS kidnapped Gotham's commissioner, even if word has yet to truly hit the streets. Sooner or later, the Powers That Be will respond.

A single match is struck, and emblazoned out by the sewer entrance, the stylized bat that so often shines across Gotham's sky, instead burns in the dark. She feels certain that she need say little more.

Batman isn't the only one who's been searching for Commissioner Gordon. He may not even have been the first to start. Oracle, his daughter -- even if he doesn't realize it, has had DELPHI on it and has been wracking her own brains since the moment the AI first told her the man was missing. And, with her newly mended body, has lost considerable sleep creating a temporary new suit for herself, since Cass has laid claim to the moniker and image of Batgirl, these days.

And, in that suit, she's been combing the sewers, looking for her father. Because that's where all the best information she could find said he'd been taken.

Now, she stands in the gloom, tech visor allowing her to see clearly through the murk, evaluating the best approach to where she believes they need to go.

"Do you remember the first time you had me meet him?" Nightwing asks quietly just behind Babs. It was a lot less stressful, of course, Robin had already come to know Jim Gordon by that point. It was also a lot-cleaner.

Nightwing has assisted Babs in a myriad of ways over the past few days, using pretty much every waking hour to assist in the investigation. What a way to come back to the force. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The sewers are dangerous.

Oh, Gotham's sewers have always been dangerous. If it isn't the badly maintained tunnels, always at risk of untimely collapse, it is crocodiles - literal or figurative - or bootleggers, or buildups of inflammable gas. But as Barbara has closed in on The Labyrinth, the danger has taken a subtly different turn.

Mostly, it is cameras. Universally cheap webcams, far out from the core of Nancy's domain, they are just designed for early warning. But as they encroach further, the traps start. A tripwire here, linked to a sedative dartgun. A canister of pesticide rigged to explode. A precariously-placed car battery, waiting to plunge into the damp conditions and fry the unwary.

So far, though, the traps have all been fairly... mundane. The fact is, there are legitimate city workers who need to use these tunnels. She can't place anything she can't trust her people to move quickly, this far from her nest.

The thugs look suitably stunned when Batman comes striding out of the flames, and one of them reflexively starts to raise his gun-- only to think better of it.

"Uh, s-sure. Course. She said you'd be here." His friend says, and they walk back toward the sewer entrance, where Nancy skulks in the darkness.

"Well." She says, clapping her hands together and failing to keep the note of triumph out of her voice. "Lets not waste time. Step where I step, and don't touch anything. I've had to increase security lately. Insect problems."

"Heh, yeah..." Oracle's androgynous cybervoice escapes the suit's speakers softly, the sound oddly harmonic thanks to the suit's distortion. "He spent weeks trying to figure out where I'd met you..." Bruce Wayne's ward.

As Batman's feed comes in, however, her attention returns to business, overlaying his information with that which DELPHI has provided and allowing it to augment what each of them have.

Then of course, she gets the 'I'm going in' cue and watches the Bat plummet into the fire. "Showtime," she tells her companion, and, in an instant, she's moving forward toward the nearest ingress.

The traps she encounters aren't sophisticated. But, when she spots the cameras -- web cameras -- she pauses. "Ri-ight..." she purrs softly. "This just won't do. I'm the one who gets to play spycam."

Fishing into a pouch, she pulls out a couple of small rectangles with tiny metal prongs. In a moment, she's splicing them into the camera lines. Her intent? Scramble the visual systems. No more early warning here.

'Tin cans have high BPA levels. In some cases 200 times the government's traditional safe level of exposure for industrial chemicals.'

Commissioner Gordon looks up from the pen and paper that has been provided for him. His clothes are dirty, but only because of his incessant pacing around the room in which he's been locked. Most of them are concealed by the blankets that remain draped over his shoulders to ward off the subsurface cold. But as he resumes his writing, his hand is steady.

'I have been eating food from tin cans. Nothing with which to warm or heat the food, which is not a problem in and of itself. But I worry that the BPA levels may cause elevated... things in my system. I'm no doctor, but I read about it. This might mess with my estrogen levels. It would be a shame if my mustache thinned.'

Jim turns a page and begins writing again.

'Tin cans have high BPA levels. Worse than that, though, the food is bland. I suspect I won't want refried beans, chicken of the sea, or green beans for at least a month.'

Nightwing follows behind Batman and Oracle and makes his way to the depths of the sewers. The traps are momentarily concerning, but disposed with no significant issue. When Oracle makes a joke about spycams, he decides to let it go without a joke.

As they come upon the others down there, Nightwing finds himself surprised at Batman's forward push and even more surprised when it works without a hitch. Stick around Bruce Wayne, you learn something new every day. Guaranteed.

Under other circumstances, the idea that he needs to be led through a trapped sewer tunnel might get a patented bat-smirk. With Jim Gordon underground in uncertain condition? Well, let's just say the Dark Knight wears a frown. A dark, simmering scowl. "So what's your plan when SWAT comes to get him out?" The question almost manages to sound neutral, detached.

"Or is Jim Gordon the dangerous monster you've decided all of you make your stand to bring down?" The Caped Crusader follows Nancy around the traps-- at a distance. He doesn't really need to see her footfalls to pick his own, plus... it might well be in the woman's best interests. Barbara isn't the only one with a deeply personal stake in this. Despite the hesitation in speaking ultimatums, the Bat's agitation is difficult to hide; but then, he always has a thing about potential massacres.

Manipulating Queen Rat's cameras is... laughably easy, really. Especially to a mind as brilliant as Barbara's. There just isn't the technology here. Queen Rat is working with what she can get her hands on. What she can beg, borrow or steal. She can't just go out and buy cutting edge cameras; who would she buy them from, who wouldn't have installed backdoors?

Her answer, to the question, though, is disturbing in its simplicity. "Gas." She says, "The windfall from the auction has let me secure gas masks for all our current residents. The housing areas will also seal in case of emergency. I'm expecting more Seal Team than SWAT, but even if they survive the poison, the reduced visibility will mean my other traps ... take care of the problem. Even soldiers panic when they fight something they can't see."

She's bragging, but then, she can't help herself. Her pace quite leisurely as she picks her way through the tunnels. And as they press deeper, into areas where no maintainance crew has had cause to go in decades, the traps do become far more deadly. Canisters, rigged with wire, strewn from the ceiling. Guns in the walls.

"Remind me," Babs says over private radio, at least to Dick -- though Bruce likely overhears, because, well... BATMAN! -- "to show you the prototype idea I have for microbots that can get into walls and disable traps like this." Her tone is dry, but she refers to the deadlier traps they're encountering.

Too, really... to have a line of little transceivers that can get into places no celltower signal or satellite communications signal can reach? Yeah. That'd be sweet.

The deeper they go, however, the darker Babs' mood grows. She's seen Batman's profile on 'The Queen Rat'. She understands they're dealing less with Scarecrow and more with Looney Tunes, but still. This woman took her father. And she's threatening to gas people.

If her visor wasn't so concealing, it would wear a frown.

'Tin cans have high BPA levels. Funny thing, I can't recall what BPA stands for. British Petroleum Accident doesn't work. Bat Patrol Academy.'

Gordon looks up from his pen and paper with a rueful smirk. He's already filled thirty pages -- he plans to fill the whole book, given time -- and he suspects that his captor might actually have the dedication to read it all. To help tease her, he's added in a few little morsels of temptation, such as what he writes next:

'You might consider speaking with a gentleman by the name of Lex Luthor. You may have heard of him. He has a number of holdings in the tri-state area, and I know for a fact that he has been at Gotham City Hall on numerous occasions. GCPD has special protocols for civilians at high risk of assassination. Planning and zoning meetings, regional transportation infrastructure meetings... if he wasn't there, I'm quite certain he's sent an aide. Either way, we all know these CORPORATE MONSTERS are UP TO NO GOOD.'

Yep. One may not have expected such a thing from Jim Gordon, but right now, he's fucking with her.

Eloquently.

'Tin cans have high BPA levels. Doctor Brown says I have high cholesterol, but when you let me out of here, the first thing I'm eating is a steak. Bloody, rare, and delicious. AND NOT FROM A TIN CAN.'

They never said that Jim Gordon wasn't a patient man.

"Really?" The Dark Knight sounds surprised; and profoundly unimpressed. It's probably not quite what Weland was going for, even if the shock is likely just as faux as the Bat's nonchalance. "You don't think they'll bring any gas masks?" Getting the drop on security, an unsuspecting patrol car? That's one thing. Batman clearly expects-- or wants Nancy to think he expects-- a rather forceful rollout from GCPD once they, too, pin down Gordon's location. "Even in your best case scenario, where your failsafes kill or incapacitate everyone, there'll be nowhere you can run."

There's a beat, enough for two more bootfalls, "Nowhere any of you can run." The Batman doesn't make threats so much as observe the chain of consequences. The batsuit has jammers and wifi equipment galore-- but for now, Batman even lets Nancy's cameras have their fun, evades rather than disarms any of the traps. If she could see through his eyes, though, she would see an enhanced overlay flag every single one-- and mark any zones she evades without its algorithms marking a trap as potential hazards, to boot.

"You've lost perspective, Nancy."

"Queen. Rat." The woman growls in response. "Down here, you call me Queen Rat."

And... down here does seem to have sprawled a little more than it had before. The change is gradual, but the maniac has been busy expanding her territory. The ever-present wetness, the disgusting gloom, gives way to brighter lights hung from the roof. Branching tunnels offer glimpses into the esoteric nature of Nancy's preparations. One passageway is full of canned goods, another stacks upon stacks of clothes. Bags stuffed full of dollar bills.

And there's an honest-to-god claymore mine set up at head height, dead ahead.

"They can't get in without me knowing, and I can see everything from the control room. In a siege scenario, unless they can convince Superman to punch through my bunker door, I can keep my people safe for eight to twelve months... and if they CAN, well..."

Suddenly, she's whirling, erratic. One finger pointing right at Batman's nose. "We're not there yet, but YOU'RE the one who doesn't see! I'm in charge, down here. This is my world. And in just a few months, I'll have everything I need to abandon the surface entirely. We'll be safe. Grabbing Jim before then was a risk, but with luck, we'll be finished with him after tonight anyway."

The two thugs that Nancy had brought with her, each of which have a good foot on the unstable women themselves... definitely look uncomfortable at this sudden, angry turn. They are not, apparently, used to their boss trying to justify herself. And even though they have guns and she does not, they do not look like this makes them feel any more confident at all.

Queen Rat. Who the hell chooses a name like Queen Rat, anyway? The Rat Queen, maybe, but even then... Oracle keeps her opinion to herself. After all, she went by the name Batgirl, once. Bat GIRL. But, to be fair, that name was given to her. She didn't assume it.

She lets Batman do the talking. He's got experience with the woman. But, Babs does her thing as she goes. She's mapped the sewers fairly easily, after all. And the web cam network now makes it easy for she and DELPHI to map the rest.

Heck, she can commandeer the whole network, now that she's bypassed it, and see just how extensive the woman's holdings really are. And what she's done with them.

Oh, and getting into the technology running the whole webcam setup? Child's play.

Without comment, she feeds the information she has to Bruce and Dick, allowing their visors to update them. Counts are made of the number of mooks in each area, and the number of innocents, such as they may be.

More importantly, though, Oracle starts flipping through cameras... until she finds the one trained on her father.

"DELPHI," she says internally, "Patch me into that camera. There may not be any speakers on it, but there's an LED. Let's see if Dad still understands Morse."

'Tin cans have high BPA levels. In some cases 200 times the government's traditional safe levels of exposure...'

Gordon's hand stops on the pen. His brow furrows, and he peers upward toward a camera in the corner with a curious look in his eye.

Nightwing continues in the rear, looking back over his shoulder every so often, as he sloshes through the sewers behind the pack. An attack from behind is unlikely, but so was a lot of the things that have gone on in each of these heroes lives.

The information scrolls across Nightwing's vision in a virtual reality sort of way, set back as part of the entire view he sees through the lenses on his mask. Though he doesn't have a link to what Babs sees, that she's searching for a link to where he's at makes him hopeful.

Dick hasn't bothered sharing that he came to the conclusion, shortly after the incident, that it was in all likelihood that Jim had already died or would die soon. Kidnapping plots so rarely work out how the perpetrators intend, or how the victim's families hope.

Oracle's work similarly feeds telemetry to the batsuit-- flagging those hostiles, sorting algorithms of his own suggesting likely holding cells for Jim Gordon based on the floorplans and stationed enforcers. All of it helps him get a more complete view of the situation, but none of it compares to the illumination Queen Rat has been offering, free of charge. The Dark Knight stops in his tracks when Nancy wheels about, but his expression barely changes, his arms still hidden in that flowing black cape, betraying nothing.

"You kidnapped Jim Gordon." He starts by making sure they can at least agree on the obvious. But it's more than that. "Of course Superman would take down that bunker door. He would be here already, if I had asked. A touch of a button, and any number of on-alert operatives could be brought here from orbit." The Dark Knight sighs, deeply. "Even if you survive, keep -everyone- out, what about when part of this place gives way?" It happens all the time; she's been fixing it. "Your fortress becomes a deathtrap, its weapons its undoing."

Weland may be crazy, but she's not an idiot-- at least, that seems to be the play he's banking on. "It won't come to that, though." He leans forward slightly, eye to cowled eye. "Jim Gordon's the cleanest cop in this city. The only question is how much you lose insisting otherwise. You're going to get good people killed." So... how deep DOES the Queen Rat's Labyrinth run?

In truth? It is difficult to be sure. Her camera system is like a glimpse into her own mind. Some video lines have been deliberately duplicated, providing overlays which HAVE to be the same room and yet, show completely different contents. As the vast majority of space is dedicated to hoarding away everything from rubber hose pipes to munitions and drugs, it is relatively easy for her to do that. Some of the rooms are in pitch darkness, too, and there's one room which conspicuously does not have camera coverage inside at all; the steel bunker door which leads to Queen Rat's command centre itself is visible from the outside, but what remains within... that's a mystery.

Probably far more interesting, though, is the civilian and gang population. There's 32 individuals - 19 female and 13 male - who are split between two main dormitories as civilians. Most were homeless, though there's some who look more respectable, and ages vary from 8 to 80. The dormitory rooms provide little space for belongings, but there are beds, sheets, books. It is late. There's nightlights, but most are sleeping.

Then there's the gang proper. Fifteen individuals, ten of which are spread out in groups of three on guard duty in the tunnels. Five more are resting in a separate room, larger, where they can store personal effects. These people generally look tougher; survivalist types, crazies, former soldiers and individuals who probably have criminal pasts all on their own.

Queen Rat's armory is not very high tech, but she does have a sizeable number of guns and weapons, and apparently quite a few people still on her side and theoretically capable of using it. Within this close-knit warren, there's no traps at all...

But there are other strange things. A room set up apart from the others, with two sick-looking individuals; a teenage boy and girl, each sweating out the more brutal stage of drug withdrawal away from the rest of the population. A classroom, complete with desks, chalkboard, and piles upon piles of old textbooks.

Queen Rat's eyes narrow behind her gasmask, and she lets out a soft hiss. "I tried to tell you before, we're not enemies. But you're wrong about Jim. He's at the heart of Gotham's most corrupt institution. He CAN'T be clean. The Illuminati don't let good people get into positions like that."

She's not walking any more, now she's on the defensive. "You're right about the structure, though. I have, plans, to fix it. In a perfect world, I wouldn't be moving until the Labyrinth is complete, but, the world isn't perfect. I don't HAVE an orbital space station. I have some sewers. I do what I can. And if the worst comes to the worst... I have faith that my followers will finish what I started."

Oracle stays close to the others, but she's starting to transmit information to Gordon. BATMAN INCOMING. BE READY. NEGOTIATING. SUCCESS ODDS... LOW.

As the nutjob calls her father dirty, it's all she can do not to actually snap back at her.

Actually, she kinda fails at that. Babs always did have a temper. "Where the hell do you get your information, lady? Do you have any idea how many dirty cops that man took down to get his position?"

The pique probably sounds odd, cloaked in the androgynous digivoice.

Nightwing's eyebrows raise as Barbara begins to lose it a little bit. He reaches the back of his hand out to press it against the side of her suit in the most non-aggressive-hey-hold-it-here sort of way. That the Queen is starting to show signs of fraying is concerning to Nightwing as well. Starting a blow up could be a very bad thing.

And a bad thing for Jim Gordon.

As Batman discusses the ease with which he could call in reinforcements, a question pops up in Dick's mind: Why don't we do that?

It is morse code. That rueful grin gets promptly bottled up, and Jim keeps scrawling away on his notepad with one eye trained on the flashing LED.

'Speaking of, here's two for you. Gillian B. Loeb. Arnold Flass. Go to the library, look up some old microfilm. I can list about twenty more, but I worry that we may be short on time.'

"Or paper."

Jim rises from his seat. He walks over toward the door and begins banging his fist on it with a heavy hand. "Hey!" he shouts. "Pen's broken! I've got a confession to finish here!"

The pen is not broken. Neither is it lying on the table. You see, the Queen Rat didn't strip him naked, neither did she remove his top, which means he's still got cuffs, sleeves, and a nice little hiding place for a pointed object.

"There we agree." Batman remains intense, stoic. "In a perfect world, you'd all have places. In a perfect world, you'd all be safe. And you're right: we shouldn't be enemies." It's hard not to notice that big ol' 'but'. "But James Gordon is one of mine. You picked the wrong man. Just like you picked the wrong organizations." A gloved hand emerges from the cape, slowly. All it's holding is a sleek, black, reinforced flash drive. USB compatible.

"The records you took do indicate corruption; but not on behalf of the city. My suspicion is the League of Assassins, the same organization you aided with your black market auction. They've been trying to dismantle civilization and purge humanity of its chaff for eons; do you think your flock would meet the standard of a man called the Demon's Head?"

Eyeslits narrow, and the device is offered, but not handed over. "I can help you. I can help everyone who follows you. And I'm already fighting the enemy you know is out there." The device, untold information is withheld on that singular condition. "You need to let Jim Gordon go. I've already staked my life on his honor more time than I can count. Add this to the list." It's possibly the most transparent the Bat's been all evening: it's hard to miss the ernest concern in the plea.

"Seventeen." Nancy says to Barbara, completely unaware of course, of the fact that everyone here knows Jim Gordon far better than she ever could. "And questionmarks remain about number six. I suspect he might be involved in pulling Jim's strings even--"

She does, at least, shut up with the insane rambling when Batman starts talking, but if her body language is anything to go by it isn't because she's coming round to his way of thinking. Not, at all. "If what you're saying is true, then I've been tricked. The powers that be are squeaky clean, and its all down to some, boogeyman, who CERTAINLY has nothing to do with the establishment."

Her voice is raising in pitch, and it is difficult to miss the quivering edge of righteous indignation. "You, took my information, and you twisted it all around! You come down here, and try to intimidate me, use my name to make me look small in front of my men... I thought I could trust you, but you're just another pawn, aren't you!? ADMIT IT!"

The two men who were with the group raise there guns as her voice becomes disturbingly erratic. Two shotguns trying to cover three potential enemies. The tension is so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

And just down a side-tunnel, Jim's door is opened by the hard-bitten young man who had been posted to cover him. "Goddamnit old man, you think we're made out of pens? Boss' gonna be real pissed if you broke it bein' careless." His own weapon lowered as he rummages in his pocket for a biro. After all, how much trouble can one old geezer be?

It's really all Babs can do to keep from shoving her new boot down the madwoman's throat. "Oh, whatever!" she says, instead, throwing up her hands.

Then, of course, the rat queen goes nuts. Again. She looks briefly at the Bat. And then at Nightwing. She knows exactly where her father is. She has him pinpointed on the grid by the camera in his cell. And she knows the layout of the base, now, control center be damned.

Two mooks with guns? Please. Hardly a training exercise.

One step turns to two, turns from a walk to a jog, and in a heartbeat, she's disarming one of the guards and making for that side tunnel like a bloodhound on a scent.

Bats can yell at her later. The nutjob's already going off. So, Babs isn't playing her game, any longer.

Jim Gordon knows the Batman. One thing he knows is how masterful the Dark Knight can be with a good distraction. He's about to provide that distraction.

"Yeah," Jim chuckles in an awkward manner, feigning the weaker, aged man this young thug perceives him to be. "Well, I've been, you know, writing a lot. Lot of stuff to go over, and all, so, I'd be really glad if you were able to rustle one up."

Trailing the last word is a very heavy throw of the arm. It comes across the thug's shotgun, throwing it off to the side. While the thug is able to hold on, the Commissioner moves in close. He's one hell of a fighter, and a few blows are exchanged, likely to draw some attention and make some noise.

The shotgun gets discharged, a loud *BANG* resounding. The cap of Jim's pen has been hooked onto the thread of a spare button inside his sleeve. That pen comes out, and moments before the thug can swing the gun, the pen ends up right in the man's eye.

When fighting in the sewers, against low odds, one has to fight dirty.

Unfortunately, the thug with the shotgun completes his strike, in spite of his howling agony. The butt of that shotgun comes right across Jim's face, shattering one lens of his glasses and sending him staggering backward, blinded by pain.

It never struck Nightwing until now, but they definitely have to take turns. One gets to be the hot head, the other has to play the grown up, or at least the one with more patience. But as Oracle springs into action, Nightwing goes after her. Batman seems to have gotten a great rapport with the Queen Rat; he was far more worried about Babs.

As he chases after her, he elbows a guy quickly to disarm him and knock his gun to the floor, and with that, he's on her tail.

When Nightwing hears gunshots in the distance, he knows the situation just got a hell of a lot more serious.

"You don't believe that, and I'm offering you the truth. All I want is the Commissioner." When those guns come up, though, it's like something switches inside the Dark Knight. He moves faster than most men would believe, a batarang already whirring through the air, the sharp little blade capable of little more than superficial harm; it just happens to be expertly targeted at the closest man's trigger hand. It comes in synch with Oracle's and Nightwing's ambush, making the disabling of the guards that much easier... though whether Batman planned in that way or improvised with his ally's assault is abundantly arguable.

Batman just takes a single step as he comes back around, towards Nancy, calm once more... still extending that drive. "You've already lost him. I told you, you're not wrong about the world; but you're getting sloppy, Weland. Any fortress' most vulnerable point... is inside." They prove that in the flash of an eye.

The Bat spares barely a glimpse to yell after Nightwing and Oracle, "Get him out." Like it needed to be said. "Tell your men to stand down. Tell them there's a larger enemy, this is about a cause; not a demagogue. There's no shame in making a mistake."

And just like that... things start to fall apart.

Queen Rat steps backwards as her men are disarmed, and she actually flinches at the reverberating echo of gunfire. Oddly, her reaction is almost as worried as the other's. "T-that idiot...!" She hisses, and then, another step backwards.

Does she believe that? Its, hard. This isn't all about her, he's right! He understands that, but... she KNOWS she's right. Her head twitches left and right, and she looks, for all the world, like a cornered rat. This is supposed to be her home! Her fortress! But in a matter of seconds, everything is slipping through her fingers.

"Alert status code alpha." She says, and there's a hiss in the doors; locks sliding into place, designed, really, to keep the civilians safe, more than anything else. The two thugs start to recover; the one with the gashed hand glaring balefully at the Bat as he staggers up to his feet.

"You're right. This is bigger than me. Guard teams, retreat to external positions until the all clear is sounded."

For that one moment, it looks like she might actually do the right thing...

Meanwhile, Barbara and Nightwing are confronted with a rather gruesome sight. The guard has a pen sticking out of his eye, and is weeping, curled up in a ball at the far side of the tunnel. He obviously doesn't know if he should remove it, or leave it in, or WHAT he should do. Paralyzed in shock and pain. Likewise, poor Gordon is bleeding from his own injury. Luckily, the buckshot has failed to hit anyone, and there's no life-threatening injuries... well, so long as no horrific infection has set in for the poor guy with one eye.

"I can't just let you go." Queen Rat murmurs, then. "If you want me to give him up, I need better than your word. Otherwise... I'll use the gas."

And whilst most people have their suits to see them through... Jim, has no such protection.

Like the Bats don't carry extra rebreathers?

Oracle is quick along the corridor. She slings out spinning batarangs of her own -- hoo rah! She's still got it! -- and a couple of knock out pellets as well, for good measure. And, indeed, its mere seconds before she's sliding into the Commissioner's cell and thrusting her hand through the bars. "Commissioner. Use this. Now!" After all, her visor is lighting up with the release of the security protocols, jacked into the ratbitch's system as she is.

Yes, she should make an effort to save the bleeder, too, but, really? Dad's the priority. "I got him," Nightwing adds helpfully, jabbing another device in the guard's mouth. This one a bit more helpful than a pen to the eye. "Anyone know which way we go to get the hell out of here?"

"Let him go, and keep me until you've had a chance to look over my information. You're going to have questions." Either the Dark Knight is really certain he can talk sense into the Queen Rat... or he's that certain she can't hold him no matter how deep her labyrinth goes. Which, of course, would make his worth as a hostage only as good as the Bat's word; but really, what else is there, just now? "They walk out of here, or we tear it all down."

Jim Gordon's a father to more than one of the batclan, and for a moment Batman makes it crystal clear. "I don't need Superman to let me in, Weland. I won't offer again." There's still no sign of aggression, but she's already seen how much /that's/ worth with the Caped Crusader. He just extends that small, secret bundle one more time.

"... Fine."

Nancy's shoulders slump, and she sighs. "I'll disable as many traps as I can from the control room, and guide them out as best I can. Then, you and I will have a talk. Gregor." This, to the man with the injured hand, "Go and find out what happened with Roland. I'll want to talk to him about his trigger finger later, too."

Now, she feels more like she's regaining some vague semblance of control, she is noticeably more stable in speech and body language. It'll take her five minutes to open up the nuclear bunker door and get back into the heart of her little kingdom.

By which time, really, Jim, Barbara, and Nightwing at least will be well on their way back to the surface.