Answers that mean more questions

Kara walked out of her bedroom while yawning. She had had the dream again many times last night and kept waking up. It was always the same. Absently she made her way to the kitchen.

“Kara,” Bruce called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes?” Kara yawned as she asked.

Rather than say anything Bruce pointed down. Kara looked down and realized while she thought she had been walking down the main stairs… she instead was floating above where the stairs were. She breathed as she floated down to the carpeted stair.

“Sorry Bruce,” Kara yawned again, “I may need to recharge after tossing and turning last night.”

Bruce handed her the chargers for the power dampening earphones disguised as ear phones.

“Master Bruce,” Alfred called from the kitchen, “There is a call for you.”

“One second Alfred,” Bruce called back while arching an eyebrow.

“News people call the manor…” Jason muttered as he scooted past the pair in the hallway.

Bruce walked into the kitchen and took the phone from Alfred, followed and took a seat at the island. Kara half heartedly at her breakfast. Behind her Jason and Dick were going back and forth about something. Yawning again, Kara drank her juice and went to get her laptop and text books.

*

Kara sat under the sun in the library. While the UV radiation was bad for her latex leggings, her Kryptonian body was absorbing and turning into energy for her body. The effect was that she was recharging as she read the class work. Despite having woken up multiple times in her short night, Kara was feeling more refreshed as the day went on. A message made her phone go off. Kara checked it.

“Well fuck,” Kara said, “Yet another trip to the top of PronTube’s top ten ranking.”

The closest thing she had here on Earth she had to the natural material most of Krypton wore was latex. And here in the US, Latex clothing was considered for the most part sex-wear. So from time to time, videos and pictures of her wearing latex ended up on various porn websites. Barbara seemed to enjoy letting her know when Kara’s clips ended up as top of search requests on porn sites.

*

DO NOT RELEASE TO ANYONE! Detective Ellen Yin, GCPD. GARGOYLE FILE, AUDIO RECORDING

Detective Yin- “What do we have?”

Patrol Officer Lewis- “One suspect, two broken arms, a broken leg, three broken ribs and a pistol half stuffed in his prison pocket.”

Detective Yin- “Where is he?”

Patrol Officer Lewis- “Right down here.”

Suspect [NAME REDACTED]- “Who are you?”

Detective Yin- “Detective Yin, GCPD.”

Suspect- “What do you want?”

Yin- “To solve the crime. Did you photograph the firearm?”

Patrol Officer Brown- “Yes Detective.”

Yin- “Good, secure it in your cruiser and look for the ambulance. Lewis, give me a permitter.”

Patrol Officers Brown and Lewis- “Yes Detective.”

Yin- “So, we are going to find your prints on the pistol aren’t we, and you don’t have a permit for that do you?”

Suspect- “I want my lawyer.”

Yin- “Fine, that is fine. But I have another question, one completely off the record…”

Suspect- “I want my lawyer.”

Yin- “I get it, but this isn’t going to be brought up in the trial… What happened? You spot an easy target and figured grab them over there in the shadows, and then you got yanked back? Get beaten by something that vaguely resembles a gargoyle?”

Suspect- “This off the record?”

Yin- “The conversation stopped when you asked for a lawyer.”

Suspect- “No gargoyles, I spotted a blonde white boy, real nerdy, long blonde hair. Held him from behind from the mouth of the shadows like you said. I asked for a donation. He handed over his wallet. I was asking to ‘borrow a phone’, when another voice said ‘This will not happen.’ And then I was pushed back into the shadows here off the subway platform. The nerd went hulk on me and I woke up to the uniforms and a subway employee checking on me.”

Yin- “Fine. Just wait here, I think the medics are here.”

Noises as Yin moves around.

Patrol Officer Lewis- “What did he say?”

Yin- “What do you think? What every smart crook says, ‘I want a lawyer.’ The Medics here?”

Patrol Officer Lewis- “Brown is escorting them down now.”

*

Bruce looked at the special phone he carried.

“What is it?” Bruce asked answering, “Draw a circlular pyramid on the screen Star Fire. Now what is it saying? Ok, Go check Avenue Q for a book store. One with a Hobbit display in the window. Good luck.”

Bruce hung up the phone as Lucius walked in.

“What was that about?” Lucius asked after closing the door.

“One of Dick’s friends needed help with a trivia game,” Bruce intoned.

“This one of those Riddler knock off trivia games?” Lucius asked quietly.

Bruce didn’t react for a long second.

“What is the problem?” Bruce asked Lucius.

“Not a real problem,” Lucius smirked, “I wanted to let you know that the computer people have helped straighten out the hospital refurbishment project. The one we talked about yesterday? And I wanted to know if you wanted to sign this.”

“The Hospital with the wiring from hell? Good. Let me see, a get well soon card?” Bruce looked up at Lucius.

“Yeah,” Lucius said, “That new kid, Valley got a bloody nose.”

“For a bloody nose?” Bruce held up the card.

“He kept passing out at the sight of blood so Tetch suggested the staff medics take him home and he bought a card for him,” Lucius shrugged.

“That is fair enough,” Bruce shrugged and looked for a pen to sign the card, “Tetch, that is that Jerry guy, right?”

“Jervis, but yes, everyone calls him Jerry,” Lucius said.

“How are they coming along with that nerve transmission stuff?” Bruce asked while signing the card, “He seemed rather excited the other day.”

“They are working on it,” Lucius shrugged, “Moving at the speed of Ethics Restrictions… I know Tetch would like to move forward, but the testing protocols have to be satisfied first.”

*

Batgirl and Nightwing were searching for the last remaining unaccounted fear toxin. Batman and Robin were patrolling for more mundane problems at the moment. Oracle was acting as dispatch while sitting with her father at home. Papa Gordon thought she was simply playing some sort of computer game.

“You know,” Nightwing said as he crawled down the disused chimney, “We should get rooms. After all you have to be crazy to break into a mental hospital.”

“Keep moving comedian,” Batgirl rolled her eyes as she shimmied down after Nightwing.

The pair came out where the boiler had been. It had been removed and a lid had been put over the top of the chimney decades ago.

“What do you have?” Batman’s tone called.

“Are you out of breath?” Nightwing asked.

“No,” Robin chimed in, “He is choking out one of Penguin’s thugs. But he was talking to the you two rather than the Neanderthals.”

“Well, there was a boiler here at one point. I can see the open pipes that would be for the old radiators that were removed at the same time. There are pipes that were closed off as well,” Nightwing narrated what he was seeing, “There is where they ripped out the door and wall to get out the boiler out. Looks pretty well sealed over with a replacement wall. Care to have a peak?”

“I don’t need x-ray vision,” Batgirl said as she pulled at the hidden door, “Seems like we have hidden passages here.”

“Looking for archived structure drawings from original construction,” Oracle added, “What dad? I am playing a mystery game with a party. You should try it. We are looking for a murderer in a haunted manor. Good night dad.”

Kara kept from laughing on the communications network, but Dick and Jason didn’t bother to restrain their laughter.

“Focus,” Batman snapped, “Now where did you get the guns?”

“Right,” Kara went back into her Batgirl persona, “There is another hidden passage way on the other side over here.”

“Here we go,” Oracle said, “According to this, there are hidden tunnels around the entire patient housing wing. Seems in the notes that the original Doctor Arkham seemed to think that the best way to check the patients was to spy on in their rooms rather than bringing them to a therapy couch. The doctors would enter via the boiler room and then walk down their hidden hallway taking notes.”

“So what about this other hallway?” Nightwing asked as he looked for a way to pry open the hidden door.

“Not in the notes” Oracle said.

“Down and scratch the right,” Batgirl said to Nightwing.

“Got it,” Nightwing said as the hidden door opened.

Nightwing opened the door and examined the other side of the door.

“Someone used this door recently,” Nightwing noted, “but they wore gloves. Seems like heavy hazmat gloves.”

Batgirl noted the oversized fingerprints in the dust. The two moved down the narrow hallway until they reached another room with a single dingey lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. In the middle of the room was a table.

“We found it,” Batgirl whispered.

On the table was another medical grade high pressure gas bottle. Nightwing went to the table looking for traps and then looking for clues. Batgirl looked around the room. There were five ladders along the walls of the room. One on the same wall as side passage that went up. Batgirl looked up and saw that it went to a shelf between two offices on the floor above. Two ladders were on the left and right walls of the room that had opened up to her left from the passage. Batgirl went to look at them. Each ladder went up and into a hidden door near the roof of the room. Batgirl looked into the rooms behind the hidden doors one at a time, they were offices of the doctors. Batgirl seeing there was no one in the office she opened the hidden door and noted that the doorway were hidden into baseboard grilled vent of the heating system. She checked each, of the four. Doctor Quinzelle’s office, Doctor bin-Mohammad, Doctor Leland, Doctor Carter… and looking up stairs there were linked to Arkham’s office and Strange’s as well. Batgirl floated down and back to Nightwing. The sound of doors and voices made the pair retreat back to hallway. The pair listened.

It was Doctor Joan Leeland and another doctor. The two women were talking. Batgirl listened in as Joan confessed that she couldn’t declare Crane insane… She couldn’t because she loved him.

[What are they saying?] Nightwing hand signed.

[Later,] Batgirl signed back, [Put the nul-agent in the can.]

Batgirl kept her eyes open and looked around at the offices with her Kryptonian supervision. Nightwing hooked up the two part device to the nozzle of the gas bottle. He then opened all the valves and smiled as the pressure gauge of the bottle with the fear toxin raised. He then closed the valves and took back the null agent and the over pressure agent. The pair retreated back to the former boiler room.

“What is going on?” Batman asked after a while.

“We have a problem,” Batgirl said, “Still need a look around.”

“Did you find the fear toxin?” Batman asked over the radio.

“We found it, I hooked up the nul-agent,” Nightwing responded, “Hopefully it will degrade the active ingredients so it is harmless.”

“Got it,” Batgirl said, “Lets get out.”

*

Kara had the cowl mounted camera footage loaded up on the large monitor in the bat-cave.

“Scone?” Alfred asked offering a plate of treats.

“Thanks Alfred,” Kara smiled briefly.

Alfred went over to Dick half out of the hazmat rated Nightwing suit. As Alfred held out the tray, Batman and Robin pulled up in the Batmobile or Dragula as it was called on the street.

“Welcome home Master Bruce,” Alfred called with a smile as he walked over, “Scone?”

“Jason deserves it,” Bruce said pulling his cowl off.

“Sweet,” Jason said before taking off the wig covered helmet, “Thanks Alfred.”

Bruce rubbed his gloved hand over the boy’s natural red hair. He then looked at Dick and Kara.

“What do you have?” Bruce asked.

Kara brought up the wire frame animation first.

“There is a hidden passage from a janitor’s closet to a hidden room under Crane’s office. In side there is a hidden door to Crane’s office and that is how people bypassed the lock doors and security cameras for Crane’s office,” Kara said.

“Looks like it was a one of a series of escape hatches built into the building for the staff in case the inmates went crazy,” Barbara called over the speaker system.

“And we went down another that led to the boiler room,” Dick said as eat a scone.

“Right, here are the doors,” Kara said, “Built into the two foot by two foot grates of the heating system, just enough for a skinny person to slip in and out of. But there is a problem.”

The monitor started running the video recording of Batgirl’s up close exsamination of the hatches. It was clear that the dust around each latch had been disturbed recently by gloves. The feed then moved over and another was examined, again very recently it had been accessed by someone wearing gloves. The video continued and each showed that someone had recently used the hidden hatches.

“Doctors Leeland, Quinzelle, Carter, Bin-Mohammad and upstairs is Arkham and Strange,” Kara noted as the video continued to show her floating up the ladder way to the other two offices, “All six of them could be the real ‘Scare-Crow’ that framed Crane.”

“All of them might have motives,” Dick said, “Bin-Mohammad and Crane got into another rather nasty spat over the summer about how medically accurate the Quran is.”

“Carter and Quinzelle have been trying to get Crane’s grant money for their own vanity outreach projects,” Barbara said.

“What about Strange, Arkham and Leeland?” Jason asked.

“Both Strange and Arkham have been known to push people over the edge to see what the limits of sanity are,” Bruce growled.

“Leeland is the odd one out,” Kara said, “She had a private chat and was telling a trusted co-work she had a crush on Crane…”

“So that is the bitch behind all of this,” Jason pronounced, “Setting it up like she couldn’t possibly be the one that set Crane up.”

Alfred, then Bruce slapped Jason up the back of the head.

“Ouch.”

“We need more proof,” Kara said pausing the camera footage with a shot of the table, “This is a bag of work gloves paid for in cash, and nothing down there had any finger prints anywhere.”

“Not a one,” Dick confirmed.

“Great, so until we get something else, Crane is going to fry,” Jason said before bracing himself for more hits.

“That is the unfortunate reality at the moment,” Alfred intoned.

*

Kara stood in her pajamas looking out her window. She was thinking about what Jason had said. Was Leeland playing up the angle of ‘would be lover’ so she wouldn’t be a suspect? Quinzelle’s professional rivalry was well known, but it had never inhibited their working together… Bin-Mohammad was investigated many times over for firebrand comments. Word was decades ago, Strange had injected a patient with straight LSD to make them go crazy so they couldn’t stand trial. And it seemed that every Arkham that had worked at the asylum ended up locked in a patient’s room as their retirement.

“If you dwell on it, you will go mad,” Dick said from the doorway.

“I know,” Kara whispered.

“So what do you want for Christmas?” Dick asked.

“Random change of topic,” Kara smiled.

“Trying to distract you,” Dick smiled.

“For Christmas…” Kara mused, “A nice boyfriend would be good.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for you,” Dick walked over to Kara and put a hand on her shoulder, “I can’t imagine how lonely you must feel at times.”

“No… But I manage,” Kara put an arm around her adopted brother, “Do you remember getting me my first Barbie doll?”

“Yeah,” Dick said, “Honestly I had no idea what to give an alien girl for Christmas… I have gotten better at it with practice.”

“Yes you have. Seems like more and more alien girls are showing up on Earth these days,” Kara smiled.

The special phone on Kara’s night stand pinged.

“Is that?” Dick started.

“The Justice League chatgroup? Yes, can you?” Kara started.

“Here,” Dick handed her the phone.

It was a picture of a man in a red outfit with a lightning bold on his chest.

“Well that isn’t the Flash,” Dick noted.

“No, no idea who it is,” Kara mused, “Good night Dick.”

“Night,” Dick patted Kara on the head.