SEL Chapter 34

Water drips in the Cave. Bats squeak and wings flutter in the dark as the south tunnel lights up with a hum.

Alfred’s elevator opens and he emerges with a tray balanced expertly on one hand and a cup and saucer in the other.

Helena shoots through the entrance and pulls up on the platform, snapping down her kickstand and killing her bike’s engine. She dismounts and takes off her mask, shaking out her hair.

“Hi, Alfred.”

“Good evening, Ms. Bertinelli.”

“Can you help me out with the Computer?”

“Certainly.” Alfred hands her the cup and saucer. “Although I must insist that you not delude yourself into thinking that you’re fooling anyone not named Stephanie Brown.”

She doesn’t even blink. “Gonna snitch on me?”

“I have not decided yet.”

Helena’s eyes sparkle as she takes a sip of coffee. “This isn’t my usual.”

“No, Ms. Bertinelli. I=t’s mine.”

“Yeah? What is it? What’s going on in here?”

“Do you really want to talk about coffee?”

“Well, I am Italian.”

“The beans are from California. Coarse grind. French press. Water well off the boil.”

“I expected something more bougie. I guess you’re a tea guy, right? I use a French press in the summer but then on school days I go to Gotham Bean Co. I get their Americano and a Bear Claw.”

“Their pastries are from the same vendor as Starbucks.”

“Just let me have it.”

“As you wish.” Alfred hands her the tray and sits in the chair in front of the Computer. “Tell me of your travels, Ms. Bertinelli.” He pulls up the map of the city, and Helena leans forward to draw a line with her finger. Alfred logs the route. “Anything of note?”

“They were racing on High Street again. Last month they hit a kid, and last year a high school student died wrapped around a streetlight. I put arrows in most of the tires and tossed the showrunner in a dumpster. On the Blecker Street Station platform, I think some guys were thinking about a ripoff, but they changed their minds when they saw me. I didn’t bother with them. There was a guy who wasn’t respecting boundaries outside the Iceberg Lounge, so I threw him in the fountain and gave his date Leslie’s card. I did a couple corner rips too. Here, here, here.” Helena points. “This is the one that matters. Check this out.” She opens a pouch on her belt and removes a plastic baggie containing gel caps packed with white powder. Each cap has the tiniest blue dot on it.

Alfred examines the bag critically. “Where?”

“Here.”

“That’s unusual.”

“It’s more than that. It’s a big deal,” Helena says, biting into the sweet bread from the tray. “That’s from the harbor. It means Maroni’s sourcing from the Japanese.”

“Could be resale,” Alfred suggests.

“That’s what I thought last night when I found the same thing on Fourth Street. I didn’t think anything of it. But two Maroni corners? Come on, Alfred. There’s a new deal. Show me the territory map.”

Alfred pulls it up, and different sections of the city are highlighted with colors representing the people who control them. Glowing arrows indicate the flow of ****.

“This hasn’t been updated since Bruce left, has it?”

“Ms. Gordon updated it during her brief tenure.”

“She would, wouldn’t she? We really need Matches Malone out there right now, Alfred.”

He sighs. “I know.”

“I burned mine. I can’t make a new one overnight and Gordon’s out GCPD. We’re out of the loop and we’re just falling farther behind.”

Alfred folds his arms, frowning at the glowing screen. “We might have one friend in the police.”

SEL

“Babs?”

“Yeah?”

“Did I wake you?” Steph asks.

“No.” Barbara sits, propped in her bed in her little apartment downtown. Three laptops glow on her comforter, reflected in the lenses of her glasses. “I’m up. What’s going on, Steph? Are you OK?”

“Uh…”

Barbara doesn’t like the sound of this. She forces herself to ignore the latest polls and gives her communicator her full attention. “Steph?”

“OK, so funny story. So, I totally nailed Roxy Rocket with no help from anybody and slayed it. And then I decided I was gonna get the Spider because, you know, Bruce always said that we had to come down hard on the new weird ones so they wouldn’t get carried away and end up being the next Riddler or whatever, right?”

“Right.”

“The Spider is ripping people off, so I went to see Catwoman.”

“Smart.”

“And she was super cool about it and very professional and basically told me who the Spider is. In exchange, she wants me to find Bruce.”

Barbara considers that. “OK. I mean, we can try. Who’s the Spider?”

“OK, um, so I didn’t want to just take Selina’s word for it. I followed the suspect home to be sure.”

“Are you stalling?”

“Yup. I think she’s married to Viti Saxena. She works for Wayne Enterprises. I’m pretty sure you know her.”

Barbara is already neck-deep in misery. There’s only so much this information can do. Slowly, she takes off her glasses. Her screens are now a blur in her dark bedroom.

“You’re telling me that the Spider is Aki Aramaki?”

“Well, probably.”

“Probably?”

“Probably. According to Selina, it’s a slam dunk. But I haven’t seen her do anything illegal or any Spider stuff yet. But it does kind of fit, right? Aki Aramaki is on the board at Wayne Enterprises. Those people are well-paid. She doesn’t need to moonlight as a sex worker.”

“Sex worker?” Barbara says, startled.

“Yeah! She’s a dominatrix. Super sexy black leather outfit and everything. Serious boots. It didn’t awaken anything in me, but it also didn’t… not awaken it. Seed’s a hell of a ****, Babs. I’m turning into a frat boy.”

“I know. It happened to me too. Holy cow.” Barbara rubs her face. “Keep talking.”

“And I know there was some talk about Viti’s campaign having all this money. Spider’s been active for a while. I think this is the war chest. And now she’s doing this thing with Ivy and she’s got the Wayne board with her. That’s like more money than god. Anyway, I can think of half a dozen ways to prove she’s the Spider. I don’t have to catch her in the act. Perks of dating Tim for so long. I know exactly what he would do.”

“Which is?”

“Toss her place, check the ropes against the ones in evidence, follow the campaign money, then trace her whereabouts on the night of Spider hits. It’ll be enough. Maybe not enough for a conviction, but more than enough to mess her up. And heck, Babs. We drag this into the open and her victims’ll start talking. Some of them will. Or their wives will. We can nail her.”

“Stop. Just stop.” Barbara takes a deep breath.

“What?”

“Steph, this would affect the race.”

“Probably.”

“What you do when you wear that costume is about helping the people of Gotham. Not about influencing politics.”

“Maybe influencing politics is helping the people of Gotham,” Steph says.

Barbara grimaces. Viti Saxena has a very real chance of winning this election. If Viti becomes mayor of Gotham, Aki becomes queen of Wayne Enterprises. Together, they will have more power over the city than anyone ever has except maybe Bruce. At the same time, Bruce would roll over in his grave if he knew that Barbara was even considering weaponizing the Bat this way. And that would be a very complicated thing to unpack.

Tell Steph to back off the Spider until after the election?

Or tell her to go ahead with her investigation?