Contacting Waller

[moonshadows]

“You’re sure you want to do this?” the old man asked for the umpteenth time.

Max didn’t even blink. “Yes.”

“Got your probe in place?”

“Ready to pierce and suck.”

“Outgoing secure?”

“Onioned five ways through satellites that aren’t American.”

“And incoming?”

“Same, but through a johnny-jump-up from an old Russian system that nicks the responses before they hit the first satellite – which drops the packets.”

“And you’re positive this will reach the one in charge.”

“Riding the waves they laid out for us. Their system’s got a straight-to-the-top override; I’m just flagging the code with that and letting them do the work.” She took a deep breath and hit connect. “Here goes.”

The cursor turned into an hourglass that flipped over and over before a simple black box opened up. CONNECTED appeared at the top, and then the cursor resumed its place.

“Well, at least they’re still alive,” Bruce muttered. “That’s something.”

HELLO, SCUMBAG HEAD OF THE BATMAN BEYOND PROJECT, Max typed.

Blink. Blink. Blink. WHO IS THIS? Came the response after a healthy and no doubt highly-suspicious but curious pause.

SUBJECT 91745-ALPHA, the teen typed grimly. Three, two, one until the words appeared on the other side, five, six, seven, eight to pull up her record, eleven, twelve to read… ALSO KNOWN AS ‘UNACCEPTABLE’.

HOW DID YOU REACH THIS LOCATION?

Max bared her teeth slightly as she punched in, YOU TELL ME.

“Data coming through,” Bruce said quietly. “They’re trying a trace. They haven’t found the probe.”

WHAT IS IT YOU WANT, MAXINE GIBSON?

Seeing her name made her pulse speed up, but she’d discussed it with her old man. She wanted them to know who she was. In a way, she needed this. ANSWERS.

TO WHICH QUESTIONS?

WHY WAS I ‘UNACCEPTABLE’?

The cursor blinked for what seemed like a very long time.

THAT WAS MY CALL, came the response.

BECAUSE A BLACK GIRL CAN’T BE BATMAN?

THAT’S NOT IT. YOUR EARLY PSYCH PROFILES INDICATED THAT YOU WOULD BE QUITE A FORMIDABLE BATMAN.

THEN WHY? Max was surprised to discover that she was shaking with rage, and that her cheeks were wet.

I FLAGGED YOU AS UNACCEPTABLE BECAUSE I KNEW THAT IF I DID, ONE DAY YOU WOULD COME LOOKING FOR ME. AND YOU’D FIND ME. YOU’D FIND EVERYTHING.

She shook her head, fighting down her emotions. WHY?

BECAUSE BATMAN’S NOT THE ONLY ONE GETTING OLDER, MAXINE. WHEN I DIE, THE BEYOND PROJECT WILL DIE WITH ME – UNLESS YOU TAKE UP MY MANTLE.

Furious now, Max typed, AND WHY WOULD I DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT?

BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU CAN DO IT BETTER THAN ME.

The words rattled her more than she thought they could have; wasn’t that effectively what she’d been doing? Appointing herself the ringleader of the Beyond Project kids?

“Stay focused, Max. Don’t take the bait. They don’t know what you know.”

The old man’s growl was remarkably grounding. Max pushed aside the wave of self-doubt. WHATEVER, she typed with forced derision. YOU THINK YOU KNOW EVERYTHING, WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME WHO MY FATHER IS.

The cursor blinked. WHY MAXINE, DON’T YOU KNOW?

BESIDES BATMAN, DREG. I WANT A NAME.

“Good,” Bruce soothed. “Very good. Find out what they know.”

I DON’T HAVE ONE TO GIVE YOU, came the reply.

WHY NOT?

BECAUSE HE COVERED HIS TRACKS TOO WELL.

Beside her, Bruce was grinning. She grinned back. COME ON, YOU HAVE HIS DNA AND ENOUGH RESOURCES TO MAKE OTHER GUYS HAVE HIS KIDS, AND YOU CAN’T FIND A MATCH IN THE NATIONAL HEALTH RECORDS?

OF COURSE WE CAN. WE FOUND SEVERAL OF THEM. ALL OF THEM WERE FAKE, ALTERED BEFORE WE GOT THERE.

“Nice one,” she congratulated him, earning a smug smile. “Is yours even accurate?”

“Nope. I switched it with Alfred’s.”

WE’RE SURE YOUR FATHER IS STILL ALIVE, the person on the other end assured her when she made no reply.

WHY, BECAUSE OF THE NEW BATMAN?

“We’ve almost got their entire database,” Bruce said. “They found the probe, but not the redirect. Keep going.”

THE NEW BATMAN IS GETTING HIS EQUIPMENT FROM THE ORIGINAL OR HIS SUPPLIER, BUT HE’S GETTING INFORMTION, TOO. FIND HIM, AND YOU’LL FIND YOUR FATHER.

“No, really?” Max rolled her eyes. I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS.

YOUR FATHER CAN ANSWER THEM.

NO. HE CAN’T TELL ME WHY I SHOULD BELIEVE YOU.

 YOU HAVE EVERYTHING WE KNOW, the other person typed. IT’S ALL IN YOUR HANDS NOW, MAXINE.

YOU JUST WANT ME TO LEAD YOU TO HIM, she typed, fingers shaking. Rage or terror or just simple violation, she wasn’t sure which.

I WON’T LIE, WE’LL BE WATCHING YOU.

HOW ARE YOU SO SURE I’LL TRY TO FIND HIM?

BECAUSE YOU WANT TO KNOW BADLY ENOUGH TO HAVE REACHED OUT TO ME.

AND IF I DO, AND YOU FIND OUT WHO HE IS, THEN WHAT?

THAT DEPENDS ON HIM.

“Time to mess with her head,” Bruce growled, looking up from the stolen data he was skimming. Max handed over the keyboard with relief. She had no idea what the old man had seen in the data that made him so angry, but whatever it was, this was going to be good.

YOU KEEP UNDERESTIMATING ME, he typed, his expression more of a predatory rictus than a smile.

I DON’T SEE THAT WE HAVE.

BECAUSE I DIDN’T WANT YOU TO.

I’M NOT SURE WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT.

HAVE YOU SPENT THE LAST FIFTY-SOME-ODD YEARS THINKING THAT I USED YOUR LITTLE DEVICE ON ACE?

The cursor blinked for three and a half minutes while Bruce kept grinning and Max stifled giggles.

YOU…

SHE READ MY MIND. THE ONLY REASON SHE ALLOWED ME TO APPROACH WAS THAT SHE KNEW I WOULDN’T.

YOU’RE NOT MAXINE.

DID YOU THINK I WOULDN’T FIND OUT ABOUT YOUR LITTLE PROJECT, WALLER? DID YOU THINK I WOULD JUST SIT BY WHILE YOU ROBBED MORE CHILDREN OF THEIR CHILDHOODS?

The grin was gone now; Bruce was angry, very angry, and it was Max’s turn to murmur, “Easy…don’t let her get to you.”

STAY AWAY FROM MY CHILDREN, WALLER. The keys clicked ominously under his fingers.

OR WHAT? She typed back gamely.

OR YOU’LL FIND OUT EXACTLY HOW BADLY YOU’VE UNDERESTIMATED ME.

A rapid sequence of keystrokes. The screen filled with seemingly-random characters and blank spaces, ‘drawing’ in a vintage Bat symbol. With grim satisfaction, Bruce killed the connection.

“If anything unusual happens,” he started, but Max cut him off.

“Anyone strange talking to me, calling me, interacting on the net, anything out of the ordinary, I don’t know anything. I’ll stick to my normal routines and be on the lookout. You think she bought it?”

“Do I think she believes you were never in contact with her? It’s a possibility. We’ve muddied the waters enough that the only thing she can be sure of is that she was speaking to the original Batman at the end.” A disk slid out of the burning slot; he handed it to her.

With a little trepidation, she took it. “So…you know her?” The disk, filled with all the data they’d stolen, drew her gaze and held it. Was she following in Waller’s footsteps?

“Max.” When she didn’t look up, he put his hand on hers and waited until she met his eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“I know what Terry went through,” she whispered.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t let her shake you. You’re stronger than this. You found Terry, remember? You figured out he was the new Batman. You would have found me from that, even though I covered my tracks in the med archive. Waller underestimated you. She doesn’t know you, like she doesn’t know me, and she’s trying to trick you into giving her power she doesn’t have.” His mouth thinned to a grim line. “You were never a mistake,” he ground out slowly. “Amanda Waller is black. When you inevitably found your way in and got to her file, that superficial resemblance would have been a weak spot she’d try to exploit to turn you to her side.”

A lifetime of rejection flashed through Max’s mind, followed by the memory of aged arms still strong around her as she wept and called him Daddy. The doubt burned away in a curtain of incandescent rage.

“She thinks she can ruin my life, the lives of my sister and mother and the man who would have been my father, and I’ll just roll over and lick her hand like a kicked puppy? Boy, does she have another think coming!”

Bruce smiled, proud and predatory. “That’s my girl. This is your fight,” he said in as gentle a tone as his growl ever got. “I let Terry go after Powers and his lackeys, to take his vengeance for what they did to his family. I’m letting you go after Waller to take yours.”

“Not for my family,” Max said firmly. “For myself. For Terry. For all the other kids you have out there who don’t even know. I haven’t let anyone tell me who I am yet, and I’m not about to start with her!”

“She won’t know what hit her.”

Max leaned over to kiss her old man on the cheek. “Thanks, Dad.”

“I’m still not used to you calling me that,” he grumbled, not nearly as displeased as he was trying to sound.

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get for being such a schway father.”

“Enough.” Bruce managed something close to his usual stern expression and focused it on her. “I won’t ask you to read through all of that tonight, or even this week. You’ll get into it when you’re ready, but in the meantime, you have other chores to do.”

“Yes, Bruce,” Max sighed, wrinkling her nose at him in a gesture only slightly more mature than sticking her tongue out. Holding the disk carefully, she slid out of her chair and trotted up the stairs and out of the Batcave.