2014.01.19 - The Rat Catcher

After Dick and Barbara had escorted Jim from the Labyrinth, Nancy had been left with Batman. Ostensiably, this is an exchange of one hostage for another. Nancy's instability is growing. She hasn't slept more than a few snatched hours at a time in weeks. Her gang is, again, beaten and battered, her security is in tatters, and she's starting to believe that Batman is, in fact, an agent of the shadowy powers she fears are out to destroy everything. This is where we last left our hero and supposed villainess.

Now, we rejoin them in Queen Rat's control room, where the extreme measures she goes through to ensure the entire Labyrinth can't be shut down from the outside is quite apparent. There's only one chair, and there's six computers. The most impressive hardware she's got - as top of the line as one could get without the budget of a country at your disposal. The systems are kept apart, which sounds great in theory...

In practice, it means the room is a cramped mess. Bottles of energy drink and tablets are strewn about - including a couple of ominous syringes which imply that Queen Rat has been resorting to more extreme measures to keep herself active when her body begins to fail. There's six keyboards, six mice, and countless monitors. Most of them are currently showing static, and Queen Rat hasn't stopped muttering to herself ... pretty much continuously since the others left.

The monitors which still function show the status of the camera network - disabled by Oracle. Then the air filtration system, which is operational. The water filtration system, also operational. Networked Security Methods - the gas canisters and explosives - also operational. Physical Security - the many locks throughout the compound, and then...

The one link to the outside world. The central monitor and control system, rigged to use the space-saving encryption that Death's Head had granted her, and her link to her radios, the internet, everything else. "Well here we are." She grumbles, pushing mounds of papers from the chair to clear room for Batman. "Lets see this proof, then. Because I still think, everyone, all of them, at the top, have to be... and Gordon, he's the worst for trying to make you think he's a hero as he sells the city out!"

"James Gordon's bank accounts haven't seen an off-payroll spike in over a decade." Batman observes simply, quiet for the most part as he walks along with Nancy, noting details and keeping his peace until she addresses him directly. At that point, he offers over the drive for Nancy to peruse. "If everyone in a position of power were corrupt, the solution would be a -lot- simpler than it is." There's a degree of sympathy in the firm retort; hidden somewhere.

No matter what system or hub Nancy chooses to hook the batdrive into, the result is the same: a massive conglomerate of organized files relating to several of Gotham and the globe's crime syndicates and terrorist groups... including a fair chunk of cross-referenced history on the League of Assassins and Society of Shadows. In Batman's book, they're about as real as Nancy's version of the Illuminati get; not that the name's never been used for more legitimate threats, but some facts can wait.

Assuming Nancy takes some time to examine the current data, it rather implicitly links Ra's al Ghul's centuries-old terrorist network to money laundering, blackmail, and murder withing Gotham's city government. "I do have to thank you for bringing that to my attention." Credit where credit's due.

... Of course, that trove of data would also link the League to Nancy, and her helpful black marketeering; the job that enabled her to capture Jim Gordon financed one of the world's premiere evil conspiracies, it's right there in dossier after dossier. ".. But I'm not the one working with your shadow conspiracy." Batman notes dourly, no more pleased by the information than Weland is likely to be. You've lost perspective, Nancy. It almost echoes without him saying it.

Nancy is a lot of things, but... one thing she's not, is an idiot. After connecting the device to the surveillance linked computer (the one already compromised), she begins to puruse the information. Tired though she is, she scans the data, corroborating parts against her own pet theories, grunting at others. It takes her a long time - minutes upon minutes to connect all the dots, assimilate it all. It might actually be a relief, as she is finally rendered silent for a time by the assembled facts.

"There's other ways you can be got to than cash." She mumbles, at last. "Jim's a family man, got, principles. I was hoping if I could just get him to see what I had here, I could convince him he'd be safe and could confide. Instead he tried to shoot me." Hands come up and rub at her temples as she recounts that. She has, such a headache right now. The evidence is all there; on the page clear as day. But it doesn't quite add up.

"There's, dimensions missing here, though." She says at last. "This, Ra's al Ghul... if he's everything it says, and that isn't an elaborate cover story, he's a prime node. But he doesn't have any connection to mutants, aliens, or any timeline destabilization... although that could explain his apparent immortality... again, if that isn't, a cover..."

A few moments pass, and then she puts her elbows on her desk, and webs her fingers together.

"... But that's a good enough start. So. The man we need to kidnap, is Ra's Al Ghul. As you say, I've been... duped by him before. If he's looking to buy arms, and he knows I'm a good supplier, perhaps I can arrange a meeting."

"Like you said: Gordon's got principles." Of course he tried to shoot her. Nancy was, after all, holding him captive. As far as Jim knew, they were all risking life and limb to get to him, on top of that. "The immortality isn't a cover... but it has a heavy price." Batman, somberly, doesn't seem inclined to explain that part much further. "I'm not sure how long ago he finally lost his mind for good, but it only makes him more dangerous."

As far as the more fantastic theories and threats? The Dark Knight doesn't even bat an eye. "Some of the aliens are on our side, some aren't; there are galactic treaties and empires far beyond humanity's place. That, too, is complicated." He doesn't even bother touching on his own hypothesis regarding the timestream and multiverse.

The League of Asssassins? They carry the monicker for a reason. "Even if you could lure Ra's al Ghul out into the open, the Demon's Head is never alone... and far more formidable than he appears." Not that it's a bad idea, audacious or no. "We'd need a better trap than that."

"Traps, are my specialty."

Queen Rat spins in her chair, so that she can face Batman directly, and tries to ignore the fact that her ridiculous tail sweeps more papers and cans onto the floor. The price one pays for a suitable costume is sometimes spent in practicality. Now, her mind is turning towards that problem. How would one go about this? Well, she only has the barest facts to go on, but she can give a good stab at it.

"The problem for humanity isn't specific; it is aggrogate." She says, looking up through those tinted eyepieces. "This is something that Ra's, being immortal, has probably reasoned quicker than me. Specifics are almost irrelevant, it is a numbers game. There's so many possibilities that sooner or later, one will happen. The trick, then, is being prepared to pick up the pieces."

She's really talking aloud at this point, and her head drops forward, her voice lower and more... intense. "Take for instance, the population. This is the puzzle which inspired my aesthetic, incidentally." A giggle, disconcerting for a grown woman, but she continues. "When I was young, the world population was at approximately two billion. Now, we're approaching seven billion. Food, water, fuel. They'll all run out eventually. Like rats, we'll turn on each other, devour each other, one way or another, until the population plateaus... but. There is another way."

She takes a deep breath, and her voice becomes, more energized still - one of her many contingencies brought to the fore of her mind, if not one she had the resources to put into action. "How do you introduce a virus to the population? Even the water supply has safeguards. So, you introduce a disease first, a nasty one, kill a few thousand with it. Then, you add the virus to the vaccine for the disease. People line up to get it. Pass on the disease through sexual contact, and embark on a crusade to quarantine the entire world against the original pathogen. If the virus has no immediate symptoms, but instead just... sterilizes nine out of ten individuals, you'll get near total coverage before people work out what the problem is. By then, it is too late. Ninety to ninety five per cent of the world population sterilized. The population falls to five hundred million inside one hundred years. Then, normal breeding rates resume... in a world which feels, more comfortable. Larger. No wars. No genocide. No, rats feeding on rats."

She pauses for a few moments, to let the enormity of it sink in, and then, she perks up. "I have the theoretical blueprint, which could be added to most vaccines, and the statistical models to prove my assertion. A plan like that, I think, would get the attention even of a man like Ra's Al Ghul."

There's a touch of wariness in the Bat's stance, particularly as the analysis continues. There's a dangerous parallel already witnessed between the two, but Weland? Well, at least betting she's not as unhinged as Ra's al Ghul is money in the bank. "I see you've noticed a pattern in his plans." The Detective observes, drily. "It's as good as anything else. Ra's will underestimate you because you're a woman, maybe even try to assimilate or destroy your operation outright. I'll need to see the formula, and synthesize a nullifying agent."

The Caped Crusader turns to pace the single step he really can in the cramped room, eyeing the bank of monitors before concluding, "You'll still have to sell him on your plan, but if all else fails..." The Dark Knight muses with a grim smirk, "We can always offer him the same thing you traded for Jim Gordon."

Nancy spins back on her seat, and jabs at the keyboard again. The viral agent is... well, compared to the things that Batman is used to dealing with, it is crude. Designed to avoid most mundane tests, and do exactly what Nancy said... if it wasn't for the fact that it is designed to do just one thing, and it isn't aiming for a one hundred per cent success rate, it'd be laughable. Instead... it is just dangerously plausible enough.

"I ... considered it as a viable backup plan in the event that research into limitless energy and new food stocks turns up a blank." She admits, "As to my operation..."

Now this, makes her pause. "If Ra's is as well-connected as you say, he'll be aware that Jim Gordon was taken by me, and that you rescued him somehow. I've already ordered my men to scatter. It would set back my other operations by months to sacrifice everything, but..." But, this has to look plausible. She knows it. She hates that she knows it, but she knows that if she tried to explain how she lost Jim Gordon and failed, if she were Ra's, she'd shoot herself, to be on the safe side.

"The civilians are in lockdown. They know that if I'm not here when they wake up, they are to clean out the vaults and flee to a number of prearranged sites around the city. My operation will, in effect, dissolve. For now. Until I can bring it back together. So."

She stands up, and turns to face the much larger man directly. "You just need to take me in. After I escape, I'll make contact with Ra's and offer him the plan in exchange for assistance putting my group back together. He may see an opportunity to turn me, or do away with me, but he won't suspect me."