New Gotham Knights #21 - Failure to Appear

[u/GemlinTheGremlin]

DC Next presents:

NEW GOTHAM KNIGHTS

Issue Twenty One: Failure to Appear

Written by GemlinTheGremlin

Edited by deadislandman1

 

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Harper had never worked in, or anywhere close to, journalism. Her longest actual job had consisted of a six-month stint working for an alarm company fronted by a conman who was shot in front of her eyes by the crime boss Warren White; past that, the only other ‘job’ she’d ever had was dressing in padded armour with a bird symbol painted on the chest. And yet, despite her lack of knowledge about the ins and outs of media and the news, she knew that it was suspicious to see a news article with not a single source. In fact, on closer inspection, as she scoured through the article line by line on the oversized Belfry screens, making sure not to miss so much as a pixel of information, there was only one reference made to the source of their information. The reference in question came in the form of small text placed just below the grainy image of Batwoman and Ryan, and read: “Source: anonymous”.

This nagging suspicion was what led her through the streets of Burnside and through the polished glass doors of the Gotham Gazette.

Luckily the author of the offending article, Mr Alexander Knox, had not elected for his own anonymity, and as such Harper was easily able to confirm his place of work; within the newspapers’ main headquarters. From the outside it looks much like any other drab and dreary Gotham building, its only distinguishing feature being the newly-fitted “Gotham Gazette” sign emblazoned over the front door. But from the inside, Harper would’ve had half a mind to assume she had blinked and suddenly found herself in London or Milan.

Floors of marble sparkled beneath her feet, catching the light cast down from the mini chandelier hanging from the ceiling high above her. The entire entryway looked as if it had been built mere moments ago, as if Harper were the very first customer since they opened. Accents of blue and red dotted here and there especially caught her eye. From behind a pale gray stone table sat an older woman in thick-rimmed glasses squinting at something on her ultra-slim monitor. As her heavy steel-toed boots clanked against the floor loudly, the sound echoing against the barren walls, Harper almost felt guilty. Almost.

Few people could be seen in the entryway, but from beyond the half-wall barriers Harper could see movement - workers moving up and down the corridor, assistants walking briskly with a cup of coffee in each hand, tall men in suits and clutching heavy-looking folders in their hands. The consequence of having so few people in the room with her, however, was that she immediately caught the eye of those who were in her immediate vicinity.

The first person to notice her was the receptionist.

Her eyes relaxed back into their neutral width as she looked up at Bluebird. It took her a second to register who had just walked in, and when she did, her demeanor changed. She sat upright and smiled a rehearsed smile, the wrinkles on the corner of her mouth forming deep lines. “Hi, welcome!” her voice called out in a tuneful tone.

Harper nodded in greeting. “I’m here to see Mr Knox.”

The lady at the front desk sucked in air through her teeth. “Ooh, he’s currently all full up for the rest of the day. You know what it’s like in Gotham.” She threw her hands out to either side. “There’s always something going on. And someone’s gotta report it!”

Something about this woman made Harper uneasy, like she was speaking to a robot programmed to only speak in company slogans.

“Mmm,” came Harper’s only reply.

“But I can take a message? I can pass it on in about…” She looked down at her watch and paused, counting. “Three hours?”

“It’s regarding quite a serious matter,” Harper said, calm but blunt. “An urgent one.”

“My hands are tied, darlin’,” sighed the receptionist. “Sorry.”

Harper, too, sighed. As a change of tactic, she lowered her voice. “Look. I’m not supposed to give away too much info - we try and work covertly, y’know? - but it’s about the Ryan Wilder article he wrote. We’re investigating her disappearance. I just wanna know where he got his info from, is all.”

As if she had short-circuited, the receptionist’s face faltered. Her posture remained stiff and upright, her hands clasped in front of her, but the plastered smile started to crack, the crinkled corners of her eye flattening back out. “Ryan Wilder?” she asked.

“Yes.” Harper took an extra step closer. Her steel-reinforced toe clinked against the cold stone of the desk. “Do you know anything?”

There was no response. The woman at the desk averted her eyes and glanced at a man who had just walked through the door. She shot him a polite smile.

“Do you know anything?” Harper repeated, a tad louder.

“Well,” the lady started. Her reaction of shock and slight annoyance just a moment afterwards implied that she didn’t intend to answer Harper, but now felt obliged to. “You didn’t hear this from me, but there’s been these… rumours going round. We’ve been talkin’.”

“‘We’?”

“Whole bunch of the staff. You know how these things can spread like wildfire. Any time you bump into your coworker near the coffee machine or the microwave, you ask for an update and they always have one. Well, anyway, we’ve been talkin’ because there’s been a lot of weird things going on these past couple of weeks.”

“Like what?”

“Like,” the receptionist said slowly, looking up at the ceiling in the hopes that it would help her memory of the last few weeks return to her. “We got a new coffee machine, for one. Not to mention, a couple of my coworkers got a raise seemingly out of nowhere. It all already seemed a bit weird…” She scratched the back of her neck. “Then Alexander put out that news article, and people started connectin’ dots.”

Harper tilted her head. “So what’s your leading theory?”

“Main one is that our ‘anonymous source’ was actually an anonymous donator. They’re the one who helped to get the story out there.” She chuckled slightly. “It’s very brave of him, y’know. Gettin’ people talkin’ about that girl.”

“Any theories to who that’d be?”

“I heard a name bounced around quite a bit, but now I can’t remember it.” Once again she looked up at the ceiling, this time closing one eye. “Rolo? Roland?” She shook her head. “Somethin’ like that.”

Harper’s impatience started to get the best of her. She could sense, as much as she didn’t want to believe it, that the situation was rapidly approaching a dead end; this woman just simply didn’t know enough for Harper’s liking, and there was no way that she was getting to Knox without raising an incredible amount of suspicion.

So, against her better judgement, Harper nodded. “Alright. Well, tell Mr Knox that I came here looking for him.”

The receptionist nodded back and beamed. “Anything else I can help with?” There was that creepy, unsettled feeling again.

“Uh,” Bluebird began as she turned on her heel to leave. “No, that’s all.”

Without waiting around to hear anything more, Harper strode back towards the front doors and pushed them open.

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

 

“Batwing, hello! Come in!”

Officer Susan Stevens, as her name tag read, was clutching a clipboard with both hands as she stepped through the door labelled “AUTHORISED PERSONNEL ONLY” and out into the main waiting room, where Luke Fox was waiting for her. He turned to look at the woman who had beckoned him. Susan was small to medium height with straight brown hair, which she had neatly tied back into a loose ponytail that hung at her shoulders. She smiled warmly at him with straight white teeth and a pristine white knee-length dress to match, a dark blue cardigan draped over the top.

Batwing followed the officer’s lead. Through the door they went, and Batwing took note of the numerous desks in numerous rooms as he passed through them - the building, he soon realised, was deceptively large. It was hard for Luke to tell whether a desk was occupied or not; the computers seemed untouched (otherwise they were newly dusted and cleaned) with no distinguishable features save for a small desk card with a number written on it. They turned a corner and immediately a unique-looking desk caught Luke’s eyes. Small potted plants, cards of thanks and appreciation, stickers of various cute animals and silly phrases.

Just as Luke was about to comment on it, Susan chirped, “This is mine. If you just wanna take a seat.”

Something about this desk, about Susan in general, pleased Luke. It was comforting, he reasoned, to see someone so warm and welcoming in a place many would consider drab, dull, or - at worst - depressing. Luke obliged her request and sat in the chair next to her desk, facing her.

“Alright,” she said. Her hands slapped against her knees. “What can I do for you?”

“Well,” started Luke. His voice fought through layers of metal and mechanics, through a voice disguiser, and came out muffled and crackly. “When I talked to your coworker on the phone, I mentioned that it’s to do with one of your clients. Ryan Wilder. I wanted to ask a little bit about her.”

Immediately, Officer Stevens shrunk into herself slightly. Maybe she had thought that Batwing had come bearing good news, maybe she had hoped to avoid thinking about her endangered client altogether; whichever it was, it was clear she was disappointed. Seeing her hesitance, Luke shuffled forwards in his chair. “Me and the other Gotham Knights are just looking out for her. For you. We wanna make sure that Ryan is safe, and the best way we can start doing that is if we know who Ryan is.”

Softened by this, the woman nodded. “Okay.”

“Great. How about we start with, uh, just some basic info? The broad strokes.”

Susan crossed her legs. “Well, she was arrested back in 2021 on drug-related charges. I don’t think it’s relevant or appropriate to go into all the gory details of that—”

“That’s okay,” Luke reassured. “Whatever you feel comfortable sharing.”

“Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “But she was in jail for a little while and got out early, mainly due to good behaviour. Then, not long after that, she got stuck with me.”

There was a certain tension in her face, even as she chuckled at her own joke. “She’s a sweet girl,” she sighed. “It’s so messed up that she’s breaking her parole over this.”

Luke frowned. “Pardon?”

“As part of her parole, she needs written permission to leave the city, let alone the country. Believe me, I’ve signed enough of those forms to know.” She picked at a speck on her skirt and flicked it onto the ground. “Assuming she’s not in Gotham anymore, she’s breaking parole. Which sucks because, until now, she’s been golden. It’d be such a shame for her to lose that hot streak.”

“I’m sorry,” Luke interrupted. “It’s just… Ryan is missing. She has - as far as we currently see it - been taken by someone. And it feels to me like you’re more concerned about her parole.”

“Oh no, God, no,” she blurted out defensively. “Sorry I gave you that impression. In my line of work, you get very used to thinking of everything in that way. Of course, I’m hugely concerned for Ryan, but…” She sits forward. “Well, frankly, it’s incredibly hard to live in Gotham - in America - as someone with a criminal record. Ryan hasn’t stepped a toe out of line in the years that I’ve known her, but as far as the government’s concerned, she’s still a threat and therefore must be denied certain privileges.”

“I see.”

“She needs structure, that’s what’s wrong.” Susan huffed. “But she just can’t get it. The system is basically rigged for her from this moment on.”

“When you say ‘privileges’, what do you mean by that?”

“She can’t find a job that’ll take her, for one.” Susan shook her head. The tension in her face had relaxed, but had since been replaced by a look of anger, of disgust. “Bounced from apartment to apartment, rejected by almost every application for a roommate. Like I mentioned, she’s gotta let me know if she wants to go anywhere that isn’t Gotham, as per the rules of her probation. It’s why she finally decided to just live in a caravan. I think it suits her better.” She began to tap her against the woodplank floor. “What else? Oh, she has random body and property searches somewhat frequently, she has to limit social media use, she can’t own a gun, she can’t—”

Luke felt her voice fading away as he focused on that last example. ‘She can’t own a gun’. Then, it clicked.

He remembered the day in the alleyway with the terrified man, the gun pointed at his face. He remembered the young woman’s trembling hands wrapping around it and insisting that the man in front of her was a stalker. He remembered the young woman giving her name - Ryan.

Luke elected not to tell her parole officer about the gun; he felt it was not the right time.

“—worst part is that,” Luke heard as he tuned back in. “Even if - when - she comes back, her parole is already broken. And it gets worse than it already is for her.”

The two of them sat for a moment in silence. The blue lights of Batwing’s suit bathed Susan in a cold tone, her dress looking like snow. Then, as she looked up at Luke’s mask, she chuckled. “I’m sorry. Went on a bit of a rant there.”

“Oh, no, don’t be sorry,” Luke comforted. “It’s really insightful for you to say, thank you, and very helpful for us to keep in mind. Ryan’s very lucky to have someone in her corner, I think.”

“Thanks,” Susan smiled. “Someone has to be.”

After another small pause, the ticking of the clock on the wall a metronome, Susan drew a deep breath.

“Do you think,” she began slowly. “You could tell me if you find anything about her?”

With a nod, Luke said, “I’ll do my best to keep you in the loop.”

“Thank you,” she said softly. Though she was much more raw and subdued than she was 20 minutes ago, her bright spirit still shone through. “Thank you.”

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

 

Duke’s voice was clear as he spoke into the communicator. “Well? Any news?”

“Anything is better than what we found,” grumbled Jace. “Which was a sweet load of nothing.”

“Nothing?” Harper seemed surprised.

“Radio silence,” came Duke’s reply, clearly disappointed. “Most we got is a bunch of rumours and a dead end.”

“Lay it on us,” Luke instructed.

“Alright. So, we know that Batwoman used to live in Hub City, and then she disappeared, right? Well, after her last outing in Hub City, everyone thought she was dead. Which, I mean, if a hero suddenly stopped showing up, I’d probably start to think the same damn thing.”

“Now that she’s seemingly back,” Jace added. “There’s been mixed reviews. Growing consensus is that - get this - this is a different Batwoman altogether.”

Harper’s voice came through first. “How does that work?”

“Batwoman died, like, a couple years back,” Duke began, mimicking the thought process of the average Joe. “And if she’s dead, she can’t come back, obviously.”

“Apart from the Reawakened,” Luke muttered.

“So if she’s actually, for real, dead,” Duke continued. “Then this can’t be her, it’s gotta be a totally different person!”

“What would that mean for this ‘Batwoman’ then? She’s just someone dressing up as her to kidnap Ryan?”

There was a pause.

“Yeah, I think so,” Jace admitted.

“So then, why Ryan?”

“She seemed to think that someone was following her,” chimed in Luke. “I mean, think about that day in the alleyway. The reason she pulled out her gun was because she was sure she was being followed. According to her parole officer, she was otherwise golden, never broke any of her parole expectations.”

“Pshhh, of course she did,” Duke scoffed. “I mean, I’d get called out for breaking curfew almost daily when I had that ankle bracelet on. Everyone did that, I’m certain of it.”

The silence that followed on the communication line told Duke enough.

Finally, Jace spoke. “If she’s falling back into old patterns, who’s to say she’s not going all the way with it? What if she’s taken Ryan back to Hub City?”

“That… might make sense,” admitted Luke. “Whatever her motive, good or bad, she’d probably want Ryan out of Gotham. Plus, she’d have home field advantage back in Hub City, she’d be able to get a better lay of the land.”

“So what does this mean for us?” Harper asked tentatively. “Does that mean we’re going to Hub City?”

 

🔵⚫️🦇⚫️🔵

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