2015.01.11 - LowWay through Hell

It's been almost six months since Oracle went offline. No messages, no communications. Out of the blue, Robyn Hood receives a simple message.

"I'm back. What have I missed?"

The silence had bothered Robyn some, but she had her own business to follow. Like trying to evade FBI. And at the moment she was on a train to Chicago to try to plant a fake trail. The sounds of the heavy iron machine on tracks were audible in the background. "Thought you were lost. What you missed? Read the Gotham General statistics and Gotham Mercy funds. A dozen dealers, some goons... oh, and we tried to take out some arms dealer called Krieg, but he evaded. Ask the Kryptonian gal."

It's been a rough few months. I am very sorry to have been missing. I'm trying to get back up to speed. You're in good health I hope." The voice, as always, is filtered through a voice modulator.

The distortion of the rolling metal around Robyn resounds in the tiny microphone, making her voice sound off a tad. "I'm ok. Just need to show my face somewhere and then vanish before the artillery drops in on me."

A mix of amusement and worry is clear in the modulated voice. "Sometimes I think you take too many risks. What are you doing *this* time?" There's a pause. "Or is it best that remain unaware of this?"

A loud shriek of metal wheels grinding against metal kills some of the voice as the train slows down. "I try to make the Fucker Bureau of Intimidation believe I am not in Gotham, so need to show up on their doorstep somewhere else."

"Just make sure they don't shut down the lake shuttles. A trip to Canada might be helpful." Robyn answered, but she actually had planned to make her run to Illinois somehow and then take a train from there.

Oracle hmms a bit in a negatory fashion. "Border crossing's too iffy, even for my skills. I can circumvent security cameras and sensors, not much I can do for actual agents."

"Well, if you want to watch, you better tune in to WTMX on 101.9 FM." Yea, Robyn was telling to listen to a Chicago radio station, as if it was ever playing something nice. "You want to check the weather there, in case it gets all dark and gloomy suddenly."

"Pop music? Really, Robyn. That's tacky." Clear teasing on Oracle's part there. "Just take care of yourself. I don't want to lose anyone." There's a deep worry in Oracle's voice, something that wasn't there before she vanished.

"We'll see..."

The train had arrived at the station in Chicago, and as soon as the doors opened, Robyn was under the second or third ones unboarding it. The heavy bag over her shoulder was packed for more than just a little show and run - a few pieces of lead pipe filled with smashed sparklers and another one to light them, darts with Chinese crackers tied to them, a few big-bang crackers tucked into empty tomato soup cans for a louder sound and a dangerous look. All in all a bag full of fireworks prepared for carnage. And to light them she had a few a storm lighters in the pockets of her jacket. Now, she had to get to the office and knock...

Discreetly, Oracle had already infiltrated the security systems of the city, fuzzing street cameras at just the right times to allow Robyn to pass unnoticed.

Eventually Robyn stopped opposite of the office building the blue-glass and cement building in the middle of a huge grass plane with some distance to the West Roosevelt Road. A few moments she inhaled, then exhaled and took a last breath before starting to walk towards it. Her left hand searched for the lighter and the 'cigarette' she had manipulated to hold sparker stuff between a tip of tobacco and the filter. Pulling both out of the pocket as she came close to the door, she peeked out for the no-smoking signs, knowing they were there - she even had planned with them. A flick of the lighter, a pull on the cigarette and the foul smoke was filling her mouth. She exhaled as she passed the door and ditched the glowing cigarette into the closest bin before she moved towards the reception. It was no exact science, but in ten, maybe twenty seconds the cig should go up in a blaze.

Oracle keeps an eye on Robyn through the building's security cameras, even as she prevents the images from triggering face recognition. Shady work, but for the sake of her Birds she would do it.

"Um, excuse me miss...?" The receptionist looks at Robyn dubiously. "Can I help you?" The can outside lights up, surpising everyone inside. One rushed for a fire extinguisher, while someone is clearly grumbling about stupid city kids. No one suspects Robyn, because she didn't throw a bomb in, they think.

The short surprise is what Robyn needed. "Yea, I need to talk to someone called..." A moment she searched in the pocket, knowing that the trashcan was nice ablaze for just a short time. Pulling out a business card, which had been wrinkled, she read out the name. "Agent Mike Lafayette. Met him about some case some year ago." Lafayette had been the one who had taken Robyn for his own 'suicide squad' and offered her a clear vest, but he was dead. And if she looked it up the woman would see that easily.

An evil smirk goes over the face of Robyn "Yes, lock the entry." she said, pulling out the lead pipe with the sparkler fuze. It wouldn't detonate, only melt like and create lead-fumes if it was working as intended... "Because you wouldn't want me to light this. So be a nice girl and lock the exits now. And then you call his former boss, telling him that Agent Lafayette had buisness left on the table and he had forgot to finish it up."

The poor woman at the counter stammers, frantically trying to call someone down to deal with the terrorist. Guns are drawn and leveled at Robyn. "Put the explosive down, and put your hands in the air, now!"

"Robyn." Oracle's modulated voice still betrays the speaker's worry. "I can keep reinforcements from blocking off your escape, but not for very long. Don't you die on me."

The ‘’detonator’’ is placed down, but as she turns to lift the hand, a pair of the darts fly to hit the guardsmen in the hands. She was a good thrower, and somehow she had managed to light the crackers hanging from them. "Blackout, NOW!" she shouted as she started to run towards the stairwells, sliding the last moments. Dashing up the stairwell, she dropped the gas lighter into the bag full of sparklers and firecrackers and tossed it up between the first and second story while leaving the staircase in the first floor. One trump played, one more in the pocket - she was a good runner. Taking an office chair in a run, she slammed it into the first window she passed. Seconds later she followed, arms crossed in front of her face, the leather jacket keeping the glass away from her face as she fell the three yards, knees bent. If all was going according to her won plan, the officers were all trying to get up to the second or third story instead of pursuing her out of the window. "Keep them thinking I go up!"

The lights drop, even before Robyn is finished yelling. Oracle was good at her job, and wasn’t going to leave one of her Birds to hang. "Setting off alarms in the upper stories, sending false radio reports." There's a almost inaudible sigh. "The nearest squad cars are three blocks away on the east, four blocks westward, one block away north-northest, and five blocks south. Get moving; that broken window's rather obvious."

Her feet slam into the grass east of the building and Robyn does her best to push her mass forward into a rolling movement. getting back upon her feet she grunt, doing her best to sprint over the half block of open plane to the southeast. She was going to make every second count, but she had to run like hell was at her feet, and in some way it was. Jumping, she grabbed for the fence, pivoting over it around her right arm before landing next to the smaller road that was going south from the main road here. "Any cycle or open manhole close?" she huffed as she began to sprint south, trying her best to bring distance between her and the building. The bag she dropped had not caught fire correctly as planned at first, but now it did, its contents detonating in a short row of bangs and melting lead pipes.

"330 yards in your current direction, alongside the curb. You should be able to slide in there." Indeed, there is a large grate that's long been broken, leaving enough room for someone like Robyn to slither in. "I'll guide you through the system. You'll want to head north once you enter. At the first junction, turn west." On like that she guides Robyn, until she's out of the city proper.

It was a tight fit, and Robyn did rip open the left arm at a spike of the grate, but she managed to get in there the same moment a thick cop on a motorbike turned into the corner and started telling about the 'suspicious activity' he witnessed into his radio.

Robyn's first insecure footsteps in the wet tunnels resonated far. As she stumbled forward, she managed to get out the tiny key-chain flashlight with the red LED that she usually used to check which arrow she had in her hand. "Give me left or right down here please. I have a crossing labeled AC-43 here... Turning to the left along the numbers..." Robyn was struggling a moment as something in the water hit her feet, but she went on, biting her teeth. "Passing a manhole... AC-42"

Oracle does as Robyn asks, and switches to left and right. There's a short pause, and suddenly 'Highway to Hell' is being quietly piped into Robyn's ear; probably to help her keep calm. "Police responding to a suspicious activity call at your location; I think someone spotted you going down. Move slow."

Back in the Clocktower, Babs is pulling up any city plans she can find, finishing the shortest route away from danger. She didn't know Chicago's underground like she did Gotham's. "Just keep following my directions. It's going to be a long trek, but they won't have a clue as to where you are."

"I hope you know where I am." Robyn huffed as she passed another junction, taking the chance to catch breath a moment. "Keep track of the distance I cover today for my training blog, will you? Y-51, going left." Letters, rising...

"What, am I your secretary now, Robyn?" Oracle's voice is mirthful and relaxed, showing the the mysterious voice that guides the Birds is comfortable now. "Keep going; You'll be in the right neighborhood when you start finding X. That marks the spot."

"Are you? Then be so kind to draw me a bath when I get out of here. Lavender bathing salt." Robyn's tiny smirk was lost in the darkness as she moved straight forward along the numerical lane. Minutes passed, stinky water flushed down along her feet ruining the shoes and trousers just like the leather jacket that had been ripped by the metal bars. And suddenly a douche of toilet water sprouted out of the wall just ahead of the Archer, drenching her and shorting the light out. "Great, light's out. I think I am just ahead of X-23. Straight forward?"

"You'll need it when you get out of there." Oracle's voice held a slight chuckle. "Oh, and I'll transfer some funds to your account so you can get new clothes." A slight cursing as she hears that Robyn is in the dark. "Move forward one more intersection, then turn right. Fifteen feet forward, there will be a service ladder on the left. Goes up to a manhole cover in a dead part of town; nobody will see you."

Robyn tried her best to find that manhole, but it took entirely too long for finding it spot on. three minutes, four minutes, then Robyn responded again "Got it... Just needing to open that damned thing now." More time passed as the search spread spread but the track had gone somewhat cold - but they might try everything to get back up on her heels. The cover slowly lifted with a shrieking sound, then it popped out of its position and finally Robyn could pull herself out of the sewers, right into the last light. "Which account? You know that I don't have a credit card. Whereto is the next waterway? I think I should take the swim now and then look for a second hand..."

"The clandestine one, of course." Oracle's referring to an account set up under a fake name, which the Birds could utilize for 'business expenses'. She had warned them to not ask where the money came from. "Head south-west from where you are." A pause. "Keep moving; I don't want you getting hypothermia."

"Tell that a girl who hadn't survived in some cold woods." Robyn responded with a snort. This was going to take a whole lot... Like the thirty bucks she hid in her bra for spare cloth and then rent a tiny boat for her escape. Waterways were harder to control... "See you laters, O."