Down the Rabbit Hole

[Barbara Nolan]

GANG MEMBERS INTIMIDATE LOCAL BUSINESSES

Barbara sat back in her chair and stared at the headline for her latest blog post, detailing the bird tattoo seen on the arm of Anna Taylor's mugger. A little research had led her to a gang who called themselves the Crows, and a little more digging had turned up that a group of small businesses, mostly mom-and-pop deals, were being strong armed by the same gang.

She quickly scanned the digital words once more, fixed a comma, and then clicked post. Her Oracle signed missive was now on the internet, where hopefully it would do some good. Perhaps GPD would take an interest in the case.

Bringing up another window on her computer, Barbara stared at a map of the businesses in question, marked in red. They weren't all on one street - they weren't even all in one neighborhood. And if the writeup by the Gang Task Force could be believed, the Crows were straying from their usual territory for at least half of these intimidation jobs. Maybe it was a grab for more power?

She'd used her position at the library to get access to city plans, and she overlaid a picture she'd taken of the engineering plans over the top of the map. Some resizing and turning were needed to make them match up, and she leaned forward to get a closer look.

There was something there - dashed lines connected to each of her red Xs. Flipping hurriedly in her notebook Barbara searched for the key to the city plans, nearly tearing out a page in her excitement. "Bingo!"

Barbara checked the clock, grabbed her coat and wallet, and hurried out the door.

"Where're you going?" Her aunt looked up from where she was making dinner in the kitchen. "Library emergency?"

"Haha," Barbara said. "Just meeting some friends for dinner. I'll be back before its too late though, don't worry."

"Oh, okay. Be safe!" The elder Barbara waved a spoon at her as she made her escape, giving the younger kids hugs on the way out.

Walking briskly down the street, Barbara quickly hailed a cab and gave the driver an address in the Narrows. Rick would lose his mind if he knew she was heading out there again with darkness already falling. But in her defense, it got dark really early this time of year.

Plus the thought of him worrying about her was kind of cute.

[Bruce Wayne]

The same underground tunnel system was sprawled across six linked 62-inch monitors. Several smaller subsidiary monitors were held on brackets either side of them, displaying a video feed from inside the primary tunnel. Large crates were piled up on either side while flatbeds rolled down the centre. Almost every crate was emblazoned with one of Wayne Enterprises subsidiary company logo's, of which Wayne Tech featured prominently. Bruce figured it was mostly computer equipment, low-grade consumer products. Not something of a high priority but that wasn't the point. He watched as men loaded and unloaded boxes as the truck made its way slowly through the dimly-lit tunnel. It wasn't that the men were fond of the dark - the electrics were old and most of the overheads hadn't worked in years, so they had to resort to hand-held flashlights with the odd geek in the group having a pair of penlights strapped to their head or attached to a hat of some sort. Bruce made notes on a laptop as he surveyed the ants busy at work in their hive.

"I must say Master Wayne, this voyeuristic side of you puzzles me. Shouldn't you be down there putting those criminals in their place for stealing company products?"

Bruce laughed. He saved the file before turning to Alfred, who'd prepared some supper on a tray. In contrast to the tunnel on the monitors, the Bat Cave was very well lit with large overhead fluorescents as well as ground lights in the floor compartments. Alfred was standing on the far side of one of four L-shaped workstations making up the corners of a square, with a large square workbench in the centre piled with various items that looked far too awesome and techy for Alfred to be interested in. Bruce made his way around to see what Alfred had rustled up in the kitchen.

"For your information Alfred, I'm gathering evidence to submit to the police, as well as trying to identify who's in charge of the operation. All the men in the video footage are just foot soldiers. If I turn them in to Gotham PD there'll be a new set recruited and working down in that tunnel within twenty-four hours. Besides the Wayne Tech stuff can be reacquired when it reaches its destination by local law enforcement. All the products have subtle trackers on them and the security branch can notify them for re-acquisition. I'm more interested in what's coming out of those tunnels and onto Gothams streets. But enough business talk - what's for..."

He saw the tray.

"Hello Kitty!?" he uttered, painfully.

"The dishwasher isn't quite full yet, I'm waiting for a full load and all the other trays are dirty. It belongs to your God daughter Clarice. I actually think it's quite charming."

"Alfred, I am not a cat person. And on that note, this better not be a tuna fish sandwich!"

"Egg and cress, an apple and some freshly squeezed orange juice, you'll be happy to know!"

"That's what I'm talking about!" Bruce took the items from the tray and placed them on the workstation before pulling a stool from the centre table and sitting down, leaving Alfred standing there with the empty tray like a statue.

"If you plan on remaining Bruce Wayne for the rest of the evening then, perhaps we should move upstairs and continue that game of Scrabble"

Bruce smiled as he took a bite of the sandwich. "You're on Alfred! But I think we should go to the kitchen first. I'm famished, this won't be enough!"

"I'm not surprised - you've ate absolutely nothing since breakfast!"

"I was busy! But I'm not tonight. Those idiots in the tunnel aren't going anywhere. It'll be a few days or even weeks before I move on them. Certainly not before I've had some chicken - do we have any chicken? Chicken wings, chicken legs. I'm in the mood for chicken. Barbecue chicken! Ooh, no! Southern Fried!"

"You want to start cooking at this hour!? Why not just order in?"

"Well if we're going to order in, I'll have Chinese!"

"I think I'll join you in that case! I'll fetch the menu with the number on it"

"Well if we're having a Chinese, why not save the Scrabble until Danielle, Stephen and Clarice are here next week and we can carry on with that documentary."

"I thought you returned it to the store?"

"I did but it was a DVD. I exchanged it for the new Blu-Ray that was released."

"What is this Blue Ray? It sounds like some sort of sea creature!"

"No, it's a disc, like a DVD but the picture quality is phenomenal!"

"Oh, well that sounds splendid sir - though to be honest I don't see what was wrong with the DVD version. I'll head on up and call the restaurant. Are we having banquet 3-B again?"

"Yes, but I want a side order of fries and an extra portion of prawn crackers for the soup!"

"Hot and sour soup, or chicken and sweetcorn?"

"Chicken and sweetcorn."

"Certainly sir. I think I'll try the house special in black bean sauce. The paper boy the other morning told me it's totally awesome."

"I'll join you in a minute, I'll just turn off these monitors." he said as he took another bite of the sandwich before turning back to the in-door cinema which was the centre-piece of his command center.

[Barbara Nolan]

Bundled up in her coat Barbara paid the cabbie and walked into Chang's Corner Store, a convenience shop that wasn't actually on a street corner. The bored clerk gave her an uninterested glance as she walked towards the coolers along the back wall, and returned his attention to the magazine he was reading. Barbara touched her cell phone in her pocket, making sure it was in easy reach, and wandered the aisle for a moment before finding the tiny hallway that led to the restrooms and receiving area in the back.

She peeked up at the rounded mirror in the corner, and saw the clerk still reading with his head down. Walking to the unisex bathroom she opened the door and turned the lock in the handle before closing it again, hoping that an occupied restroom would buy her some snooping time.

In the back room there were pallets of assorted products, and a big roll up door that must open into a back alley. Barbara took pictures with her phone as she wandered around, searching the walls and floor for something, anything, to confirm what she'd seen on the city plans. Just when she was about to give up she saw a wooden rectangle in the wall, half covered by a pallet of Pepsi. Maneuvering the pallet jack around was more difficult than she imagined, but after a minute of silent cursing she was able to move the product and expose the wall.

Barbara took another picture of what had to be an entrance to the underground tunnel system she'd seen on the plans. Pulling it open was not going to be an option, either. It was bolted and rusted shut, and some newer construction had been added to keep it closed. However, and she took a close up picture, the bottom right corner was missing. Rotted or broken, there was a gaping hole that had been covered by the back stock of the store.

Before her conscience could tell her to think twice Barbara knelt down and guessed she could fit through it. She took off her heavy coat, folded it up on the concrete floor, and wriggled through into the darkness beyond, cobwebs tickling her face immediately. Reaching back into the store behind her she retrieved her coat, and stood up slowly in the cramped space, her cell phone held out in front of her to illuminate the area.

It appeared to be a stone lined tunnel, almost immediately dropping off into steep stairs. The entire area was nearly full of old crates and boxes, even the stairs, and there was barely enough room for Barbara to move. But there was room, so she began picking her way down the stairs, moving slowly and cringing at all the spiderwebs.

[Bruce Wayne]

As he switched off the display, an alarm sounded, accompanied by a flashing red light on monitor three. Bruce switched the monitor back on and moved closer. It showed a tertiary tunnel section that linked into the main tunnel where the flatbeds operated. There were cardboard boxes, plastic crates and even steel containers of various sizes. So far none of the thugs had even entered that section of tunnel, and so Bruce wondered what could have set off the alarm.

"Problem, Master Bruce?" enquired Alfred.

"I don't know. Might just be a cat, or..."

The slight frame of a young woman squoze through some debris blocking the bottom of a set of stairs. It was hard to make out in the low lighting at the rear of the view.

"Who in Gods name is that"

"If it's one of the thugs, then she's certainly the prettiest one I've ever seen"

The girl climbed over a crate and ventured closer, unaware of the hidden camera. She stepped into a beam of light coming from one of the few working overheads.

"My word, Master Wayne! That's Miss Gordon!"

"I'm gonna be late for dinner Alfred. Time to go to work!"

He turned off the monitor, leaving the area in shadow save for the flashing red light beneath the monitor screen. He then moved to a computer terminal and flicked a switch. With a series of clicks and flickers, overhead fluorescent lights sprang to life on the far side of the work stations, revealing a large metal door that started to slide apart with a satisfyingly heavy sound of electric motors working away. Beyond the door, blue floor lights illuminated a large shadow resting low to the ground. The lights intensified slowly to highlight wheels and a body, before it roared to life as the jet turbine engine revved up, along with a quick growl from the afterburner.

"And here's me thinking you'd prefer to take the Bentley."

"I'm going to the Narrows Alfred..."

[Barbara Nolan]

She was absolutely filthy by the time she made it down the dark stairwell, and Barbara climbed carefully over another crate to reach a passage that ran approximately east to west. She pulled up Google Maps on her phone, but was dismayed to find she didn't have reception to use the internal GPS.

She held it up over her head until she heard a soft beep, and then pulled it down again. Her location was marked on the phone, and she smiled, satisfied that she'd be able to plot where the tunnel went.

Flipping through the picture roll Barbara located the city plans with the underground passages marked, and determined which direction she needed to go to meet up with the main thoroughfare. It looked like the main tunnel was an abandoned subway tube, but she wasn't an expert in that sort of thing. She heard rats scurrying around in the darkness, and shuddered. Maybe she should have done a little more research before going straight into field work.

A bare bulb on the ceiling gave off a weak yellow light, and she kept walking, cautious and straining her ears for any signs of any other human occupants of the tunnel system. Apart from the occasional rodent squeak there wasn't anything she could hear.

Turning a corner in the passage, Barbara found herself blocked from continuing by a pile of crates and boxes. Most seemed to be empty, and they were significantly newer than the ones she'd faced when she'd first entered the system. She wiped a hand through the layer of grime that coated one of the crates, getting a splinter from the rough wood. "Dammit," she muttered, squatting down and taking a picture of the logo on the crate with her phone. WAYNE ENTERPRISES.

Interesting. Barbara had started looking for an easy way through the obstacle when she heard voices.

[The Dark Knight]

The service road that ran low along the waterfront hadn't been used in years. Weeds along with various debris and other junk littered the road. It was much easier and more convenient to drive along the more recently-built dock road that ran at street level, but the secluded nature of the service road made more sense for a high-powered highly-modified sports car vaugely resembling a jet-black wheeled bat to travel on. The Dark Knight checked the time as the 'car' weaved around rocky outcroppings and embankments beneath the bridges, warehouse supports, loading cranes and network of fluid and gas pipes that snaked along pylons and down supports as they worked their way towards the underside of the bridges.

He arrived at the abandoned store just fifteen minutes after seeing Barbara on the monitor. Hopefully she hadn't gotten to far, he thought as the top of the car slid forwards, He aimed his grappler gun up at one of the joists holding up the underside of a warehouse.

PFFFT! went the gun as the hook shot upwards and latched onto something made of wood. And then with a whoosh he was hoisted up to the rafter-like beams and girders. Before he moved on, he touched a small button on his utility harness that flashed green twice. The top of the car slid back into position and locked itself. He began clambering across to the far side of the beams, where a large gaping hole could be seen. Once there, he had to partially move a crate that was blocking the hole to gain access to the warehouse above. It was largely empty, with no lights and sparsely-located windows running just below the ceiling. There were high empty shelves forming aisles that ran the length of the warehouse. The shutters at the front were down and no doubt locked, but the high windows didn't look too strong.

Before too long, he was in the alley behind the convenience store and approaching the low basement window. As he drew closer, it was obviously too small for him to use, so he turned to the back door. Inside it was quiet. Only the hum of the regrigeration units and the swirling airy breeze of ceiling fans could be heard. It was very well lit - not ideal given his purpose and attire. It was a short corridor with an alcove that would usually house the trashcans but was currently being used as a Dark Knight hidey-hole. As he peered out slightly, he could see beyond the corridor into the store itself and right down the first aisle where the clerk sat at the counter reading. The doorway that led to the back storeroom was just at the end of the corridor. He stepped out of the alcove but jerked back as the clerk stood up and started making his way down the aisle towards him.

The aisle split half-way and the clerk stepped out of view into the next aisle momentarily. Batman moved closer to the door, being careful to stay out of view of the aisle. he reached around and grabbed a tin can and rolled it right down the aisle. it crashed into the foot of the counter hard. Perering out onto the second aisle, he could see the clerk heading back down to investigate. Without hesitation, The Dark Knight made his way into the back room. It was cluttered, but orderly. As such, he had little trouble in following the minute chaos of disturbed cans, shifted boxes and dust prints to a large Pepsi pallet that was pulled away from the wall at one end.

Inside the tunnel it was very dimly lit. The shadows ahead were swaying back and forth. When he got there, a low bare bulb swung to and fro with dying momentum. The tunnel branched off in three directions, and the sound of running water made it difficult to locate the direction of the breathing. He backtracked the buld where he found a broken pipe, with dirty water trickling from it and running down a wall with cracked plaster that exposed brick underneath. A pool formed on the floor and ran across to the other side of the tunnel and from it emerged wet footprints. He pushed at the side of his cowl and something with a faint green glow came over the eye holes. The size and spacing of the footprints matched Barbara's gait which he'd picked up on when they danced at the party the other night. He had no trouble in following the tracks to the right-most tunnel.

[Barbara Nolan]

She crouched behind the wooden crates, her phone in her pocket so there would be no accidental glow from the screen. Two men were coming up the main tunnel, talking quietly.

"I'm tired of Smithson telling us what to do, such an egotistical prick -"

"Its not like he's the fuckin' boss. Wait, he is. Just shut up and keep your head down, man. You're goin' to get me in trouble with all that talk."

"What the hell does that mean - you should have my back..."

Barbara shifted slightly to get a better view of the men as they walked away from her, but couldn't determine anything other than tallish and one was a little heavy. They quickly walked out of sight, but she waited another thirty seconds before emerging from behind the empty WAYNE ENTERPRISES crates. Climbing over them wasn't hard, except she caught her coat on a large splinter as she tried to walk away.

She tugged impatiently, looking down the passage in both directions in anticipation of someone appearing and finding her stuck like a fly on sticky paper. The coat came free with minimal damage; only a thread of wool remained behind as she sneaked up the wide main tunnel. It was lit well enough with the occasional bare bulb that her phone remained in her pocket.

Unfortunately there were less places to hide, should she unexpectedly come across another person. Barbara walked as quickly as she dared, always scanning the passageway for a likely spot to conceal herself. There were other side tunnels, but some were boarded up and had metal grated welded to them. Others had been cleared, from the looks of it relatively recently. She took a picture of one of the cut away grates, and found a heavy crate to stand on top of to try to get another GPS ping on her phone.

Barbara stretched up, but she was apparently much further down and the phone refused to get reception. "Balls," she muttered, tucking it back into her pocket and jumping down lightly from the crate. She thought she was moving in a southern direction, but the tunnel was curving slightly to the right. Which meant ... southwest? This was why she had GPS, dammit.

Looking at the map on her phone she figured she was heading down towards the docks. If she was actually following the path of the dashed line that she thought she was. She put the phone back in her pocket and crept further down the tunnel, finding a bit of old subway track in the floor that had been mostly buried in newer concrete - probably to make the floor smoother and better for pushing stuff around on. And then there was an open space in front of her, and Barbara edged toward the end of the tunnel, peeking out into a large space that was crawling with activity.

She dashed behind big group of pallets, full of shrink wrapped Wayne Enterprises boxes, and tried to get a discrete look at what was going on.

[The Dark Knight]

"Who the hell are you!?"

Barbara spun round and gasped silently as one of the men camr form the darkness of the tunnel. His open hand lunged towards her throat, but it was intercepted by a very thin, high-tensile cable that wrapped around his wrist. The cable jerked his arm away form Barbara and towards the shadows of the tunnel. The flash of a black cape surprised him, giving Batman enough time to leap forward, closing the distance between them in a singe bound. Using the momentum, he pulled his neck back slightly before thrusting forward. The reinforced cowl smashed into the brutes face, knocking him out cold. Batman slid low and caught the body beofre it his the floor too loudly. He slumped him against the wall just inside a dark alcove in the tunnel before stepping into the low light where Barbara stood by the pallet, in shock.

"Miss Gordon - you mind telling me what you're doing here?"

[Barbara Nolan]

"Ffff..." Barbara had her hands up by her face, fists clenched, but hadn't had nearly enough time to do anything about her would be attacker before he'd been whisked backwards into the shadows.

"Wha- what am I doing here?" Oh, she'd heard about the Batman of course, but being face to face with the so-called Caped Crusader was another thing. "Being discrete is what I'm doing," Barbara snapped, her hands still up defensively in case he tried anything funny.

She waited for someone to shout and for all the goons to come running over, but apparently no one had seen him as he joined her in the cover of the tall pallets. "What are you doing here?" Barbara fished her phone out of her pocket, trying to flip to the camera app without looking at it.

[The Dark Knight]

"Keeping a close eye on our friends over there."

He reached behind and detached a small container form his utility belt. Opening it, he revealed a small clear plastic bag with a pale yellowish-grey power inside. He slid a small switch on his grappler gun which activated a low-intensity light in the hilt and held it over the bag.

"The street name for it is Ash. Very cheap, very dirty. This is nasty stuff and they've been shipping it in for over two months now. Very popular with the desperate and homeless since it's only a few dollars for a quarter of an ounce. They're barely making a profit once you factor in this little operation they've got going on to fund it. They could easily sell it for three times the asking price, I just don't know why they aren't. They're not trying to undercut anybody else because the mafia cater for the more affiable buyers."

He slid low and peeked around the side of the pallet. Invisible green light flashed across his eyes as he activated his cowl's night vision, surveying the warehouse once or twice. It was quite busy, with a lot of activity. But thankfully it was on the opposite side near the tunnel that lead to the dock, where they lugged the crates back and forth.

"What exaclty is it that brought the Commissioner's daughter down here at this time of night?"

[Barbara Nolan]

She ignored his last question, because really, explaining herself to a masked man she'd only just met was low on her priorities. "Whoever 'they' are are using the Crows - maybe others too - to keep their supply lines open. Convenience stores on the other ends of these tunnels," she jerked her head to the one they'd both emerged from, "are being strong armed by the gangs. Didn't know why, but I guess that explains it."

Barbara whipped her phone up and snapped a picture of the drug before the Batman could stop her. He seemed to be ignoring her for the moment though, studying the activity close to the docks. She turned her phone on him but the picture was a dark blob due to the low light, and she quickly stuck it back in her pocket as he turned back toward her. "They're either working on creating knock offs of Wayne Enterprises goods, or they're smuggling out the good stuff." She narrowed her eyes, looking from the open box full of drugs to the other cases on the pallet.

Replacing electronics and other first world junk with street drugs? To... move them on the streets? Barbara bit her lip, trying to connect the dots.

[The Dark Knight]

"The electronics are being shipped out and sold. But ripping off Wayne Enterprises goods is just a secondary payoff, it was an opportunity they just never passed up. The drugs are the real reason this operation exists. As you can see, they replace the packaging with the drugs to make it easier to move around the city. But Wayne Enterprises doesn't use an outside courier service. So the only way to move this stuff is with a Wayne-Tech van. This is bad..."

[Barbara Nolan]

Still the mysterious they. "So they've stolen a van, too. I can see where that pushes 'smuggling dangerous drugs' into 'this is bad' territory."

Barbara paused, mentally kicking herself for being snarky, and peeked out at the busy operation. "So, are we doing something about this? I was going to call the police but there's no signal down here."

[The Dark Knight]

"No, it's worse. They haven't stolen a van, they can't. There's a tracking system on all of Wayne's vans - part of their security. If even a single van isn't accounted for at the end of the day, Gotham PD are notified immediately and the tracking information is automatically uploaded to Central."

He peered over a pallet. All activity was still located on the far side of the area. The Dark Knight turned back to Barbara.

"They must have someone on the inside."

[Barbara Nolan]

"Hmm." Barbara was feeling a little detached from the situation. Like, there she was, crouching in a dark corner with the Batman, and they were talking about the bad guy's plans. Together. It was surreal.

She pulled herself together, mentally, and said softly, "Wouldn't it be easy enough to find out who is responsible for a van going... off the grid? I mean, even if it disappears quietly with no fanfare. Someone would have to have to be fairly skilled and familiar with computer systems and I suppose I'm describing at least ninety percent of Wayne employees."

Her brain was already wanting to get elbow deep into Wayne Enterprises' security systems, but her mouth said, "Do you know if there is already a van missing, or do they still need to acquire one?"