Ascension 2

Chapter Fifty Eight: Now For Something Different Part Three.

Sarah walked down the hallway, her arms swinging next to her. To say that this case was getting more baffling by the moment, that would be saying something to be honest. Right now, she was making her way to the apartment.

First it was Karlo and then it was Caruthers the Producer who they just found stabbed. The method of murder was close enough to raise a moment of concern. And the Actress…..her screams alerted the neighbors down the hall, who called the police. The girl was not really in any fit state to call the police or get involved herself.

Sarah made her way there and saw Bullock crouched over next to the Actress, who was wrapped in blanket and shaking in abject horror. Renee Montoya stood there, rather bemused when she looked at Bullock and as usual this looked like a train wreck waiting to happen.

"Essen, I don't know, she's pretty much scared to death…..did you see anything before you…..well before you passed out…..was he alive when you passed out?" Bullock asked, not really realizing that he was implying that there was a certain nature of the relationship between the Producer and the Actress. She wouldn't be the first one to get into a prominent role because of her performance in the bedroom as opposed to her performance on the screen. Renee's eyes were on him and she leaned her head down, shaking it calmly. "I mean, if he made a move on you, and was a little rough….these things happen…..I mean in Gotham City, but you got to tell us so we can figure it out….."

"Bullock, go get a donut, I'll take care of things from here or coffee or whatever," Renee said and she knelt down. "You woke up and you saw him like this….you can't even remember how you got home?"

"Yes," she said, nearly choking out the word as Sarah walked over with Renee and the two of them lead her into the apartment proper.

"Don't worry, he's been moved out," Renee whispered, and once again, the scene was strange.

Two identical murders in the same method, it was enough to make a person think that something was going on here, although it was hard to tell what that might be.

The actress blanched when she saw the body still there and James Gordon knelt over it once more. Renee gently steered her out of the apartment once again and there was an apology, and Gordon almost knew that.

"The Forensics team is late showing up," Gordon replied to all three of them and he could see the actress terrified but he was focusing on the body. He could barely see Sarah walking up next to him because he fixated on the body.

The murder was nearly the same in fact it was essentially identical to the first one. Her hand was placed on his shoulder and he turned around.

Startled for a moment but Gordon was rather….well he was more than calm. "What do we know about this so far, Essen?"

"We know about as much as we did about the last one, which isn't a lot," Sarah replied in an extremely crisp voice. "It's a similar MO used to Karlo's murder, isn't it?"

"Looks like it might have been the same weapon that might have been used," Gordon whispered, looking at her for a few seconds and thinking. "In fact, the fact that there have been both stabbing murders….it makes you think that the same weapon had been used, in the dagger that was stolen."

This statement caught Sarah completely off guard and her mouth opened for a few seconds and she shut it. "I thought that it was a prop, a souvenir, nothing that…"

A wry smile appeared on Gordon's face and he looked at her. "Well….after doing some digging, there were a couple of actual daggers that were there. They were said to have been lost to the annals of time."

Sarah raised her eyebrow once again and calmly stated. "Barbara?"

Gordon gave her a sheepish smile and nodded once again, with an embarrassing grin as he looked like someone who had his hand caught in the sweet jar. "Barbara."

Sarah thought as much but their focus returned completely to the body that had been the late Producer. This mystery kept adding new wrinkles to what proved to be an interesting situation.

"You know, for an older guy, he doesn't have that bad of a body, pretty good actually," Sarah said shaking her head but she smiled in amusement. "I guess that even the Producers have to look their best, so lots of healthy living, good eating, exercise?"

"Maybe," Gordon said, of course there could be other explanations as to why the older man had a good body but that was neither here nor there. That being said, he was dead and that's what mattered in terms of this investigation.

Bullock ambled his way into the room and he decided to give both Gordon and Essen a report.

"Well, Montoya got the kid to talk, I swear, don't know how she did it," Bullock said and the eyes of both cops were on him so Bullock decided to give his two cents on the situation. "Last thing she remembers, she had a drink the night before, with another member of the cast and the Producer. And the next thing, she woke up, naked, chilled to the bone. Think she knocked boots with the old man…"

That being said it appeared that Bullock seemed a bit skeptical about something but Gordon really didn't have time to consider it because the footsteps at the edge of the stairs indicated that the Forensic Team was on the way so he would have to hand things over to him.

Batman and Nightwing swooped down from the roof and entered discreetly through the windows to the building. Nightwing made his way inside first, with Batman following him into the GCPD building. It wasn't the Gotham Central building for one simple reason. Evidence from the various bombing sites during this latest wave of attacks were moved to the closest Precinct building, in preparation to being moved to Gotham Central in the morning so they can be investigated further.

'So remind me again, what's the point in having something in an older building like this,' Jaime thought.

'Really that's the best that they can do, and the security system is pretty much as old as the buildings themselves,' Harry thought and sure enough that access point was there and ready.

'And they won't pay to have it upgraded out of their own pockets,' Dinah thought and she shook her head. Given that weeks ago, a homeless man with a backpack was able to cause some havoc in the GCPD building, they knew that security was in desperate need of reform.

"So, the blueprints were perfect," Batman said, slipping through the access point on the roof.

Nightwing smiled, averting his gaze to the Detective. "Well if they weren't, then I would have been a bit disappointed, wouldn't you?"

Batman couldn't deny that that yes he would have been a little bit disappointed but he supposed that it got them inside. The politicians lining their own pockets and refusing to spring for a better security system worked nicely to their advantage.

They had to stop the moment they got in and duck into a utility area, where a couple of officers walked through. They looked to be in a half asleep state, neither of them really wanting to be there.

Most of the force was out on patrol, with a skeleton crew at this particular station. All in the name of making the people in Gotham City feel safe or at least what passed for safe in this city. That being said, it's was a quiet night in Gotham City.

Batman was the first one to step forward and there was a portly guard who was looking things over at the door. He was slumped in a chair, with a box of donuts and a cup of coffee next to him, although he looked to be seconds away from nodding off. A radio rested on a bench next to him and he was barely nodding off to the music.

Nightwing mouthed "I got this" to Batman and the Detective backed off, allowing the vigilante to do what he did best. One tranquilizer dart to the shoulder of the guard dissolved instantly and gave the illusion that he merely drifted off in the course of doing his job.

He unlocked the door fairly easily or perhaps it was because it didn't lock properly that it allowed them inside rather easily. Regardless it swung open in seconds.

Batman stood there calmly, and looked over his shoulder to Nightwing. Wordlessly he saw what he was looking for, the device laid out on the table. It was right there in open sight, more or less.

"Likely because they want to send it off in the morning, therefore, there's no use in locking it up," Harry whispered and Batman nodded.

He gave the device a brief look over and recognized it after less than a moment's thought.

"It resembles the device that the League used a couple months back, "Batman said and Nightwing nodded, he was beginning to get the same thing. "So either someone stole then, SWAT sold them off to someone, or someone got ahold of the blueprints or they leaked online. "

Harry meanwhile was using the scanner in his HUD to run an analysis on the chemical that was used in the attack and his lips curled. It was a grim realization but never the less, it proved to be accurate.

"It was just like the initial reports, they were dead on, it was a gas used in World War I, but it was altered, to become much more potent than the original chemical effects were," Nightwing said and Batman nodded, the situation was as grim as they expected.

"There was no way that it would have been no way this potent."

"Exactly," Nightwing agreed, but then he decided to drop another bombshell. "The base form is pretty common and the list of sites capable of producing it are rather large as well."

Nightwing gave a sigh before he decided to list of the usual suspects. "The top providers that would be capable would be Ace Chemicals, Janus Cosmetics, Wayne Industries, and RAO."

Harry paused one again and stopped, hitching in a breath.

"It's also an extremely common chemical, used in a number of different products, most commonly plastics," Nightwing said and he gave a sigh. "It's a real needle in a haystack type situation to pinpoint the who and more importantly the why"

Nightwing smiled despite that fact and he added, in a potentially more optimistic tone of voice. "But we have an idea…and I know someone else who could find out."

The emerald eyed sorcerer dialed up Oracle. "Nightwing to Oracle, are you there?"

"Yes, Nightwing, what do you need?" she asked swiftly and Nightwing described the situation to her.

"The blueprints from the device that the League used a couple months back may have found their way online, could you see who might have leaked them to someone?"

"Just a second," Oracle said and there were a couple of minutes wait as she performed a search. Fortunately she had a pretty shrewd idea as to where to look and she got back to them in a matter of seconds. "Well, looks to be our old pal Enigma, he somehow got his greasy mits on the blueprints and had quite the little auction for them."

There was a second where Nightwing gave a grunt of agitation and sarcasm dripped from his voice. "Wonderful….do you know who…..do you know whom he sold them to?"

Oracle was able to answer that as well. "Humphry Dumpler was the man who purchased them from him."

Batman and Nightwing could both agree without any words that the trail was getting a bit warmer and they were closer to figuring out what they needed to figure out.

In the dark of the night, Selina and Holly were about to close up the club. They had to admit that they felt pretty good about how they were doing business wise since the club had been opened. One could argue that business had been booming since they reopened.

The fact that they cleaned up a lot of the problems brought in a lot of new clientele and Selina was pretty sure why a lot of people that you didn't really expect to come to a place like this did.

The former owners didn't really have the best reputation and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.

'Plus the rumors that Harry Potter himself liked enough to invest in the club made this place seem more respectable,' Selina thought with a smile on her face.

And not that she wanted to profit off of a tragedy, but it was just sound business to remember that events of adversity caused people to just want to forget about how much their lives really sucked. Therefore some people went out and partied, getting stone cold drunk and they wanted to forget about the fact that they lived in a messed up place of Gotham City, especially with a tragedy like that.

Holly meanwhile was pacing around on the outside of Selina's office, waiting patiently for her to exit or maybe a bit impatiently to be honest. She was recovering rather nicely to be honest, although she was angry about how she got caught unaware in a situate that.

That being said, she thought that she recovered rather well and was looking good all things considered. Holly leaned against the wall in an absented minded way and waited Selina exit the office. Which she noticed seconds later.

What she saw, nearly took her breath away and despite being used to Selina, it really blew her away. There was no way to describe it, other than the fact that she looked like a million bucks, with the nice snug emerald green dress pressed around her body.

"Well, I guess that just because you stopped performing, that doesn't mean that you can't give people a thrill, now can you?" she asked her and Selina gave her one of those smiles.

"That's damn straight," Selina said, beckoning for the younger woman to follow after her, towards the front office.

The club was closed down for the evening so there was one of those tones that something might happen but perhaps it was just quiet. Only an hour previous, it bustled with activity and was packed to capacity. The remodel did help make things a bit more comfortable, because it was rather tight and constrained to be honest.

That being said, Holly was not too fond of the crippling silence that filled the factory, so she averted her eyes towards Selina. "I guess that your girlfriend isn't here to escort you home."

"She had to go home to Metropolis," Selina said, not even missing a beat when she shot back with her words. "Her work increased, because they need to get the production of the Red Sun up to meet demand. So I'm sure she'll be back soon enough….but business before pleasure, as you well know."

"Yes, I know, but it's just….it feels weird not to see her here, you know, to make sure that you…"

"Do you think that she needs to hold my hand to cross the street?" Selina asked and Holly opened her mouth up for a second but the woman's eyes flashed with mirth and amusement as well. "Guess you can dish it out, but you can't really take it, now can you?"

That being said, Selina pushed open the door and went out for the front entrance. Before she could lock up, she heard the squeal of fires as an old school Cadillac roared on past and a shout.

That was moments before the sound of glass hitting the wall and someone launched a firebomb directly right at the side of the club.

Instinctively the moment that she heard the shout, Selina grabbed Holly, and forced her down to the ground. The glass sprayed everywhere, jagged fragments flying in every direction, and cutting them both up.

"SON OF A BITCH, YOU'VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!" Holly yelled once again, she wasn't really doing that well.

Selina could see the fire go up in the club and she needed to work past things. She grabbed the fire extinguisher and put on the flames before they could do that much damage.

The woman looked at what happened, the shatter glass all around her. Blood dripped from her arms, an unidentifiable look on her face.

The suggestion that she should head to the hospital to get the cuts checked out fell on mostly deaf ears.

"Sorry, I wasn't able to find out much about him," Oracle said in an apologetic voice, she really wished that she could help more sometimes and this was one of those times.

That being said, Nightwing waved off her apology. "You did help a lot, you got us to Dumpler's last known home address."

That being said, it was a small house, quaint, nothing that you would expect anything out of the ordinary to happen at. Which naturally made things look extremely suspicious, but maybe that was just Nightwing.

'Lives with his grandmother according to the latest reports,' Nightwing said, when he made his way down the middle of the gnarled driveway.

"He got in some really big trouble for disassembling some pretty expensive mechanical devices, antique clocks, car engines, but this is the most dangerous of them all, he disassembled the motor that was responsible for raising and lowering a drawbridge," Oracle reported, and she sighed. "So he's got some problems but he was believed to be mentally ill, therefore he was remanded back to the custody of his grandmother."

Batman and Nightwing's brief look indicated that they believed that there was something else amiss in this place. Especially after those plans were bought, perhaps it was a strange coincidence, perhaps not but that being said, they were up on the front steps of the door, almost an hour after they had received the address in question in the first place.

The moment they arrived there, both of them could notice that something was off. The most glaring thing about this was that the house didn't seem to have been kept up in a very long time.

The outside of the house appeared to be falling apart and it looked like the paint was chipping off of the house. The grass around them was long, and didn't really seem to have been mowed in at least a couple of years, judging from the length.

Batman's eyes looked at Nightwing for a second, and Nightwing nodded. It was obvious that both of them were on the same page at this point and both of them slowly slipped inside the house.

The outside looked pretty bad, that was nothing that either of them could really ignore or dispute. That being said, they were shocked to what they came across on the inside.

The inside of the house, if anything, was far worse than the outside of the house. It resembled something like a scene out of a horror movie and there was a shuddering feeling from what they saw.

Several disassembled devices littered the floor, some in various states of disarray. Some completely were disassembled and others were only partially disassembled but they were a variety of different types of devices both mechanical and electrical that rested on the floor. There was a sour odor that was in the air.

Nightwing stopped and mouthed that only Batman could hear him, but he heard plenty. "A combination of the long dead and milk that's long since passed its expiration date."

That was something that turned his stomach and he felt like there should be some creepy music surrounding him but all he heard was the sweet sound of silence.

The silence was broken fairly suddenly by a jaunty little tune that was playing and Batman's ears averted back towards it. Batman looked like it was something that should be recognized upon first hearing.

That being said, Nightwing shook his head, he supposed that he wouldn't have heard it, growing up in England and more importantly with the Dursleys, which caused his cultural development to somewhat stop.

The two of them walked forward and they were greeted by the sight of a very large man sitting in front of a television on the couch, his back turned from them.

"The Grey Ghost will be back right after a word from our sponsors."

He eagerly fiddled with something on the ground in front of him. Nightwing took half of a step forward, in an attempt to take a closer look at what he was working with and needless to say, what the young man was working with was of the shock and awe variety, not to mention the stomach turning variety.

Nightwing noticed Dumpler's grandmother or rather what was left of her, since there was some kind of demented Frankenstein job that Dumpler did on her to put her back together. The old woman looked to have been dissected, and stuck back together again with boot laces. The smell of decomposition was more obvious.

Humphrey looked up, noticing the presence. "I tried to fix her, I really did. But it was a rather futile bid. No matter what, I could not reattach her head, alas, I'm afraid that she's dead. It was an experiment that I never should have begin, but all the kings horses and all the king's men could never have put her back together again."

Batman's patience was something that was nonexistent and he swooped in.

"Talk," Batman growled once more and Nightwing waited for a second. "The bomb at the Veteran's Day luncheons, how did you get it inside?"

Batman's anger was something that was flashing through his eyes and Humphrey looked scared witless, in fact the poor lad was about ready to shit himself as he trembled underneath the grip of the World's Greatest Detective. He closed his eyes, quivering.

"Please unhand me, I do not know, how this can be," the man whispered, in a childish voice and it may have bene obvious that his development had been stunted somewhat.

"I'll handle this," Nightwing said, convincing Batman to back off. After a cross look, Batman did so. "You bought the blue prints from some guy named Enigma."

"Yes, I did, I bought them, purchases them for a sizeable fee, but I only wanted to see whether they work them, can't you see," Humphrey said shaking his head. "But someone asked me to make them this guy…he would be willing to pay me enough if I did supply…"

"Exactly who was this guy?" Harry asked.

"Oh, he didn't give a name, in fact, it was almost like he was playing some twisted game," Humphrey said. "He wore sunglasses, a baseball cap, and a hood, along with being slender build and he worked with a bit of a limp."

Nightwing could tell that Batman was thinking along the lines of the same thing that he was thinking and that was not a description that could really narrow things all that well.

"There was one thing that I remember, he spoke in rhyme, but only at times," the young man said. "It was about months of the year, and by the way he was talking, anyone who disagreed with him had something to fear."

With those foreboding words, they had a lot to think about.

Barbara snorted in almost amusement but it was also kind of depressing the kind of work that she had to do. She wore the ear buds on as she was listening to the music, bopping her head back and forth, and she sat behind her desk at the GCPD, working on reformatting a hard drive and restore the operating system.

'Bullock, not that good with computers,' Barbara said, it was child's play for her what she had to do to get this computer working.

That being said, there were a lot of cops who had been around since the days of hard copy, that hadn't made the transition the digital age. Unfortunately for them, it was not only here but it was here to stay and Barbara once again was working hard in transferring the reports from the hard copy over to the digital reports.

It was busy work but necessary as the new systems were up and running. Although the city should spring for some classes, because some of those people using the technology was a disaster that was waiting to happen.

Lightly, Barbara tapped her fingers, listening to the music and bopping her head back and forth, to the point where she could almost see someone out of the corner of her eye.

That being said, she was used to blocking out certain distractions when she was working and this distraction was one that she was making a more conscience effort to block out than most. That being said, she was preoccupied with her work, and the music that she was listening to.

Edward Nashton frowned in frustration, he didn't appreciate his genius not being acknowledge and he was pretty sure that she wasn't acknowledging it. It was an extremely honest mistake to be blunt with things. That being said, he wasn't about to be ignored for very long, not if he could help it.

Barbara felt the ear buds being yanked out of her ear and she turned around, trying to keep her temper her check. She wanted to take his arm off on sheer principle for interrupting him and given how creepily obsessive that he was being, it was even more so tempting to do so.

That being said, the redhead took a couple of deep breaths that would keep her temper him check. "I'm sorry, you were saying something?"

She could see Nashton's eye twitch a little bit and he tensed up. After a deep breath he managed to speak in a calm and rather eloquent tone of voice. "I was asking you if you were interested in going out some time."

Barbara blinked for a second unable to believe the man's gall after she blew him off previously, but Nashton mistook the reason for her abject silence.

"We do have a lot in common, you know, considering we are both rather well verse in computer and information systems, and between the two of us, well strictly speaking…."

"Thanks, but no thanks, if you bothered to listen to what was going on around you, and not the sound of your own accomplishments, you would have known that I'm already taken, and I have been in a committed relationship for the better part of a year, thank you very much," Barbara said in a crisp voice. "So, if I was interesting in dating you, which I'm not, I sure as hell am not going to break up with my boyfriend just to do so."

Nashton resembled someone who had swallowed rancid milk but before he could react to that obvious and rather clear shut down, his attention averted to someone else who entered the office.

Barbara's expression brightened, when she saw Harry being led into the office by her father, wearing a visitor's pass. She expected him to show up soon because they made plans to have dinner although she had been so engrossed her work that she really realized that it wasn't so late.

"Nashton," Gordon replied to the young man's greeting. Despite his arrogance, he was competent at his work, in fact more than competent, he was rather good, and that made him even more insufferable to be honest.

"I'll be ready to go in a minute," Barbara said with a smile towards Harry and Nashton turned towards him with a smile on his face.

"I'm afraid that we haven't been formally introduced…"

"This is Edward Nashton, Harry, Nashton, this is Harry Potter," Gordon said. The man decided to do the formal introduction.

Edward's eyes blinked and he looked as giddy as a schoolgirl.

"Mr. Potter….no wait, Doctor Potter," Nashton said, correcting himself with a chuckle as he looked at the young man. "It's a pleasure to meet someone whose accomplishments and intellect matches my own."

'I think that you just got insulted,' Dinah thought, shaking her head.

'No, like it or not, Nashton is well versed in his accomplishments,' Zatanna broke in with a sigh and Pamela was the one who decided to finish what he was.

'He is however a world class douchebag,' Pamela thought, she heard Barbara mention enough about him to know that she didn't like him by proxy.

"The Red Sun just blew open the telecommunications industry, and…..you know, I have to say that I have some big ideas for the future, that will help change the world, perhaps the two of us could get together some time, and discuss business, we could change the way people talk even more, the two of us together," Nashton eagerly babbled with a bright smile on his face. "Just think about it, we can run all of these people off the map….Luthor, Wayne, Swann, you know, they're dinosaurs compared to us, we're the true revolutionaries."

"Well, it's good to have ambition," Harry said, but there was something about his demeanor that seemed creepy. Actually there was no seeming about it.

Barbara stepped in, and she didn't know whether to be amused or horrified that Nashton had went from hitting on her to hitting on Harry but Harry brushed it off with his usual casual indifference that he practiced towards…..well about ninety percent of the males he encountered. He wasn't rude, but at the same time, he wasn't about to indulge them.

She took a moment to greet her Dad with a hug and a kiss before she walked over with Harry.

"Come on, we don't want to be late," Barbara said to him and Harry smiled at her, allowing her to lead him off.

"Well have a good night, Edward, don't work too hard," Harry said, but it was more of a courtesy good bye than anything.

Barbara shook her head, wincing at the gaze Nashton gave her boyfriend, but she would fill Harry in on it a bit later.

Gordon watched his daughter and her boyfriend walked off but it appeared that Barbara wasn't the only one who was smitten with Harry tonight.

With a rather prominent groan, Gordon dropped his head and grumbled. "I'm getting way too old for this shit."

The young actor who was last seen with the Producer and the Actress was pulled in for questioning, being the prime suspect in the attack on the Producer. Given that the young actress slept with the old man, they were suspecting him for killing the producer in an act of jealous rage.

After being cleared of all charges, on an air tight alibi, he was seen in a rather popular club in the company of Matt Hagen around the same time of the murder in question. Therefore, the timing in question was off and it was almost impossible for him to take the murder in question.

The key witness statement was a drunken woman, who had more than a few drugs around in her system, so they were not going to take her word too seriously.

That being said, he was in the company of another producer, this one an attractive woman who was older but not quite old. She was about in her mid-forties, someone who had a fair amount of work done in her day but not enough to become ghastly and hideous looking like some people around her age group who had some work done and had overdid said work.

The two of them shared a nice drink together and they were stumbling away from the nice looking sports car that they managed to get from the bar to the hotel with, by a sheer miracle that didn't crash.

Now they were stumbling a little bit, in front of a high class hotel.

"Are you sure that you can make it to the front door?" the actor asked her and the producer looked towards him with a lopsided smile before speaking to him in a slurred tone of voice.

"Honey….honey….I think that I can get up there, I mean…well I've drank far longer than you have, so I think that we can get up there, and we can discuss the future direction of your role in your movie, you know, Hagen might be the star but you can steal the show from him," the producer said, and the two of them made their way into the room.

After checking in, the two of them ambled their way up the stairs, both of them looking rather giggly the more that they went up the stairs.

"Make sure to lock the door behind you," the actor said to her and the producer nodded.

"Yes, I will lock the door….after all, we wouldn't want anyone to interrupt us, but…..I think that we could have a cup of coffee first before we can get down to business, it helps with the headache, and we don't want anything distracting us,"

The door clicked open and the Producer waved him inside. With a knowing smile on her face, she shut the door behind them both.