ORACLE: DEAL WITH THE DEVIL

More people live in Gotham City than in 46 states. Some people have compared its mayoral role to that of a governor. That doesn’t quite do it justice. For all the power wielded by the person who holds this office, Barbara Gordon still does not have the power to move her legs. She determinedly hauls herself out of bed and into her chair.

The light filtering into her bedroom is hazy and gray. Sunrise in Gotham is rarely pretty, but her new home has a nice view of Gotham Central Park. She has to live in this building; every mayor before her has because the security infrastructure is already in place. The building is attractively gothic and the apartment is spacious, although it looks bare and almost prison-like, as Barbara has not even begun to unpack. She could live somewhere more tasteful, but it would cost the Gotham taxpayers a bundle in renovations.

She rolls into the bathroom and transfers herself to the bench in the shower, where she wiggles out of her underwear and throws them, immediately regretting it. Even a little thing like that is a problem; what falls on the ground must be picked up. Picking things up isn’t as easy as it used to be.

She bathes, dries herself as best she can, and rolls into the kitchen. Coffee lifts her spirits more than anything, but even at 6:10 AM, she is working just by turning on the TV. It’s time for Vicki Vale’s morning tirade on Gotham 5. Barbara’s phone didn’t wake her up, which means that last night was peaceful by Gotham standards. She rubs her eyes, sips her coffee, and looks impatiently at the toaster as her Pop Tart heats up.

Vicki is a natural strawberry red, but she has an aggressive blonde thing going on. Barbara sees what she’s going for, but the haircut is probably closer to a Karen than Vicki would like. Still, Vicki’s cheekbones do most of the work.

“Good morning, Gotham. I hope everyone’s ready for some rain, because Michelle over in weather says it’s on its way and once it gets here, it ain’t going nowhere. Look for the full weather report in eight minutes right here. Bruce Wayne was spotted last night at the Iceberg Lounge, and get this—reportedly without a date. Meanwhile, the Gotham 10 School District town hall was disrupted by a protest from a parent’s group over Diorgasm’s—shall we say spicy—Seed-themed marketing campaign, particularly the billboard that we can see from the exit at the Arkham Tunnel—you know the one. Socials are really heating up as Wayne Enterprises announced at yesterday’s shareholder meeting that they are not intimidated by the congressional chatter about blocking their commercial Seed derivative from the market. Congress is insisting that Dr. Pamela “Poison Ivy” Isley’s background makes her a threat to national security, and that no product that she works on can be submitted for FDA approval. This position has significant support on both sides of the aisle. Across town in the Narrows, Edward “The Riddler” Nygma was foiled in an attempt to rob an underground laboratory rumored to be within the stable of Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot. Gotham Police Commissioner Viti Saxena confirmed last night via a post on official GCPD social media that the vigilantes responsible are those known as Spoiler and the Huntress. It’s believed that Nygma, recently escaped from Arkham, was attempting to steal startup capital for a new scheme. GCPD seized over two hundred kilograms of materials associated with opioid production and reportedly thirty kilograms of product ready for the street. We’ve been seeing a lot of those two ladies out there, and I for one, love the purple—”

Barbara mutes the TV, straightens her glasses, and rolls to the toaster. She uses a fork to get the hot Pop Tart safely onto a plate. With that on her lap, she wheels back to her spot and checks the screen. It’s a blurry photo of Stephanie and Helena from a distance, leaping from a rooftop.

Difficult as it is, she waits while the Pop Tart cools, swiping news on her iPad. Two headlines on the front page about Viti and one a little farther down about Ivy. Barbara’s connection to Ivy continues to cause problems, and appointing Viti has been controversial. Barbara will allow a referendum to consider a recall if that’s what the people of Gotham want, but Viti is doing just as good a job as commissioner as she did as DA. It’s the chief of police who needs to go, but the optics of firing him would be so dire—at least this year—that it’s not an option.

Barbara sits with her plate in her lap, staring into space. She misses Dick. She misses Summer. She misses having a penis, although it’s nice to be able to concentrate like she used to. She’ll just have to wait until the Seed pill is ready. She misses Ivy, although they’re still on good terms—but Ivy’s stuck in Wayne Tower, and Barbara can’t spend too much time there, for obvious reasons.

Gotham’s mayor sighs and eats her Pop Tart.

ORACLE

City Hall is a gothic monolith with so many vast, arched halls and gargoyles that Barbara wishes that she’d used her grapple to look around its highest reaches a little more when she’d still had the use of her legs. Inside, it’s all black and white tiled floors and terrible acoustics that echo too much. Everything smells old.

She accepts no help from security in getting from the car to her chair, and she rolls herself into the elevator to ride up alone. It’s Tuesday. Weekends mean nothing when her phone can ring with an emergency at any time, but she still longs for it. But her hair is done, and her makeup is on; she is not going to cry in this elevator.

The doors open, revealing her assistant: a perky blonde wearing an altogether way too tight, pinstriped blue suit with a pencil skirt that she appears to have been poured into. Her pantyhose are shinier than diamonds, and her sexy little secretary glasses are fake, because there isn’t anything wrong Stephanie Brown’s eyes.

Barbara wheels herself out of the elevator. “I like your chopsticks,” she says, glancing at Steph’s adorable little bun.

Steph touches it. “Thanks! How’d you sleep?”

More like when did Steph sleep? Apparently, she was out all night with Helena. But Barbara doesn’t ask that.

“Fine,” she says, and Steph follows her to her office, where she perches on the desk like a pinup model as Barbara logs into her computer.

“You look like shit,” Steph says.

“Thanks. What do we have today?”

Taking this role was Steph’s idea. Barbara resisted initially, at least in part because of doubts about Steph’s competence, but Steph convinced her that having someone in on the joke would be helpful for her mental health. Steph was right.

“Thorne at eleven. Luthor at noon—that’s a video call, he’s not coming here. You’ll have to talk to Anthony after that about the antitrust thing. Lucius wants to talk to you, doesn’t matter when. Aki Aramaki’s in court again today, if you care.”

“I don’t. But is Viti OK?”

Steph shrugs. “Kate says she’s cool, but Kate kind of has to spy on her from a distance, you know?” Kate is a patrol officer now. “They’re separated.”

“I know, but it’s not like Viti’s gonna stop caring about her.”

Steph nods. “It all got venue changed and stuff. It’s none of our business.”

“It is if it messes with my commissioner. How’s Dad?”

“I—I mean, do you want me to stalk that?”

Barbara hesitates. Her father refused the commissioner job when Viti offered it to him, and he refused to take a lieutenant’s position. He agreed to work as a plainclothes detective, and now he’s with Maggie and Renee in Major Crimes. Barbara can ask him, or she can lean on Viti for information, but the most discreet way to keep an eye on him is to use the spy software that Barbara herself designed and installed on the Bat Computer. The only people with access to that are Steph, Bruce, Dick, and Alfred. All the old programs she wrote to try to support Bruce’s mission still exist. They’re still at her disposal, and they all carry mindblowing questions about privacy and constitutional rights that didn’t seem quite as important to her when she was younger. Jason had still been alive, the mission had seemed different. There had been hope, and all this enthusiasm for being Batgirl.

“No. No, I’ll just try to find time to have dinner with him,” she says.

“Well, we gotta find time for this first. Remember last week’s appropriations? We fucked it up.”

Barbara’s stomach drops. “How bad?”

“Not that bad, but when we had the deputy in here, she brought in all these nepo hires, and you can’t do that with bookkeeping positions. You need people who actually know how to keep books. So Line 40 didn’t have as much to work with as we thought.”

“What are we cutting?”

Steph shrugs. “You’re the boss. But it’ll either have to be Spacner or the Thompkins proposal.”

Barbara winces, sick to her stomach.

Spacner Park is massive. It’s not Gotham’s biggest public park, but it occupies an important spot north of the Narrows. They’ve had some success pushing crime out of that area with a combination of **** and support for the poor, but the park is in bad shape in all kinds of ways. It’s close to some of the dumping from Ace Chemicals, so nothing grows. Everything has to be replaced. It is staggeringly expensive, but if they can get that park back into shape, that makes the area infinitely more walkable. That’s important for school kids and for the developers that Barbara is courting to make inroads in the Narrows.

Meanwhile, Leslie Thompkins is constantly submitting appallingly well thought-out proposals for research-supported initiatives that will reduce poverty in Gotham. This latest one is based on a study that even Barbara’s considerable intellect struggled to fully understand—but the bottom line is that Leslie has gotten some PhD students to create a model that shows where soup kitchens and food pantries will have the biggest impact on children, which can in turn have a meaningful effect on helping those kids function in school, which increases the probability of making a dent in generational poverty.

“Babs?” Steph says, bringing Barbara out of her thoughts.

“What do you think?”

“I think it’s tough. Personally, I don’t like it when kids are hungry.”

Barbara wants to cry. Instead, she takes a deep breath. She can’t have both. This is her life now.

Greenlight the park rehabilitation? Or Leslie’s hunger proposal?