CHAPTER 18: "I May Have Screwed Up"

*Cargo Ship 'Siren' | Port Adams, Gotham, 1:00 A.M.

"Wait! Wait you don't have to do this please don't!"

SPLASH

'That should be the last of the shipmates'

A figure stood on the railing of the bridge, dressed in complete black pants, gloves, and a thick long-sleeved shirt with a balaclava covering his head, and a pair of goggles with a red tinge where his eyes would be. Besides a thin utility belt, his outfit was incredibly simple, designed purposely to hide his identity and help him sneak aboard the container ship.

The 'Siren' was a 200,000-ton behemoth and one of 100s of shipping container ships that came through Port Adams. The port was situated near City Hall and the financial district region of Gotham and had seen a resurgence in trade in recent years, but with the increase in trade came the demand for docking and offloading which at times had traffic jams. The 'Siren' was anchored a quarter mile away from the docks waiting for its time to go into the port proper and begin offloading its cargo.

Sneaking onboard so late had proven easy, the ship had only the night crew up as the rest were resting waiting for their time to move into port. Despite their immense size, most container ships did not need a large crew to man, maybe 20 to 30, making what he was doing even easier.

A small zodiac boat to the side of the ship, and a grabbling hook up the portside made getting onto the ship a peace of cake. Starting from the bridge he quickly knocked out the captain and deckhand with no one being the wiser. From there it was easy to sneak up on a few of the other shipmates and throw them off the ship. The last shipmate proved to be troublesome as he heard the splashes caused by his fellow mates being thrown to the sea. But like the rest, his ability to swim was tested as he was sent overboard down a few flights to the cold water below.

Taking a moment to catch his breath, the thief took a moment to check his watch. Time was looking good, 10 minutes to secure the ship, 10 minutes left to finish the job.

The thief made his way down into the cargo rows, "Number 34274... 34274... 34274," he muttered quietly to himself.

Finally reaching the end he found the container he was looking for, "34274!"

Like most containers, it did contain a locking mechanism that required a key to access. Luckily a key would not be necessary for the thief. Placing his hand flat against the metal locking mechanism a series of noises began to sound, metal scraped and groan softly before a distinct click was made.

The thief nodded in satisfaction as he began lifting the crate latches and opened the container doors. The container was mostly empty save for some boxes plastic wrapped set to the sides, exactly what he was looking for. Reaching behind his utility belt he drew a knife and began cutting into the boxes. This proved to be the most tedious part of the job as it seemed every box proved to be the wrong one.

After cutting through at least 7 of them he began to get nervous that the info they had gotten was wrong. Finally, with 3 boxes left, he found it. Opening the box he saw a tightly secured metallic round object 2 feet in diameter, the distinct logo of a triangle with the right side missing adorned the side of the object. Anyone who was anyone knew immediately who this belong to, thus the more reason for his plan to go without a hitch.

'Holy shit!' The thief groaned as he slowly lifted the object out of the box. Go figure that a miniature reactor would weigh so much.

Taking it from the container and then back to his zodiac only reinforced the idea that he would need to hit up the gym after this was all over. Lowering on a rope back down to the zodiac though would reinforce the idea he needed a new job.

After lowering it, the thief collapsed against the railing of the ship and began heaving breaths as he slowly recovered. Checking his watch he saw he was over his time limit by 6 minutes.

"Shit," he muttered to himself.

The time had been strictly considered to prevent any unwanted attention from being directed his way. Lifting himself he jogged back up to the bridge and attached a small rectangle device into the navigation computer. The screens on the ship flashed off and on for a moment till the GPS system no longer showed the city of Gotham on screen but a completely empty ocean. As well as a line directing the ships rudder controls.

Nodding in satisfaction the thief then made his way to the anchor control panel and remembering what he was told searched for the emergency release. Luckily such things do actually come with bright red markings and warning labels and he quickly flips the safety off before turning the release lock. Immediately a loud clang sounded out throughout the ship as the massive steel chain that connected the anchor to the ship swooshed through its constraints and detached from the ship.

A ship the size of the 'Siren' was not one to start drifting immediately, though slowly but surely the currents of the ocean were starting to build momentum. The ship slowly began to drift toward the direction of the port.

The radio immediately began to crackle, "Cargo ship 'Siren'... Cargo ship 'Siren' you have begun moving off your parking lane, please remain posted we do not have an open dock..."

The thief ignored the calls of the port authority as he examined the dashboard of the ship. Now he just had to remember which of the throttle controls actually made the ship move.

'Hello darkness my old friend...' his mind began to mock him with the song for not remembering the schematics and to his embarrassment the youtube video he had looked up.

Sighing the thief said, "Screw it!" and pushed whatever throttle he could find and began flipping all the dials on sight. That did cause some strange noises of grinding conflicting gears and for all he knew the e-break to scream in protest. But slowly the massive ship began to move, the speed slowly increasing in the direction designated by his little box.

The thief made his way back to his zodiac which was now straining against the current and the increasing speed of the cargo ship.

"Time to abandon ship."

Sliding down the rope he cut it from his boat, driving away he could only stare at the ship which was increasing its speed and heading towards the docks.

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*Commissioner Gordon, Port Adams, Gotham 1:47 A.M.

The soothing smoke from his cigarette was doing little to calm his growing panic at what he was seeing.

A cargo ship seemed to of crashed directly into the southern part of one of the largest ports in the entire country. Small fires had broken out on the dock where the ship had crashed and some minor damage had been done to the anchored freighters nearby but luckily it was not too severe.

The 'Siren' he had been told had a critical navigation failure and then failed to respond to hails from the port authority. From its parked lane waiting for a free dock it had broken anchor and accelerated towards the dock based on the navigation error. The bright side of such a large ship was the fact that accelerating takes a long time and for the Siren, it had only crashed with a speed of about 10 knots or 11 miles per hour. The downside of a ship that size was that it was still a near skyscraper size object moving at 11 miles per hour right at something!

The ship had rammed the docks and lifted the front from out of the water where it tilted to its side causing a weight displacement. That caused 100s of containers to fall into the water and out onto the dock with some even breaking open.

It had been nearly 6 months since the devastating arson fire in East Gotham. Gordon had finally breathed a sigh of relief just last week when the court had finally sentenced the Penguin. Things had been looking up with both reconstruction, criminal prosecutions, and the overall feel of the city. Now this had happened.

Walking up to Gordon was a tired-looking man in a ruffled uniform of the port authority.

"Gordon, good to see you." The man said reaching out to shake his hand.

Gordon nodded and shook his hand, "Mitch what are we looking at?"

"It is a complete F&*k," Mitch O'Connell, head of the port authority of Port Adams said.

Pointing at the rear of the Siren Mitch explained, "We are still trying to piece together what happened, right now though our focus is trying to salvage the ship. That rear portion has been punctured and is taking in water, if we don't manage to stop it the ship will sink to the bottom and block off that portion of the dock for months. We also have the EPA coming in to do an evaluation of the environmental damage this is going to cause from all the fuel... the mayor is going to go livid over the costs."

Looking over another dock worker was motioning for Mitch to talk, "Sorry Gordon, duty calls. When we have a moment I am happy to work with your investigators to figure out how this happened."

Mitch began walking away but Gordon stopped him, "Any news on where the crew is?"

Mitch shook his head, "No and that is just adding to the worry." And continued to walk away to converse with the dock worker.

Gordon could only keep smoking his cigarette and rub his head at the growing headache he was having this late night... or is it early morning? At the very least it couldn't get worse.

"Excuse me, Commissioner! Vicky Vale from the Gotham Journal, do you have a second for a few questions?"

Gordon could only groan silently, 'I seriously hate Gotham sometimes...'

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*Batman, Port Adams, Gotham 2:15 A.M.

Standing on top of the slanted bridge roof of the ship, Siren, Batman almost laughed at the sight of the gruff and tough-as-nails Commissioner being grilled by Gotham's most notorious reporter. At least something from tonight could be laughed about later.

He had been on sight just a few minutes after the ship had crashed. At first, he had been annoyed at his slow pace to get to the incident but considering the situation realized he would be unable to do anything. The ship was set on a collision course and with its size and momentum, he was not sure if even Superman would have been able to stop it.

The first course of action he made was to save any of the crew mates still on board. That was the first weird problem to this growing puzzle, there was no crew onboard, and the ship was empty with no signs of a struggle. Entering the bridge he found all the throttle instruments including the ones used for reverse and emptying the ballasts had been thrust forward. The most concerning thing was a small black box connected to the GPS computer. At some point during the crash, the box had burst into flames destroying its hardware and any evidence that could be gleaned. From there he perused the ship looking for any additional clues to solve this frustrating mystery.

And that is how he found himself on top of the roof of the bridge. Emergency crews were slowly making their way onboard, crews in the water were examining the damaged hull, and police were securing the docks. His time was just about up for how long he could investigate undisturbed. It was one of the many challenges of his work, trying to balance the needs of his investigation with that of proper authorities.

Seeing Gordon's interrogation by the reporter coming to an end Batman got ready to join him when he stopped. From the corner of his eye, something was blowing gently in the wind, something against the side of the ship facing outwards to the sea.

Batman made his way down, carefully avoiding getting attention from the emergency crews, and examined the object.

A simple black matted grabble hook was wrapped around the guard rail with a rope dangling off the side nearly to the bottom of the water. Coiling the rope up, he examined the end to see it cut but other than that, no other clear clues.

'Hmmm, so not an accident...'

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*25 Miles East of Gotham Harbor, Unknown Island

Hidden away on the small island was an entrance to a large cave system where one of the great minds of the world, Victor Fries worked. Known by most as Mr. Freeze due to his criminal antics he had kept a low profile after finding this island. Peace and quiet were something essential for his work, and one he was literally willing to kill for.

Thanks to the large cooling units and the cave naturally being cold, Freeze was out of his life support/battle suit and wearing his lab coat. He was currently overseeing a DNA sequence that held promise for his next step when he heard familiar footsteps making their way toward him.

Freeze kept his focus on his computer as the newcomer came to stand by his side.

"Any luck?"

The computer at that point finished its computation and spat out a negative success for the sequence.

Freeze sighed at the result, "No, and this one held so much promise."

Appraising his companion, he saw that he still was wearing his thief get-up. Black long-sleeved shirt with black pants and gloves. A ski mask with red goggles covered his face, at 6 feet the figure was slightly taller than Freeze, though if he had been wearing his suit he would be looking down at his new partner.

"Was there any problems?" Freeze asked.

Grunting, the thief lifted the round reactor and placed it on the table knocking over some beakers and test tubes.

Freeze gave him an annoyed look, "You could have just said yes and left it on the ground."

Shrugging, the thief stepped back, took his gloves off, and sat down on one of the stools set up in the lab.

Snorting at his partner's antics, Freeze examined the reactor and murmured something, it sounded like approval. Looking back up to the thief he said, "This should keep the island powered for a few years at the very least. Good work."

"Thanks," the thief said as he pulled the goggles and ski mask off letting his face feel the frigid air that Freeze maintained in order to live.

"Although I may have screwed up..." James said.