8 The Penguin Hunt - part 2
Words 3,242
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Your apartment sits in the center of the affluent City District, an unheard-of place for anyone outside of bankers, millionaires, and crime bosses to live in.
Working for Deathstroke has certainly done a lot of favors for your bank account, enough to get you a studio apartment with enough room to walk between your room and the bathroom.
Which is something less than a quarter of Gotham could say.
The apartment door unlocks with a soft click.
Your eyes immediately scan over the expanse of the apartment, looking for even the smallest inconsistency since you stepped out this morning.
The bag of chips is still sitting on the counter, the T.V. remote still halfway stuck between the couch cushions, and the precariously tilting number of pizzas are still beside the trash can.
Jiggling the door to your room, you find it locked, just as you left it.
Then you notice something out of place, an envelope sitting under your mail slot. The letter is elegantly crafted, clearly from someone who should not be taking an interest in a sixteen-year-old orphan.
The writing is familiar to you, the same one that had written the invitation you had received last year.
To Mr. Cadmus Othrys,
You are invited to attend the annual Wayne New Years Gala, to take place on the 31st of December.
This is a black-tie event, no exceptions will be given.
Signed,
Alfred Pennyworth, representative of the Wayne Estate
Only a week from now, you note.
Underneath the signature, you see a scrawled message.
Mr. Wayne personally requests that you do not return to the sender with any malicious or dangerous attachments.
You chuckle loudly, imagining Bruce's expression when he received your little gift from the last time he sent you the invitation.
Did they really not get the memo? you wonder.
Why would Wayne send this invitation, even after how I cut ties with him?
What did he want? The question itches at the back of your mind.
*
*
I'll go, but only because it's Alfred asking. you think to yourself.
The butler had done his best to make your time at Wayne Manor as painless as possible.
A tall task for even a man of many talents, like Alfred Pennyworth.
"I guess I'll have to go buy a suit," you say out loud.
You had outgrown your last one when you jumped an entire foot over summer and torn it in half trying to fit into it.
You're going to need a plus one also, you realize, no point in going to a Gala by yourself.
But who would you take? Bette? She is Bruce's cousin. No, that would only be fun for the first few minutes.
Artemis? No, you'd be spending the entire looking over your shoulder watching for a sniper on the nearest rooftop.
A wicked thought crosses your mind, oh yes, that would be a good enough punishment.
You punch her number into your phone, tapping your foot while it rang.
"What's up?" Rose's voice crackles out.
"Hey, Wayne's hosting a gala next Friday, need a plus one, wear something red, alright?"
You listen to Rose stumble over her words for a couple of heartbeats.
"You want me to wear a dress?" she asks incredulously.
"The fewer straps the better, I'll pick you up at six."
You cut the line, but not before catching the tail end of her outraged shriek.
You enter your room adorned with all the necessities of a Spartan, passing by the tidy bed and empty desk before turning to the long wall opposite the window.
A map of Gotham is tacked to the wall, covered in an array of brightly colored pins and strings connecting location to location in a dizzying array of patterns more reminiscent of a conspiracy theorist's brainchild than an actual plan.
They stretch from every corner of the city, like a spider's web, from Newtown in the north all the way to Chinatown in the south, peppering through the City and Fashion District.
Each marks a brick that makes up the foundation of Penguin's crime empire. Money laundering fronts, restaurants, and offices, illegal fighting pits, drug operations, prostitution rings. Any crime that's ever committed in Gotham, and you would bet your life that Penguin has his grubby little fingers taking a cut of the profits somewhere down the line.
The bases of his capos are circled in bright yellow, Butch Gilzean running the Gothic, Mario DeSouza controlling the dockyard operations, and Emanuel Veroni running racketeering in the financial district.
And at the heart of the center's web sat his Rome, the crowning achievement of everything that Penguin had ever sat out to do.
It sits right in the center of the City District, marked by a trench knife embedded deeply within the paper, the Iceberg Lounge, headquarters of Oswald Cobblepot.
Over 12,000 square feet and two stories high, it's just as much a nightclub as a fortress, guarded day and night by his goons and the criminals who frequented it, with security systems that would leave the Pentagon green with envy.
Soon, soon it would all fall. And you would be the one to do it.
The one drawback to your powers is that you can remember the exact moment when this became an inevitability.
Five years, eight months, six days, fourteen hours, twenty-six minutes, and eight seconds since Cobblepot murdered Danny in cold blood.
You would pay him back, with interest.
*
*
Your hands ghost over the mask laying atop the stand within your closet.
The metal is cold to the touch, with a thousand hidden grooves of concentrated and strengthened polymer beneath the nearly plain exterior.
It had been a gift from Deathstroke, made by his own personal armorer, which meant your bank account didn't suffer too badly.
Once, it may have held the visage of a Roman mask carved into the steel, but all the features had been weathered and eroded until the only discernable features were the empty hollows from where your eyes would peer out of and the barest trace of the aquiline nose and lips.
It's a homage to your powers, Aeon, the epoch of eternity, where all things that were, came to their inevitable end.
It's suitably Shakespearean for a cape name.
The sun dips below the horizon and your clasp your armor, styled in the same way as your teacher, though grey and black instead of his orange and blue.
The mask slides smoothly over your face, clicking into place, and from within the darkness of the eyeslits glows a brilliant golden light.
Let the Hunt begin.
The Gotham Docks are silent as the grave, outside of the low hum of cargo ships and the droning of horns in the distance.
You look down at the maze of shipping containers, abandoned containers, and the odd thief scuttling between the rows of boxes beneath you.
The cold sea air fills your lungs as you take a long breath.
Deathstroke's dossier had been extremely thorough on Penguin's seaside operations, from the ships he owns to the customs officials he has in his back pocket - which is all of them, to the various imports he plies within Gotham.
It's only the former that concerned you tonight. The docks are the only possible place Penguin could escape to, and without any ships to take him to safety...well, you'd enjoy watching him try to live up to his name.
The Penguin owns a fleet of two dozen ships ranging from simple cargo liners to skiffs, to a monstrous yacht that has its own personal pier.
It would all go up in smoke, tonight.
Your attention warehouse with glowing lights and rows of SUV's parked out front.
That's the headquarters of Mario DeSouza, head capo of Penguin's dockside operations and one of his chief lieutenants.
The horn of an incoming ship rings loudly as it slowly enters the docks. Immediately after its gangplank falls, a swarm of figures rose out from the shadows, carrying out boxes of cargo from within its hull, depositing them in stacks on the pier.
You examine the shipping itinerary. Right on schedule.
One of Penguin's own ships, The Icebreaker, carrying foreign spices, foodstuffs, luxury items, and...wait a minute, sensitive items?
With your interest piqued, you further inspect the itinerary, but to no avail.
That's all it says, Sensitive Cargo, written in simple block letters where an item should be listed.
The packages of explosives and very illegal incendiary devices weigh heavily in your pack as you ponder your next move.
Blow the capo sky high, or figure out exactly what the Icebreaker is transporting?
Your sense of curiosity wins out.
You slink through the tops of the crates and through the shadowed spaces in their amidst towards your destination.
The ship looms above you, its silhouetted form outlined by the dim glow of the moon hidden by a thin curtain of clouds.
Light shines out from its bridge and the sound of movement echoes from its deck.
Forklifts sit silently all along the dockside, waiting to begin the process of loading the cargo into the open storage containers that laid strewn about.
The few figures on the dockside are too distracted with the containers to notice your presence.
That's when you make you make your move, sneaking into the open gangplank just as the low hum of engines filter in from the distance.
A low-powered light illuminates the inside of the ship.
Stacks of boxes cover nearly every inch of the floor, from wall to wall and near touching the ceiling, and only a single narrow walkway to allow you to pass through.
Snapping the hatches of the first box and lifting it to the ground, you foist open its cover.
All you find are layers of packets, each stuffed to the brim with white crystals. You bite back a whispered curse.
Just some standard-fare cocaine trafficking, not anything worth your time.
The next boxes reveal much of the same. Baggies of Methamphetamine, capsules of Ketamine, and an inordinate amount of nearly every drug known to man.
So that's what the spices meant on the shipping itinerary. Still, it's nothing worth considering Special Cargo.
You find the luxury items. Priceless artifacts, frescoes, paintings, and sculptures all held in separate meticulously cleaned boxes, no doubt meant to decorate the walls of the Iceberg Lounge.
The foodstuffs are decidedly less impressive. An entire wall dedicated to holding perhaps the largest amount of sturgeon caviar anywhere in the world.
The metal hinges crumple and groan under your tense grip. You're wasting your time. You had to find the cargo, and if that failed, plant the bombs and get moving.
Every moment only made it more likely that you would be discovered.
You press yourself tightly against the wall when the door at the far end of the hallway opens with a shrill complaint.
"Watch it, you idiot," you hear a hoarse voice say. "you're gonna blow us all sky high if you keep that up."
"You said to go left," his partner complains.
Risking a glance from your hiding spot, you spot two sailors lugging a metallic silver container between them, and just before the door closes, you catch sight of the same metallic containers sitting in orderly rows.
"My left, piss-for-brains."
"Say another word, and this ship is gonna have a new paint job," he mutters.
The first sailor has only enough time for his eyes to widen in surprise before his body careens into the wall and he hits the ground.
The dull crack of bone echoes unnaturally in the confines of the room. His painful groan tells you that he's still alive.
"Wha-" is all the other one can get out before your hand slams into his throat. Cartilage bends and snaps underneath the force of the strike and he follows his partner into unconsciousness.
You deposit the bodies into a nearby alcove, pushing containers to conceal them, for the time being.
They'll be found soon enough, but you'd be long gone by then.
You return your attention to the container, grunting in exertion as you drag it out of the walkway.
The surface is ice-cold to the touch, the metal designed in a complex and strange weaving pattern that was distinctly not human.
A deep crimson glow bathes the inside of the room as you open it.
It's a weapon, that's clear enough, but unlike anything you've ever seen.
It looks as though it's made of chrome, but the material warm to the touch, and across the width of the gun are translucent tubes and channels that flow with dark crimson fluid, like blood.
This is definitely not man-made.
It hums ominously, almost pulsing as you heft it up. The weight is almost the same as that of your own pistol, but this somehow, it felt dangerous, capable of damage far more than its size implied.
Your finger just stops short of the trigger. Shaking your head, you drag yourself out of the reverie.
It slides into your belt easily and you quickly shut the container, replacing it atop a pile of foodstuffs.
You turn back to the room where the other weapons are stored, the weight of the explosives hanging heavily on your mind.
Five minutes later, the room is lined with enough RDX, thermite, and other explosives to blow a hole in even the sturdiest of hulls.
The Penguin wouldn't be escaping on this ship. With your work done, you slip out of the ship, making for the warehouse where Mario DeSouza was.
A fleet of a dozen cars is parked outside, each with tinted and bullet-proof windows. You wonder how that would hold up with your new weapon, not well, you suppose.
The lights from within gleam brightly and you can hear the faint sounds of activity.
Only four mobsters stand watch, and calling it standing watch is a bit of an overstatement.
The low tunes of jazz come hazily through from the car in tune with drunken whispers and laughter, and grey wisps of cigar smoke dot the sky.
They have no idea that you're right there, not even thirty feet away.
It isn't worth your time to deal with them. Dozens of mobsters just like them are inside, what difference would four of them make?
You take a wide arc around the building, careful to remain out of sight, the dark colors of your costume letting you blend in with the dark shadows of the dockside.
And to your surprise, you find the back entrance unguarded, not a guard in sight. The door opens with a soft click.
Isn't this supposed to be difficult? you wonder. Were they really so arrogant to think no one would hit them so deep in their own territory?
You're only surprised that someone else hadn't tried it before you.
It's about time someone taught them a lesson, and you had more than enough explosives to give them one they wouldn't soon forget.
The warehouse, unlike the docks, is a hotbed of activity.
Forklifts beep loudly as they lift boxes into trucks and workers rush to and fro, between the open garage doors, clasping straps on large transports and applying layers of bubble wrap to whatever the overseer told them to.
And in the center of the entire operation, untouched by the chaos surrounding him, is Mario DeSouza, the head capo of Penguin's dock operations, sitting at the head of a poker table, a tower of poker chips in front of him.
The two guards flanking him are clearly a cut above the cannon fodder he kept at the docks, not that that was difficult, each a foot taller than a normal man and suits straining against their forms, standing as prime examples of the benefits of steroids.
The others at the table aren't included in Deathstroke's dossier, but judging by their nervous looks and half-hearted chuckles whenever DeSouza spoke, they're just your run-of-the-mill lickspittles, throwing away their money and dignity to appease their boss.
Disgust bubbles up the back of your throat.
They would do anything for even the barest scrap of prestige and power, murdering families, human trafficking, destroying livelihoods, selling out their own mothers, nothing was off the table for people like them.
And that's why you had no qualms about doing this, and why no one was going to miss them when you blow them sky-high.
Your footsteps are lost in the noise of construction, shouting, and machinery as you sweep through the edges of the warehouse.
They don't notice when you place C4 underneath the grates, or thermite inside structural supports.
Workers pass by as RDX is fixed to the bottom of stairwells, and their eyes pass over you as you rig the gas pipes and electrical room with enough explosives to carve a hole into a mountain.
You're out of the warehouse half an hour later, your supplies completely spent, and the mobsters' none the wiser to the deathtrap they're sitting upon.
You can't wait for the fireworks.
I wonder if Slade will give me a discount. The thought crosses your mind.
Probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to ask, much. And if he said no, you're sure Rose could get you what you needed.
Her form of payment is something you'd give for free anyway.
The mission had gone off without a hitch, and that one fact left you more worried than anything.
Not a single misstep, not one guard who got too close, no tripped wires or alarms. In and out, perfect.
The first thing you'd learned from Deathstroke is that there are no perfect missions.
You couldn't wait to see what exactly was going to ruin your day.
Maybe an alien invasion, or another apocalypse, yeah that'd be a nice change of pace.
You'd regret those words not long after.
The hitch comes not along after you cross the dock's perimeter in the form of a pair of silhouettes prowling the rooftops, moon-lit forms jumping across the chasms between buildings with feline-like grace.
Selina, the word comes unbidden, crowding out all your other thoughts. How long had it been since you had last seen her, spoke to her?
Two years, eight months - it's been a long time.
And who was the figure leaping right alongside her, following her steps like a child following a parent?
You're drawn out of those thoughts when another pair appear over the horizon, dashing through the shadows and grappling along the rooftops in hot pursuit, one of them wearing a full-length cloak that seems to flutter and conceal his form.
Batman.
How shit was your luck for this to happen?
The cracking of glass, the crack of a whip, and the dull strikes of metal against metal echo from the rooftops as the two pairs finally clash.
It's like watching a game of cat and mouse, Selina and her partner engaging for but a heartbeat before leaping across the next edge leaving Batman and Robin to play catchup, never once giving them the chance to force a fight they're almost certain to lose.
And then, the smaller figure trips. It's only a stumble in truth, a scuff against the ground, and a single misstep, but it's all Robin needs to lunge on top of her.
You can almost imagine Selina hissing in anger as she turns to aid her protege, attacking Batman with all the fury of an enraged lioness.
