Guess Who?

[Mr E Nygma]

He whistled as he walked his night-time route, a nondescript cane tucked in the crook of one arm. Each of his footfalls came in delayed synchronization to the break-in alarm echoing somewhere (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23145) in the city.

Well, whistled in between bites of an apple, that is.

By now, casual eating left only half the apple in question. The remaining half bore dark spots and discolored bruises. The apple-eater, a man in a hazel-colored suit and bowler hat, regarded the remaining half with an analytical sort of disgust. It was the kind of look one gives an apple that almost certainly contains worms.

Swallowing the last bite taken, he tugged a tissue from his suit pocket and used it to protect his glove from the eaten part of the apple. His other hand produced a small perfume vial from his suit pocket. Turning the apple over in his palm, he spritzed it with the vial's contents using a careful and meticulous approach. He then dropped the unfinished apple onto the ground by the security exit.

Tugging another tissue out, he spritzed it with the vial, produced a file folder from within his suit jacket, and wiped the file down. Gloves prevented fingerprints, but advances in investigative technology could use saliva, hair, or skin flakes to determine "whodunit?" Allowing his identity to leak at this early stage simply wouldn't do. He was better than that.

He was also better than Ted Kord, who'd recently shown his face in Gotham. Why was unclear, but regardless, Kord deserved some attention - some punishment - for his past failures.

Then again, being Ted Kord sat high on the list of terrible punishments to begin with.

A quick check of his watch and he knew the time; giving himself a good thirty more seconds, he rapped at the security exit door three times in succession with his cane, paused, then repeated the knock.

The door opened slowly. On the other side stood a security guard whose puzzlement vanished upon seeing the visitor he expected. "Sir," he nodded in acknowledgement, one hand closing around the other end of the offered file.

The suited man's gloved hand tightened its grip, preventing the guard from taking it. "It'll be delivered at 9:55 AM sharp on Tuesday, just like you said," the guard promised. "Everyone'll think it came in with the day's morning mail."

Tipping the edge of his bowler hit into a jaunty slant with his cane, the man smiled. "A little extra for your troubles," he said, passing a hundred-dollar bill into the security guard's hand.

"Thank you sir," the guard nodded respectfully (as he should) then hesitated. "Sir, I know we're not supposed to ask questions, but Ted Kord's not supposed to be in town very long. Why make time for him?"

The smile became fixed and the man in the suit leaned close. "How is Ted Kord like a depressed insect?" he inquired softly. "He's pathetic and needs squashing."

The guard nodded; he understood only the top layer of the response, of course, but the response gave him the insight he thought he was looking for. "Yes, sir."

With that, the door pulled closed. The man in the suit nodded and moved on, pausing only to note how a worm had eaten its way out of his discarded apple. It lay motionless on the sidewalk, undoubedly killed by the scrubbing chemical left on the apple's skin. Together, worm and apple combined formed a question mark.

How fitting.

With his task accomplished, the suited man strolled off into the Gotham night. So much lay before him and he wanted to savor the moment before everything plunged into chaos.

[Ted Kord]

Tuesday, 9:53 AM

Ted ached, both physically and mentally. It felt like the chewing out he'd received was literal, not just a long and berating conversation with his superiors. Using the charity gala (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23074) to divine the Batman's identity had been a long shot, and while they had managed to salvage something (http://www.sw-fans.net/forum/showthread.php?t=23145) from it's failure, most of their collective frustration came from the realisation that capturing Batman was something they were in for the long haul: it wasn't something that the DEO could just swoop in and expect to fix on the first try.

The Agent sighed, the heels of his palms scrubbing at tired eyes that were already blurry and peppered with multicoloured shapes. He'd been at his desk all night again, staring at the same reports and psycho-forensic analyses. It was uncomfortable, reading the harsh and critical way that supposed government experts assessed heroes like Green Arrow and Batman: a category of people that he had been part of himself not all that long ago. The DEO had regarded him as a decidedly C-list hero: not important enough to worry about a fanfare conviction, but potentially useful enough to be exploited as a means to bigger fish. He wondered if anyone had even bothered two write a psychological profile on him.

With a grunt he tossed the assessment aside, and slumped back in his chair. This was the hand he'd been dealt, and for the most part he was at peace with the work he did. For every legitimately beneficial vigilante that his work saw arrested, a dozen dangerous ones, and even more dangerous criminals found themselves behind bars. So many vigilantes fought for vengeance, or glory, or other faulty intentions; or they simply didn't realise the danger they placed themselves around them in, or the damage they could do to the lives they unwittingly ruined.

Take Ted Kord for example: he'd poured everything - heart, soul, and money - into his quest to clean up the streets of Star City, but he hadn't thought about the toll that would take on his share prices, his business, his employees. Corporations didn't fare too well when their star developer spent all of his time and profits inventing toys to play superhero instead of creating products they could actually sell to keep the business afloat. Going and getting himself arrested had been the final nudge, the final nail in the coffin. So many jobs, lives, and ambitions ruined because he thought he knew what he was doing, but didn't.

A soft rap sounded on his door frame. He forced his eyes open, and offered a faint smile for Rose, one of the junior DEO staff who was lumbered with the unenviable task of working in the building's rail room. "Looks like you're burning the candle at both ends, Agent Kord," she offered with a hint of mild disapproval.

"And in the middle as well," Ted agreed with a grunt. He frowned for an instant. "Package?" he asked, eyes settling on the mail that Rose was busy retrieving from her cart.

"Feels like a file," she guessed, setting it down onto his desk. "Either that, or it's your birthday and you decided to try and sneak through it without telling anybody."

Ted mustered a faint laugh. "Not my birthday," he assured, grabbing the pen and pad she offered to sign off the package's delivery. "It's probably another riveting hundred pages of psychologist prattling that won't help me in the slightest, and yet I'm obliged to read in it's entirety."

Sympathy flashed on Rose's features. "In that case," she offered, hovering at the doorway before she retreated from the office completely, "I guess I'd better send up some coffee and an IV."

The Agent would have laughed, had the suggestion not seemed like such a good idea at the time; but she was gone before his mind managed to come up with anything witty to offer in reply. He let his fingers massage briefly at his brow, before reaching for the parcel and tugging it across the table towards him. A brow formed as he regarded the address: not typed as he would have expected from an internal delivery, but instead handwritten with flowing letters in an unusual emerald green ink.

Post from Green Arrow? he pondered, a sceptical eyebrow quirking. He considered caution, but the DEO had x-ray machines and countless other security measures to prevent anything dangerous finding it's way to one of their agents. Still puzzled, he tore at the seal on the oversized envelope, shaking it a little to encourage the contents into freedom.

The expected file slid out and landed on his desk with a thud; with it came a small card, created from a folded sheet of expensive stationary. The same green ink decorated the inside surface, a handful of words that filled Kord with dread.

I Know Who You Are.
But Who Am I?

An icy grip crushed at Ted's insides as the words played over in his mind. He didn't need to look in the file to know what it was, but he did so anyway: looked over the photographs, the phone records, the financials, patents, and everything else that the DEO had managed to pull together on his vigilante activities. It was the same information that they'd assured him would be buried - burned - when he cut his deal.

That it was here meant one of two things: either the Department had lied to him, and they were keeping this as leverage; or someone else knew.

His attention turned turned to the envelope, but there was nothing: no return address, just the green handwriting, the stamps, and a Star City postmark. Absolutely nothing out of the -

Ted hesitated and frowned, peering a little closer at the postmark. He checked the calendar on his desk to be sure; the letter was dated today. How could that be possible? How could a package travel from one US coast to the other, via the postal service of all things, and do so in less than ten hours?

If the postmark couldn't be trusted, then what else might be false? He fumbled through his desk, searching for legitimate correspondence. He found a discarded envelope - thank god he wasn't better at clearing the clutter off his desk - and cross-checked the address. Most was correct, but the ZIP code was wrong. 15136. He grabbed for his laptop, fingers hammering away at the keyboard as he typed in his search. Not a ZIP code for Gotham; but instead for -

Robinson Township, PA.

That made no sense. Why put a ZIP code from Pennsylvania on a letter that you hand-delivered in Gotham City? What did Robinson -

Not Robinson, PA, Ted realised, his eyebrows climbing. Robinson Park. Hardly GPS accuracy instructions: Robinson Park was a big place. And of course, it was almost certainly a trap. Ted should notify his superiors. They should call in favours with the GCPD. Cordon off the park. Search it properly. Trust the DEO to do their jobs. Trust them to keep his secrets. Because they were apparently doing a bang-up job of that.

He slid open the drawer of his desk, and pulled out his Beetle Gun: one of the few toys the DEO had allowed him to keep from his vigilante days.

Yeah, he mused, letting the drawer slide closed with a click. I think I'm better off handling this one alone.