Chapter 19: Conquest Is The Best Revenge
Max's suspension was almost over, but in the meantime, there was still plenty of time for him to try and waste. He couldn't be Null 24/7, and staying at home the rest of the time got crushingly boring. Rose was even planning a new mission of some sort and didn't want him in on it.
"Not until I'm done working out the plan, Sparks," She told him, "Besides, I have a feeling if I told you now, you might say no. I want you to owe me one first before I ask, just to make it harder to turn me down."
He didn't think he could ever turn her down, even if she was working an assassination. To his knowledge, since she'd been in Gotham City, Rose hadn't killed anyone that didn't have it coming in some way, shape, or form. As long as she didn't make him finish the job himself, he might not have had much trouble lending a hand.
Either way, that led to him spending more time doing his cover job; working at the Tin Roof Club for Selina. Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. Even though Null's thieving activities were on the backburner for the time being, that didn't mean he couldn't keep his ear to the ground and make 'honest' pay in the process.
On this particular evening, business was very slow. The bar was nearly empty with the exception of a few hopeless lushes lingering around the back corner booths and at the bar drinking alone.
Max sat at a table he'd recently wiped down, his head down on his arms, fingers drumming off of the glass of a beer that was well within reach. On a whim, he wrapped his hand around it and tilted the opening to his mouth.
"Max, what are you doing?"
He stopped well before any of the bitter liquid inside reached his mouth. He hadn't even pressed his lips to the bottle yet, "What? I was just gonna finish it," He said to his boss and mentor innocently, "It's still cold. That guy barely touched it."
Selina shook her head as she gathered the empty glasses from a nearby table, "I wouldn't drink after anyone that came in here. That's just me though," She teased, getting Max to shove the beer far away once he thought about it, "And as hypocritical as it may be after introducing you to the wonderfully illegal practice of thievery, I really don't want you to start drinking on my watch."
Max rolled his eyes at the smile on Selina's ruby lips, "Well from what people say when they walk in here all of the time about really needing one, I'd say I do these days."
She could understand why he wasn't exactly enthused by life lately. The call for Null's blood by the general population hadn't died down yet. Every night on the news there seemed to be at least thirty seconds dedicated to an update in the search for the bomber. Everyone had something to say. Even police officials weren't shy about sharing their desire to bring Null to justice.
The kind of justice that involved a bullet.
"Hey, it's a really lousy situation. But you're a smart kid. You'll figure it out," Selina said in what she hoped was a supportive way. However, when she saw the small smirk emerge on Max's face she realized that it might not have been needed, "You already have."
"I might have," Max told her, pulling out his phone and showing her a memo he'd saved inside of it, "I managed to get this."
They were foreign to her until she realized that they were lain out in the manner of an IP address. Not bad at all, "So what exactly is the play here?" Selina asked in regards to Max's would-be manhunt plans, "I figure that the second you track this number, you're going to have a very small window to actually catch up to your red friend before he disappears. If he does, I don't think you'll get another chance at him."
"I know. Wherever he is, I have to get there fast," Max said, punching into his own palm, "The way I see it, this is all about precision and preparation. I can't put this number in to track until I know I'm ready to roll."
"How long can you wait, hun?"
Probably not long. Max realized that the guy was a hacker, so perhaps Batman had as well. It was likely he already had. Batman wasn't a computer scientist though, for as smart as he was, so he might have a little time on his hands to get something together, "Not too long, probably. You have an idea?"
Selina grinned and leaned down to Max's ear, "Here's a little secret," She whispered before pulling on his cheek, prompting him to swat her hand away, "You have money. Lots of it. I know you're a cheapskate, but you can't horde it all. You have to put it to some use if you're going to keep doing this," She advised, "Eventually, you'll need something fast. You can't do everything on foot, even if you'd like to."
"Like a car?" Max ventured.
Selina frowned at the thought of being stuck behind the wheel of a big, clunky car. She preferred something sleeker and more mobile. Her choice of vehicle, the rare times she used one while on the prowl as Catwoman, was a motorcycle, "If that's what you'd prefer. Just so long as you can drive it, and afford to modify it for what you need."
Afford. As in spending money. Ick. And the mods that he would choose likely wouldn't be very cheap either. But then again, what was the point of having money if you weren't going to throw it around for anything at all.
Yes, Max lived below his means nowadays for various reasons, least of which to keep from drawing any sort of suspicion to himself, but that didn't mean Null had to. Everyone knew Null had amassed a nifty little amount of capital at this point. Why wouldn't he use it?
"...You know, I was going to say I'll just steal something, then mod it, to save money," Max said before cringing at the thought of parting with the amount of money it would take to get what he needed, "But stealing something I probably could have just bought if I'd been a little more creative is what got me into this mess in the first place."
"Don't let me sway your decision, Maxie. I'm not the boss of you," Selina said, sitting her tray down and walking over to him, "No one is. In the end, what you do and how you do it is all up to one person," Once she was close enough, she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek, "You."
Max smiled to himself and chose to dwell on her words as she walked away. They'd had a pretty checkered start, and he would still likely never trust her as much as he had before ever again, but Selina did care.
Regardless, she was right. Advice was one thing, but looking to anyone else for exactly how to go about what he should do didn't make him his own man.
Null was free. Free to do as he pleased, whether that was good or bad. Intelligent or otherwise. It didn't matter. The fact of the matter was that one way or the other, the choice was his. No one else's.
XxX
The suit was cathartic.
For some reason, despite the danger that came with putting the Null costume on, Max felt more at ease within the confines of his gear than outside of it.
Without it, he didn't have to worry about fitting in or following rules. He was free to do as he liked as long as it felt right to him and as long as he could get away with it.
After leaving Selina's bar, there were still a few hours left until dawn. Since Max still had a few days to go on his suspension, he didn't have to get up to do anything pressing in the morning, thus he decided to 'Null' up and spend some time on the town scouting out a potential new car of choice.
To be fair, he wasn't going to steal it. He would buy it straight cash as Max, along with another one from a used car more up his alley as a teenager getting his first ride. That one would be procured through trackable means that he would use as a day-to-day vehicle.
Because he was worth it.
He wasn't about to let his current circumstances keep him from doing as he pleased. That would mean that Anarky had won, in a way. He wouldn't give him any sort of satisfaction in that regard.
Of course that didn't mean that his guard wasn't up. Batman and the heroes that directly worked under him may have known he was innocent and wouldn't make a fuss over him being out and about, but Gotham City did have other heroes.
He wasn't sure how much Nightwing knew, but he wasn't counting on him being in the loop. He hadn't run into Huntress yet, but he wasn't looking forward to that meeting taking place if it ever did occur.
She had crossbows. Having been shot by a gun before, he didn't really see how getting an arrow driven through him would be any better. It was best to stay away from that person, especially if they hadn't seen enough of a reason to go after him yet.
Null sat on a ledge across the street overlooking a car dealership, a pen and pad in his hand as he wrote down cars that he was interested in. For the more higher-end dealerships, they didn't keep their cars outside, but there was glass he could see through.
Besides, if he really wanted to get a closer look, it was child's play to break into one of those places, especially with his powers. He wasn't looking to cause trouble though. It was pretty fun to jump around town looking for something that expensive for himself.
As he sat around jotting down his thoughts and things he would probably want to go on his car of choice, he stopped. The constant field of awareness he kept around his body to feel movement nearby had been disturbed.
Mouth affixed in a frown, he stashed the notepad away in his satchel and got up from where he was sitting, "Well I guess this is what I get for doing my shopping in Gotham," He muttered to himself before raising his voice, "What do you want?"
No answer.
Null rolled his eyes and pointed in the exact direction that he felt the disturbance stop, "I know you're right there. If you don't come out, I'll grab a hubcap or a fire hydrant or something and throw it at you," He lifted his hand in threat of utilizing his magnetic powers.
The threat worked well enough to flush out his guest. Batgirl emerged from behind one of the thick spires that lined the edge of the building, her hands up in surrender, face set in a scowl.
"That's better," Null said, putting his hand down, satisfied at the sight of her. Kind of. He was still sore at the entire Bat Family. That much hadn't changed, "Now what brings you to my little rooftop in the best city in America?"
"Don't flatter yourself. This is just to keep tabs on you. I'll be gone in a minute," Batgirl told him.
"It's got to be something important if you came looking for me… again."
"You're sitting on a ledge in the open. Not like it's hard to pop in and see if you're dead or not."
Fair enough. Null guessed that they needed their bait alive and at-large to keep Anarky from spooking and going even deeper underground. Something didn't sit right with that explanation though.
"Every night you can find me though?" He asked skeptically, "This is the second time we've run across each other in the last two times I've put the suit on."
"You're out every night, aren't you?" Batgirl replied, trying to steer the conversation away from her own motivations. She had a feeling that Null wouldn't let it go so easily, "Besides, Robin was the one that called a sighting of you in. I was the closest, so I responded."
There was a camera on so many buildings in Gotham City, it really wasn't that hard to find someone who wasn't trying to hide. Most of them didn't move on-foot as fast as Null did though.
He didn't believe her and thoroughly ignored her explanation, "You know, I think can figured out why you wanted to talk to me the other night and why you came to get me yourself this time," He had his hand set on his chin in faux-thought before getting his epiphany and gasping, "You want to apologize!"
Batgirl's lips curled in skepticism. She knew he was messing with her, but there was no way he thought he was actually going to hear her say she was sorry, did he? He was smarter than that, "I'm not going to apologize."
"I didn't say you were going to or that I expected one. I said you want to."
"Okay, you're confusing me now."
Null gestured flippantly with his hands, "I don't expect an apology out of you, because apologizing to me would mean that you think Batman was wrong. And thinking that he's wrong... well, he's your hero. You're not going to do that so easily, if you ever do at all."
There was a pretty good head on Null's shoulders, and it contained a pretty good brain. Times like these really pointed that out. They hadn't come any closer to figuring out who he was since he'd come on the scene, "You're really perceptive when it comes to people, aren't you?"
There were thousands of people who could have been him. Batgirl didn't think that this was some elaborate act of a sociopath to try and look normal. He was awkward when a teenager was supposed to be awkward. He was selfish, but tried to be honest. He wasn't antisocial, just in a situation where he couldn't really afford to be too personable.
And he was smart. Not a genius, but enough of a quick thinker to survive and keen enough to come out on top in several scenarios where others could not.
"People aren't that hard to figure out. At least, the big parts of their personalities," Null said, devoid of any ego in his words, "I'm not so good that I can anticipate anyone's moves, but I'm not so stupid that I can't pick up on patterns after I've dealt with someone enough times."
Batgirl could admit, they did come across each other quite often. Then again, with the wide net that she and her co-workers cast over Gotham City, they stuck to almost every notable figure in the city like glue for one reason or another. Null was one of the active costumed criminals out of jail or Arkham Asylum, and he was by far the most passive of the bunch – either incarcerated or otherwise.
It was barely dangerous to be around him, so he was the easiest to try and keep track of for the younger ones that Batman refused to let take on his level of risks. Therefore, that led to an excess of run-ins involving both her and Robin. They knew he was, for the most part, safe. The closest thing to a sure bet that you'd be coming home without bullet holes and broken bones, just so long as you weren't out to get a piece of him first.
"Anyway, I don't want your apology, even if you did feel like giving me one," Null said, "Just get off my back until I actually do something worth throwing a bitch-fit for."
Batgirl raised an eyebrow, though it went mostly unseen underneath her cowl, "Like what you're going to do to that bomber when you get ahold of him."
"Well it's a good thing I can't be arrested for what I'm thinking about doing," He deadpanned with a moment-killing smirk before he pointed at her sternly, "Fair warning. Stop following me, because we're definitely not cool like that!" He declared before reaching out with an open hand, propelling himself away from her with a magnetic pull.
Batgirl again watched Null go. Just from how effortlessly he directed himself through the air, pushing and pulling himself to and away from building, she could see he was getting better.
...And perhaps more powerful.
It was hard to tell just what in his development happened to be the skill that came with experience, and what was the result of his powers maturing.
XxX
There was work to be done every day, and nothing would keep Anarky from accomplishing his latest mission. In due time, his greatest victory would come to pass. The landscape was finally going to change in a major way. His actions would be the catalyst to a new era.
It was putting power and influence back into the hands of the people. Finally, everyone would have the chance to mold their own destinies without starting behind the eight ball. Then they would be able to start making a difference.
Anarky had learned by now, his war couldn't be won by one man.
He knew that there were others that wanted the same thing he did. The internet was a powerful tool. He had seen them, heard them, and verified how strongly some people felt. How fed up they were with the way things. But none of them believed that anything they did would make a difference. They felt helpless.
"The masses are never helpless as long as they're willing to use their greatest strength," Anarky said, seemingly to himself, "Their numbers, their anger, and their desire for change."
All they needed was someone to show them that it was possible to make an impact.
"I gave up my life as a regular person because in the grand scheme of things, it was meaningless," He said, "Lonnie Machin couldn't do anything for these people. But Anarky can be something more."
Not just a possible symbol of what could be, but a figure that the downtrodden knew could and would act when he saw the need. Someone to show the world that it was possible to fight against the corrupt system that held millions down.
Anarky looked at the nearest clock in anticipation. In twenty hours, his greatest triumph would be achieved.
XxX
(Gotham City – Batcave)
Robin cracked his knuckles before continuing to tap away at the super computer in front of him. The research that went into investigations was the most tedious part of the job.
He liked that part though.
It was like a puzzle for him to solve. Nightwing admitted that Robin was a better detective than he was, appreciating that aspect of the work they did more. It was something Robin took a measure of pride in, receiving that kind of acknowledgment from someone he looked up to.
Even so, he could admit that it was definitely a grind. When done correctly, it did bring about results, though. And that made the work all worth it in the end.
Staring at a computer into the wee hours of the morning was bad for the eyes. Robin took off his domino mask and rubbed his tired orbs, taking a moment to lean back in the seat and relax.
Through much painstaking effort and research, possible suspects had been rounded down to a certain group with the probability of their involvement also accounted for.
The leading suspect by 73 percent was Anarky.
This had been determined without definite proof, but the equation they used in order to determine prime suspects in their more sensitive cases were oftentimes accurate. It was based on what they knew about the criminals in their database, their past crimes and normal method of operating, and the active evidence they were able to gather.
The only time it rarely let them down was when circumstantial evidence turned up to completely turn everything else they had collected onto its head.
A notification appeared in the corner of the screen, letting him know that they were getting a call from out in the field, "Hey Batgirl. How's it going tonight?" He said, answering in return.
"Nothing big so far. Your tip was good, by the way, but following Null is a no-go. Breaking off to go back on patrol."
"Did he shake you?"
"Not really, but I'm not going to be able to follow him anymore tonight. He called me out. He can feel when people are around, and I don't know how far his range is."
So no making sure that he did nothing drastic, at least for tonight. Even if he wasn't the type to lash out, if he knew someone was following him, he would avoid any areas or activities of interest for as long as he believed he was being watched.
With how angry he was these days, if Batgirl persisted, he likely would have done something like trying to remove her by force if she kept at it.
"Well, I'd leave it alone for now if I were you," Robin advised after taking a moment to think, "With the way the city wants his head on a stick, I don't think he'll get into too much trouble until we catch the real perpetrator."
"Null says he already knows who the criminal is, and that he's going after him soon."
Robin raised an eyebrow in interest. Taking matters directly into his own hands like that flew in the face of a lot of what he'd compiled on Null thus far. Then again, when you were angry you did certain things differently, "Knowing who's responsible is one thing. Knowing where he's hiding is something else altogether," He said, "Lonnie's always been good at making himself scarce."
"He didn't seem too worried about that. Do you think he already knows where to find him?"
"Do you think he really does?" Robin replied, "As much as I hate to admit it, he never lies. I mean, I don't see how lying would do him any favors in the first place, but if he didn't bring it up at all, he probably still doesn't yet."
"That's a remarkably optimistic outlook from you, Tim."
Robin wheeled around in his chair to see his mentor towering over him, his attention focused on the screen, on what Robin had been working on.
"Bruce," Robin greeted, "Well, I guess it is close to dawn, isn't it?" He said, sparing a look at the nearest clock.
True enough, when Batman was out patrolling, unless something came up to where he had to return, he stayed out until just before dawn. Time must have gotten away from Robin as he perused over their compiled data. He had a habit of getting caught up in research.
"I won't be here for long," Batman said, walking away from the super computer station. He looked back and spared a glance at the results from Robin's work, "Hm, Anarky."
Batman had underestimated Anarky in their earliest meetings. Yes, he managed to bring him in, but he didn't think that a boy as young as Lonnie Machin had been during their first encounter had a will as strong as he wound up having. He really believed in everything he did and that he could and would one day achieve his goal of turning the social structure upside-down.
No matter how many times he had been stopped, by Batman, by other heroes, he kept going, each time more determined than the last. And he learned from his defeats.
"In his own mind he knows he's right, about everything, and he doesn't care about the way he goes about things," Batman said, "He lashes out at anything he thinks is a problem without really thinking about how his actions could cause harm."
He saw Wayne Enterprises as just another massive corporation with a rich, glad-handing jerk at its forefront, stepping on the little guy and profiting off of the efforts of millions. That was why he had no problems using it for whatever he had been planning.
Null had been a diversion. But for what?
Anarky hadn't taken anything. He hadn't accessed anything outside of Wayne Enterprises' security, which was useless to him now because it had all been changed.
"Whatever Null's going to do if he finds him first won't be good. He's really set on taking Anarky down himself."
Batman scowled. That boy had a knack for royally mucking things up, "We need to make sure that doesn't happen."
Robin stood from the chair of the super computer to stretch his locked up joints, "Do you really think Null would do something he'd regret if he somehow did get to him?"
Null's morality seemed responsive. He was as good or as bad as his surroundings and circumstances dictated he should be.
With that thought in mind, screwing him over the way Anarky had done called for hard revenge.
"I'm not willing to leave it to chance," Batman said, leaving his young charges to think, "This needs to be resolved."
XxX
(Sometime Later – Early Evening – Elsewhere in Gotham City – Max's Apartment)
"Sparks, did you eat all of the fucking Honey Bunches of Oats?" Rose shouted, waving an empty box at Max angrily from across the apartment.
"Yeah, seeing as how they're mine and I bought 'em," Max said, in the living room doing sit-ups, his thumb mashing the clicker in his hand with every rep to keep count, "And seeing as how your ass never goes grocery shopping."
Rose dismissed the suggestion with a scoff and a toss of the empty box, "Pfft, 'girly, domestic housewife' shit."
Max stopped exercising for a moment to give her an odd look, "More like 'basic tenant of living in the United States' shit," He replied, returning to his previous activity, "And what's wrong with girly? You're not gonna break my heart now and tell me those curves are just for show, are you?"
Accustomed to Max's loose attempts to hit on her by now, she barely responded with anything more than a snort as she walked over, "Not at all. But just remember, looking is free. Touching'll cost you," She pressed her foot onto Max, holding him down on the floor, "An arm… a leg... maybe even something a little bit more sensitive."
Her foot slid down Max's bare chest. His eyes followed the path it took until it rested just above his privates, her toes hooked into his waistband.
The sweat coating his body at that moment wasn't just from the one-handed pushups and the sit-ups he had been in the midst of doing.
It took a lot to try and keep his cool.
Rose had to know how hot she was when she did and said things like that. Even though she was technically threatening him (and it didn't feel that playful in tone), he was so used to her doing it that most of the fear that used to well up as a survival instinct was now gone.
"...I like my hands and genitals where they are, thank you," Max said, grabbing Rose's foot and slowly moving it away. A few more seconds and she would have felt a reason to possibly remove his dude bits, "...But does that mean I can stop hiding the fact that I've been sneaking looks at your boobs and your butt for the last two months? Because that's absolutely been a thing."
Rose let out a laugh and sat down on the couch, crossing her legs as she relaxed, "Oh I knew already. You call that hiding it? You couldn't have been less subtle if you'd whipped out a telescope for a better view."
"Not like it mattered, apparently," Max muttered, his legs pressed closer together to hide his response to Rose's actions. It was quite uncomfortable.
"Nope. Like I said, you can think about getting lucky all you want," The grin on her face turned noticeably vicious, "The second you try and turn your fantasy into reality-," She held out a finger and made a chopping gesture with her other hand.
"You'll chop my finger off?" Max replied, feigning ignorance at her actual meaning.
Rose was direct and brutal in turn, "Not meant to represent your finger, Sparks. That's supposed to be your dick. As in, I'll cut your dick off."
"Okay, first of all, I'm not going to call you on that, because I wouldn't put it past you on one of your bad days."
"Good boy."
"Secondly, if you were going to use anything to represent my dick, you should have used a ballpark frank or something like that. More to scale, you see."
"More to scale with a cocktail weenie, maybe."
"Sadistic bitch," Max said with no real heat to his tone. He finished his sit-ups and jumped up to his feet, having thoroughly waited out his erection problem. That would have been a problem to walk around with while he was wearing loose shorts, "If I wasn't a gentleman…"
Rose silently eyed Max and watched him walk over to what she had established as the work station.
The two of them pretty much never ate at the kitchen table any longer, instead choosing to do so on the couch in the living room. Whenever neither of them got around to cleaning things up, the table contained various notes with scribbles and writings of their various plots and schemes regarding thefts, assassinations, or generally whatever one or the other had on tap operations-wise at the moment.
Instead of throwing things away to keep their tracks covered, they would wait for any trips to Null's hideout where they could freely burn whatever they needed to get rid of.
So much wasted paper. So many dead trees. It was unfortunate for the environment that both were convinced that recycling could possibly implicate Max for some of those crimes.
"What are you doing?" Rose asked as she watched Max pick up the paper with the magical number on it that would presumably lead him to Anarky's lair, "I thought you needed to prepare."
It was such a struggle to keep from loading that number into the system he'd been given to track the origin point's location, "You have no idea how bad I just want to punch this in, find out where he is, and be done with it," He told her, "This sucks."
Rose laid out on the couch, her head hanging over the side of the armrest, giving her an upside-down view of her thief roommate, "Just laying this out there, not saying that I'm even considering the idea myself, but you might want to. Did you ever think of giving this to the Bat?"
Max's brown eyes snapped over to hers more ferociously than she'd anticipated, "Fuck him. Fuck all of them."
"I know you want to fuck one of them…" Rose replied, not quite under her breath.
Max rolled his eyes. Yes, Batgirl was hot, and in circumstances where there were no consequences for his actions, he would have been all over that. But this was the real world, "I'm being serious. Why the hell should I give them anything? What have they done for me?"
"It's not what they've done, it's what they can do," Rose specified matter-of-factly, "They'll actually clear you. No more worrying about having to dodge bullets from Gotham's finest whenever you go out at night. No more hearing nasty shit about yourself every time you turn on the news."
"-Which I can do myself after I hammer Anarky like a railroad spike and get proof that he staged the bombings." Max chimed in contrarily.
"How?" Rose snapped back, "You don't even know what you're looking for or if it even exists somewhere you can get to. If you don't have physical evidence, you're kind of royally boned."
Max wanted to argue more. He so desperately wanted to fight, to get some of his pent-up frustrations out. But the pragmatist in him knew that he didn't have a lot to stand on other than a personal vendetta he wanted to see to.
"I just really want to kick that smug douche in the face," He admitted, getting a grin from Rose, "Is that such a bad thing? Is it so wrong that I don't want him somewhere I can't reach him before I get the chance to utterly ruin his shit?"
Once again, Rose really like the side of Max that seemed to want to get at Anarky in the worst way, "No. But then again, what do I know about right and wrong? I'm really not a good moral compass," She said, "I told you, I want you to go after him. You've been neglecting your vengeful side a little too much. It needs some sunlight."
"Or some moonlight," Max quipped, keeping his eyes on the TV as he saw the credits begin to roll on the program he had been watching, "Tch. The 6 o'clock news is next. Change it."
Rose grabbed the remote, but stalled at doing what Max asked of her, "Are you sure? Don't you want to know if they'll say any kind of nasty shit about you on the air tonight?"
Max had a rebuttal prepared, but during the intro to the evening news, the entire feed seemed to short out and distort into something else entirely.
His blood began to boil when on the screen in front of him, the golden mask of Anarky appeared, front-and-center.
"It's time to tear it all down. This whole wretched system that's turned every man and woman in this country into worker drones."
Max barely listened to anything Anarky was saying, more concerned with the fact that he was being forced to look at someone he wanted to hit, "Did he just hijack the news?" He asked, "Yeah, like I said, change this shit."
Rose changed channels, only to find the same thing on whatever she flipped it to, "... I don't think it's just the one station."
The symbols of banks and major money lenders flashed in the dark background behind Anarky like specters as he continued.
"I'm calling for a hard reset. If they won't listen, if they want to keep treating human beings like assets and walking debt meters, I say we get rid of all the debt."
Max's eyes went wide. For the first time since Anarky had started, in Max's opinion, rambling, he paid full attention, "Wait, what did he just say?"
"You can call me Anarky. Now, the word anarchy has had negative connotations, but as far as I see, it brings a certain kind of equality. An equality I say we've been lied to about having for decades now. Well let's level that playing field. At midnight tonight, a virus cluster I've uploaded into the systems of every money lender you've seen here will wipe out all traces of debt. We all start from zero. Every last one of us."
With that, the transmission cut out and the station returned to its regularly scheduled programming. As if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred
Rose and Max looked at each other before the former spoke, "…What the fuck was that?" She eventually said.
Null eyed his roommate and confidant strangely before announcing his intentions, "…Okay, well that solves that conundrum. Now I have to go beat him down."
Those six words stirred up excited feelings inside of Rose. She was so used to Max engaging in non-confrontational missions like thefts. Things that weren't intended to end in violence. This was guaranteed to have fireworks. She wanted a front row seat.
"Really? You're gonna go for it?" She asked, not caring about how excited she seemed as she rolled over and posted her hands on the armrest of the couch, "You realize that if you blow it, this asshole is going underground again, right?"
Max was already up, getting his things together in order to head off to his base, "If no one gets to him by midnight, there's no limit to just how screwed everyone will be. All of us. I'm talking criminals like us too."
Rose raised an eyebrow. She didn't care at all about anything regarding banks or whatnot. It wasn't as if she used them to begin with, "So what if he wipes out everyone's debt? Sounds like you'd be the bad guy in this case for stopping him."
She meant it to be kind of funny. Max didn't take it as a joke in the slightest. Money was never a laughing matter. He raised his hand and pointed his finger at the ceiling where he could hear his neighbors.
"You hear everyone cheering right now? Everyone cheering is an idiot who has no idea how debt works any farther than the fact that if it didn't exist, they wouldn't owe money anymore," Max said, gravely serious, "Wipe out all debt, and it would fuck almost everything."
Serious Max, wasn't fun Max, Rose noted, "Not an economist here, Sparks. Explain. Give me a reason."
"Easy," Max said, his smile stretching uncomfortably across his face, "Your bank account will basically empty out, unless the bank somehow magically replenishes your account, but now your bank no longer has a reason to exist as its sole purpose is to push debt around. Every stock exchange in the world would close the day after, because stocks are all just borrowed money, but your investment portfolio is basically wiped out because an investment is literally just you funding someone else's debt with the hope of getting more back in return. With no outstanding bonds or stocks, nobody will pay you back."
It was a surprisingly descriptive answer from a kid who was still in high school. Rose didn't think he knew that much about finances. He never talked about it, probably because he knew she would find it painfully boring, "Okay… aside from all of that-."
"Oh, you need more? Sure," Max was not willing to let her gain any ground in overlooking how important this was, "Many companies will have no technical owner because a lot of companies decide ownership using stock holdings, but those'll all be fucked, so who owns the company? Do you really want me to keep going? I know money. Trust me. Modern economy runs on debt. Here, I'll tell you how bad general commodities would be fucked-."
"Alright, enough! I've got the point now!" Rose said, almost deciding to throw the remote at his head, "Debt erasure equals bad stuff for everybody. So what? Now you're gonna save the world in six hours?"
"No, I'm going to save my goddamn greenbacks," Max said as he made straight for the door, "I'm a fuck-mothering millionaire now. You think I'm going back to olden times, bartering with animal pelts and churned butter?"
That did sound admittedly awful. What good was no debt for anyone when money would be useless from that point forward? "…When you put it that way, I'll go get my stuff."
"See you at the base."
XxX
(Streets of Gotham City)
Stopping her Batcycle in an alley, Batgirl took a moment to peruse through tons of code she had in a window open on the built-in computer's screen. She knew that virus program were working against the clock.
A frustrated sigh came from her lips, "Six hours isn't enough time to weed this thing out if he was confident enough to tell everyone what he's doing."
When it came to cyber crimes committed on their watch, Barbara was the go-to to take the lead on handling it. Between herself, Batman, and Robin, she was the most tech-savvy out of the three.
Anarky's little public announcement killed the surprise advantage he'd held with his scheme. But then again, he wanted the Anarky persona to stand for something. He wanted it to be known that he was active, so he told everyone just what was going to happen.
Why not? If he wanted to make a statement, he was doing so from a position of power. By the time Batgirl could find the virus and cleanse it from one system, she would then have to get the finished debugging software to the other numerous systems affected.
Back at the cave, the Bat-Computer was working hard to scan the systems of every bank and money lender identified in Anarky's rant... as well as many he'd left out. If he was doing something on this scale, he was probably going all the way with it.
Suddenly, Batgirl was badly stricken with the desire to pound Anarky into the pavement. Not as badly as some others probably did, but still...
He was going to ruin the economy to force change.
Anarky hated the concept of wealth. The fact that his idea of destroying the corrupt in power meant destroying the easiest avenue they used to gain and utilize that power was probably a driving force behind his decision.
...Ignoring the fact that it would drive the world into a depression. It wasn't just going to be the United States that was going to be affected. Not by a long shot.
Her attention was turned to a call that came through on the computer built into her ride, "Batgirl, any luck so far?"
"No joy. I'm looking," Batgirl said, hoping that her eyes could catch something that one of the fastest computers in the world couldn't, "It's not like he's some rank amateur hacker. He's really good. Even if I found his virus, I'm not sure there's anything I can do to stop it from here. You have to find him."
She heard an irritated grunt from Batman. It was clear that he was irked. Whatever happened to the glory days, like the ones from Commissioner Gordon's prime? When you had to actually physically be somewhere to commit a crime on this level. Batman probably missed those days.
Now a kid with a computer could do more damage in two hours than some supervillains could do in two months by hand, with scores of goons at their disposal.
"He won't tell us how to stop it," Robin said as Batman remained silent, "He probably didn't even create a way to."
Of course he didn't, but that wasn't the point, "It doesn't matter if he did or not. If he hasn't erased all of his work, I can follow his footprints and figure it out from there myself," Batgirl explained.
It wasn't an easy measure, but it was the most direct option they had, "So that gives us four more hours to find a guy who's been lurking around Gotham City for weeks without being seen."
"Keep at it, Batgirl," Batman directed, "We'll let you know when we have what you need. Keep us posted if the program finishes before then."
"-Or if you can find Anarky first," Robin added after the fact.
In the meantime, she could try and think of something else that could help them, "Fingers crossed. Good luck, guys."
This night was going to go faster than any of them would have liked.
XxX
(With Null – Elsewhere in Gotham City – Null's Hideout)
Null sat and waited while Ravager checked over her blades and all of the guns she planned on taking with her. Being that the girl could be a walking armory on days where she so chose, it was prudent that she did this in a fairly timely manner.
Eventually, she looked up from where she had been preparing and gave Null a nod.
Fully suited up, the criminal pair were as ready as they were ever going to be, "Alright, enough screwing around. I'm as ready as I'm ever going to be. Let's go break drama-reject's heart."
Ravager put the half-mask onto her head, grinning eagerly at it finally being go time, "Well turn the routing number source tracker on so we can get this show on the road."
Null did just that, keeping his fingers crossed that their destination would be somewhere close. Unfortunately, not only was the site halfway across town, it was moving.
"Fuck," Null cursed, "Selina was right. I needed a car or something for this."
Ravager smacked him on the arm and pointed at the device, "Wait, look," She said, comparing the pattern of the source's movement with a map of Gotham City, "Either he's flying, which makes no sense because he's going too slow and no one's seen anything just hovering over the city for days or weeks, or-."
"-He's on the tracks somewhere," Null pulled the tracking map into a smaller space and brought up a rail map of Gotham City right next to it, messing with its size to fit it to compare, "Oh, I'm gonna kick his ass."
"Won't he know you found him? He'll try to split town now, won't he?"
"He's on train tracks. He has to take a set way out if he's going to leave," Null said, pulling his hood over his head to conceal his features, "Either way, if i keep track of the route he's using, I can cut him off before then."
Ravager called out to him before he could start running away from the premises of the abandoned strip mall, "Wait. You're not going on foot, are you?" She asked, getting a confused look from him, "Come here."
She beckoned him over to the side of the building where old building materials originally meant to finish the project were situated. There was an object there covered in a tarp that was decidedly not rusty, worn, or beaten by time.
Ravager yanked off the tarp to reveal a sleek black racing motorcycle.
Null's jaw hung open in surprise, "You had a bike?" He asked weakly.
She'd beaten him to getting her own mode of transportation. Couldn't he do anything cool before anyone else?
The mercenary girl wondered just what was so surprising about her procuring her own ride, "Yeah. How do you think I get around when you're not there?" She asked, noticing how put out he was, "What's the matter with you?" She growled irritably.
Null sighed and massaged the bridge of his nose, slowly regaining his composure, "Nothing. Just… it's a 'me' thing," He explained weakly, "Forget it. This is good. Alright. Let's go hunt this sumbitch down."
Ravager swung her leg over one side of the bike, straddling it and turning it on. She gave the seat behind her an inviting pat, "You're riding bitch, Sparky," She teased.
"I probably can't drive this thing anyway," Null replied as he got on. Ravager barely waited for him to get situated before she peeled out, making it out of the abandoned strip mall area and onto the city streets proper, "Take a left and keep going that way until I say. Let me switch to a rail map. Hold on."
"Being fast doesn't mean anything if I don't know where we're going. Keep that in mind," Ravager warned as she gunned the throttle, sending them speeding through the night.
"Noted," Null said, sticking himself tight to the seat so he could worry about navigating via mobile device instead of staying attached to his transportation, "I just hope your driving doesn't kill us."
"I'll drive as good as the direction I get."
Ravager really was a good driver though. Null was considerate enough to warn her well in advance when they were likely to have to make a turn, but her reflexes were impressive enough that even if he hadn't, she still likely would have been able to deal with it.
It was easy to look past Ravager's skill and talent in exchange for how unbalanced she was, but that wasn't fair whatsoever. She was extremely talented. When he stopped to think about all of the things she could do well, it was very impressive.
Batgirl had asked him if he had ever been willing to be a hero. To Null, Ravager probably could have been a very good hero... if the rest of them wouldn't have been so much against all of the killing and dying that would likely happen if 'justice' was left in her hands.
Maybe that wouldn't have been such a bad thing, given the atrocities Null had heard of the more serious criminals perpetrating in his own city, let alone the world at-large, but he could see how that would lead to a slippery slope. After all, a hero trying to kill him for ripping off a few bucks would not have been welcomed by the hooded thief.
As they closed in on the blip on the tracker, Null thought that sometimes, skulls just needed to be busted every now and again, "Keep straight. The tracks are turning to follow the road. We'll be right on top of him in no time."
Ravager heard him loud and clear, but it was harder to follow that direction than either of them would have liked, "There's one little problem with that," Ravager said, "We don't have much road left to work with."
Null was able to see what she was talking about very quickly.
The road they were on ran into a T-intersection with a sidewalk and a concrete railing overlooking a riverside view. Far below, the train track ran on a bridge alongside the water.
Ravager prepared to turn so they could find another way down when she heard Null talk to her, "We can probably make it."
'Probably' wasn't good enough, "Okay, say the fall wouldn't kill us or wreck my bike. My aim would have to be perfect to even have a shot at landing on the tracks."
"Don't worry about that. Just hit the sidewalk and clear the barrier."
"No way!"
"Rose! I'm on this thing too! Do you think I'd ask you to do anything that might kill me?"
...He had a point, damn him.
Muttering curses like a sailor, Ravager hit the throttle and started to pop a wheelie just as the reached the curb.
She shut her eye and took a sharp, deep breath as they began to soar through the air. It took longer to hit the ground than she had anticipated.
"Pay a-fucking-ttention, woman! I need you to drive when I put this thing down!"
No way.
Ravager opened her eyes and saw them gliding to the ground evenly as they maintained the forward speed of their jump. A look over her shoulder gave her a glimpse at the strain on Null's face as he kept them from plummeting to their deaths.
She didn't think he was that strong. He was holding up around 1000 pounds in total for the better part of 30 seconds, "...Jesus Christ, Sparks..."
"Stop-saying-words-and-get-ready-to-drive!" Null quickly spouted, red-faced with exertion.
"Oh!" Ravager focused on steering the bike now that they were own enough for it to be fine, "Okay, drop it!"
Null released his magnetic control and let the heavy racing bike drop. Ravager swerved for a moment, but righted the vehicle and spend onward.
The electric teenager cackled madly, high on the adrenaline of surviving a near-death experience with nary a scratch on him. Ravager threw an elbow behind herself to hit him in the bicep, "Don't ever do that again! And you call me a psycho!"
"It worked, didn't it?" Null shouted over the wind and the engine as Ravager kept the motorcycle on course to follow the train, "…Now what?"
"Figure out which car it is!"
"Go faster so I can get closer then!"
The two sped up and Null zoomed in on the tracker for a more precise indicator. It was unnecessary, as a metal panel slid open on a freight car they had pulled up beside. They both watched a machine gun pop out and point right at them.
"Uh..." Ravager stared as the gun opened fire. Null's hands were up, generating a magnetic shield to bend the bullets' trajectory around them.
The motorcycle pulled back to avoid the gunfire, but another turret popped up from the rear car. This time, Ravager was more prepared and swerved to dodge the shooting.
"He has sentry guns on a train car!?" Null shouted, "What the-? How did no one notice this thing shuttling around town?"
"Less talking, more bullet-blocking!" Ravager demanded as she saw the bullet trail stray too close for her liking.
"Enough of this horse-shit!" Null reached his hand out and focused precisely down the barrel of the weapon, jamming it as it fired and causing it to explode, "Ha! There! Suck on that!"
Two more turrets popped out in its place, only these fired lasers instead of bullets. Null couldn't redirect those.
"I am going to kick. His. Ass," Null muttered for what felt like thousandth time as the laser turrets turned on them and began to charge up.
XxX
A train with guns.
When the scanners in the Batmobile picked that up, Batman immediately cut a turn to head in the direction where it was last sighted. Robin couldn't really argue. When you had as few leads as they had on Anarky's location, you had to take what you could get.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was. Either way, they had to step in before someone got hurt.
"Weird," Robin said, checking whatever information he could before they made it to the action, "The train that's supposed to be on that route is a commercial engine. Everything on it was checked out at the last stop it made. Nothing suspicious. Definitely no guns."
Batman took a sharp turn and burst through a chain link fence on the side of the road, sliding to a stop in the gravel by the tracks where he just waited. He and Robin sat deadly silent for over a minute until far off sounds started to grow closer. The tracks started to rattle first, and it was then that they could hear the sound of something being fired.
Moments later, a 20-car train rumbled past, followed by a motorcycle with two people onboard.
The dark knight put the Batmobile in drive and took off behind them down the tracks.
"Whoa," Robin said as they were matching speed enough to see who was on the bike, "Is that… Ravager and Null?"
The Deathstroke-esque color scheme of the girl's outfit and the porous appearance of the boy's along with the cloth hood screamed those two right at him.
Batman's focus was purely on keeping pace as gravel from the tracks shot by the back of the motorcycle's tires bounced off of the windshield of the Batmobile, "Looks like this is where Anarky has been hiding."
"I still don't get how he managed to sneak a ride on a commercial train with nothing suspicious popping up," Robin said irritably to himself. All the same, he readied himself for a fight.
Null felt the intrusion of another party and turned his back to see the Batmobile gaining on them. He gave a magnetic push to try and slow it down or knock it off course, but he could only maintain it for so long before his concentration broke. Ravager had to keep swerving to keep them from being shot by the laser turrets. One even started taking shots at the Batmobile, which gave the two teenage criminals a little breathing room.
"I don't have time for this," Null said, carefully positioning himself to a standing position on the back of Ravager's motorcycle, "Keep it straight for like five seconds."
Ravager kept the bike as steady as possible while remaining elusive from the beam blasts, giving Null enough time to jump and latch onto the back of the train.
Climbing his way up, once he reached the top, he grabbed the nearest turret around its neck and unleashed thousands of volts of electricity right into it, frying the hardware.
The second turret turned his way only to receive visible bolts of energy shot right at it, rendering it defunct.
Now standing atop the train, wind whipping in his face, Null turned to see the Batmobile and Ravager's motorcycle still in pursuit. He tried to wave her off, but was flipped off for his consideration.
Damn stubborn girl. She didn't need to get herself mixed up with Batman, but she could make her own choices.
A sudden rattling impact that nearly knocked him down accompanied a deafening metal screech. As he fought to maintain his balance, he noticed the last three cars slow and move away from the rest of the train.
"Shit!" Ravager and Batman had to swerve to opposite sides of the train as the thee rear cars uncoupled and began to brake.
Both drivers had to also maneuver to avoid hitting the walls of a tunnel the track led inside of. The machine guns on the sides of the rear cars began to open fire on the heroes and the mercenary.
The Batmobile's bulletproof chassis and windshield protected Batman and Robin, but Ravager had to be a bit more proactive.
She drove underneath the turret and drew her sword. The powerfully-forged Promethium weapon allowed her to cut right through it.
With that out of the way, she was able to get a better look at the first of the three cars. As she got alongside the coupling between the second and lead cars, she saw something that wasn't quite right.
The front wasn't a container. It was a well-disguised train car.
As she made the realization, it began to speed up on its own, accelerating faster than the train that had previously been towing it had gone.
Batman immediately increased his speed to catch back up with Anarky's train. Ravager followed suit.
Getting close, she tapped a button on her motorcycle to give it an automatic command. From there, she took a page from Null. Standing on the seat of her bike, she jumped on top of one of the cars, stabbing her sword into the roof to make sure she stayed on.
Her motorcycle continued on by itself, and would do so until the tunnel let out and it could park itself somewhere she could retrieve it later. Had Null seen that, he would have thrown another conniption about how she had such a cool personal ride this whole time without his knowing.
Instead, he only saw her make it safe and sound onboard, "Welcome to the party!" He shouted over the noise of the tunnel.
Batman drove ahead of the train, past the gunfire, and opened the passenger door to the Batmobile, prompting Robin to stand up and prepare to jump. He didn't even have to be asked. He had wanted a piece of this the entire time.
He leapt directly up as high as he could and landed belly down on the top of the train, his hands and the balls of his toes pressed down on the roof.
Null noticed the new interloper first and went to face him, but Ravager stood and pulled her sword from the train, using it to bar his path, "No. Go say hello to good old red what's-his-face. I've got this."
Robin pulled himself up onto his feet and pulled out his collapsible staff, "Why are you trying to stop me?"
"Because Sparky has first dibs," Ravager said, circling Robin carefully, keeping herself between him and Null, "You assholes didn't get framed, and I believe in revenge. So you sit and wait like good little boys until he's finished. Then you can swoop in and save the day if there's anything left."
Robin got up and rushed at her. The movement of the train made it more difficult for Ravager to try and shoot him, so she didn't even try. She had two perfectly good swords in-hand to do her damage with, and that was all she needed.
As he got nearer, he noticed something different about Ravager's blades this time around compared to the last time he had seen her draw them, 'She was able to stab one into the roof of the train without breaking it.'
It was likely a good idea to keep her from chopping at his staff. He couldn't imagine that it could stand up to too much abuse from the powerful steel, sturdy though it was.
He rolled underneath her first swings, risking falling off of the train in exchange for avoiding being killed or maimed, "A little bloodthirsty aren't we, Ravager?"
"Not so much tonight," She replied, twirling her swords in her hands, "Just feeling like I have a time limit to deal with you before your Bat-daddy steps in to fight your battle for you."
"It'd be a mistake to think I need Batman."
"Mmm... I say it'd be a mistake to think you don't."
XxX
A bumping noise somewhere in his train got Anarky's attention away from the clock and the camera feeds he had outside watching things from the point of view of his remaining turret guns, though those had been useless since they had been destroyed and outmaneuvered.
Still, he got a good look at who was after him when they had been dealing with what was outside. With any luck, they would tear a chunk out of each other before they made it to his inner sanctum. And right then, he heard another suspicious sound from another car that was closer to him.
'Well, if nothing else, it had taken this long for things to come to a head. I've made it this far. Lasting until midnight is child's play,' Failing now, when he was so close to making everything change, it wasn't an option. He had thrown too much time and effort into his planning and execution, '...I just have to deal with this little problem first,' Anarky thought to himself.
He grabbed his golden baton and stood up slowly, so as to make himself a more enticing target to goad his intruder out of hiding. It didn't work. With a sigh, he resigned himself to realizing that he would have to work for it.
"Max, find him," It only took a matter of seconds for the onboard computer to scan the area and fly off in the direction that it sensed life in. It was stopped in midair before it could go too far and was promptly hurled out of the window by an invisible force.
Anarky had already received the information to his brain from his device before it was crudely disposed of, and threw three throwing stars at his target.
When they couldn't be stopped, Null jumped out of his hiding spot and lunged straight for Anarky, who jabbed the tip of his baton at the thief. Null put one hand in front of the other and stopped the weapon with his palm, holding it in place.
"You used throwing stars that aren't metal. Smart," Null could feel Anarky pushing against him, trying to overpower him, but it was to no avail. He didn't have the physical strength to accomplish such a feat, "It would be the first smart thing you did since I've heard of you."
"Can't say the same for you," Anarky replied, pushing a button on the baton to unleash an electric current through the tip that allowed him to taze Null. The alarming jolt sent him back a few steps, allowing the red-clad activist to begin his attack, "Bottom-feeding pest!"
He whacked Null in the side of the knee and moved his grip to the middle of the baton to turn and smack him in the shoulder with the other side. Null bounced off of the wall of the train and tried to disarm Anarky. He let go of the weapon and punched Null in the face before it could touch the ceiling, disrupting his concentration. As Null stumbled back, Anarky jumped into the air and caught the baton, in the same motion switching his grip with intentions to bring it down on Null's head or collarbone.
Null put up a magnetic force field that warped Anarky's decent, putting him at a neutral distance that he couldn't pass to reach him. Letting his defense down, Null locked onto Anarky's magnetic signature and yanked him forward. The way his mask changed, reflecting the surprise of the person underneath it gave Null a sweet feeling as his fist collided with Anarky for the first time.
When he knew it was going to land clean, he'd put everything he had into that punch, hitting him right in the corner of the eye. He flew across the car, tumbling over the modest bed he'd set up to sleep in while he was onboard.
Null chuckled and cracked his knuckles. He owed him that first one for naming his stupid robot thing Max. He would be damned if he let a thing that took its orders from Anarky share his name and let that slide. He watched Anarky slowly pull himself up over the side of his bed and started clapping sarcastically.
"I didn't peg you as the type who could take a punch. Good on you," Null told him, "You probably should have stayed down though. It might have changed my mind about beating the shit out of you."
Anarky let out an annoyed growl and touched at his injury. The orbital bone was likely broken. He had about a minute or so until it swelled up over his eye and compromised the vision in it. He had thought too little of his opponent and it had cost him, "Your jokes suck."
"It wasn't a joke, Big Red. I came here mainly to beat you until I feel better about myself," Null's ominous smile faded into an expression of grim decisiveness, "In that case, we might be here for a while."
"No, it was a joke. Because if you think someone like you can stop someone like me, I think it's time you get the hell off of my train," Anarky stood up and grabbed at the 'A' buckle on his belt. The train slammed on the brakes, jarring Null and nearly knocking him down if he hadn't anchored himself to the floor.
Anarky used the momentum to vault himself over the bed and into Null, barreling into him with the length of the baton smashing into Null's throat. As the tumbled to the front of the car, he idly realized that he had seriously underestimated Anarky's abilities. He thought he was just some powerhouse behind the computer screen, but in-person he would be enough of a wuss that he would fold with a few good shots.
Null got in those few good shots as they tussled across the cabin. Solid contact. But every time he did, Anarky lashed out with more fury, defiantly, as if he were angry that people didn't see things his way.
Both of them bounced off of a wall and rolled back to their feet and slammed into the front door. Null hit with his back, his head bouncing off of the window and cracking it, making his vision swim. Anarky stood back, gritting his teeth, his hands set to swing his baton at Null's head.
With a flick of the wrist, Null opened the door and pushed it wide, timing with Anarky's swing. He stumbled forward outside and nearly slipped through the space between cars where they were coupled. Null grinned viciously and kicked him with both legs, sending him flying over the gap, smacking face-first into the door of the front car.
Anarky let out a pained gasp and turned around, facing Null. Both teenagers stared each other down before the former touched at his belt buckle again. Null looked down and saw the car he was on uncouple. As the two began to separate, Null jumped across and was met with a hard punch to his sternum that doubled him over, vulnerable to having his head bounced off of the metal train wall. Anarky kicked him back, intent on knocking him from the train.
Null didn't make it that easy. With all of his will, he anchored his feet to the ledge, putting him parallel to it, hovering off of the ground speeding past underneath him.
Anarky stared down at Null, sneering at him, "I've got bigger priorities to deal with than wrestling with you," He lifted his baton above his head, intent on stabbing it down onto Null's vulnerable form, "End of the line, dickhead."
Again, Null caught the end of the baton in his hands, but this time, when Anarky tried to electrocute him, Null opened up his inner panels and absorbed the electricity. Anarky watched as Null's eyes began to glow bright blue under the darkness of his hood, "I was hoping you'd do that again."
"I didn't know you could do that!" Anarky snapped, angry at being goaded into doing what Null had wanted. He had learned about Null's known abilities, but hadn't thought that there had been others that had gone undocumented. He had barely survived all of his incidents, thus he figured he hadn't been hiding or still discovering more facets to his powers, "What else are you keeping to yourself?"
Null walked back up the side of the ledge and yanked the baton from Anarky's hand, draining it dry and forcing him away with a jolt to his hands, using the weapon as a conductor, "Why would you care? I'm a just a bottom-feeding pest," He taunted, tossing the baton away from the train, "You're gonna learn a little bit tonight though. I promise."
Anarky opened the door in Null's face and scrambled inside, only for Null to swing around the edge of it and kick him deeper inside of the train.
The boy in red stumbled back, clutching at his chest, "You think you can stop me from what needs to be done?" He spat, standing in a fighting stance, not willing to give up, "I'm calling for a hard reset here. For everyone. The rich and the poor. From the fifth-generation Ivy League legacy riding around in his daddy's classic Cadillac, to the 30 year old tens of thousands of dollars in debt working two minimum wage jobs to pay off his loans and keep a roof over their head."
Null just stared him down and made a tear drop gesture down his own cheek, not saying anything.
Anarky took this as just another example of his selfish cowardice, "The only thing that talks for people like you is money. It's the only language anyone with real power in this rotten world understands. Well it's about to be a dying tongue. Tonight, we all start from zero. Every last one of us. No savings, no debt. A fair chance for all of us to see if we really can make it when the playing field is level."
Did he really believe the garbage that was coming out of his mouth?
"You're more pathetic than I thought you were," Null snorted at him, "You think you're some kind of mover and shaker? Some underground visionary? You're just some kid that didn't like the rules of the game when he found out what he was playing. So now you're just gonna flip the board. You're gonna reset the Playstation and screw over everyone," He mocked in a baby voice.
"I'm saving everyone," Anarky said, turning his back and walking through the train, despite the enemy before him and the threat of being attacked, "You may not see it now. Other people might not see it for generations, but in the end, after I'm long gone, they'll all know I'm right."
Null wondered why he had stopped fighting when he did a mental calculation. They had been searching for him for quite some time before they found the train, and the chase had been rather lengthy. Even if Null had the expertise to crack Anarky's virus, there wasn't time to do it, and he would never fork over the solution willingly.
"The damage you can do with a laptop," Null muttered to himself, letting out a humorless chuckle, "Well, I might not be able to beat you before midnight, and even if I do, you still won't tell me how to fix what you did."
"You couldn't even think of what you'd need to do to make me talk," Anarky said.
Null pursed his lips in thought before nodding to nothing in particular, "Well, since my fat stacks are no longer going to be worth anything, I guess making you hurt will just have to be a consolation prize," Anarky made a move to grab something off of a table, before Null rushed forward, grabbing his arm and back elbowing him in the face. Cartilage crunched underneath the force of the blow.
The furious young thief electrocuted Anarky through the arm that he had in his grasp and held it out at length while he was immobilized. Drawing his hand back for a punch, he took aim at the point of the elbow and let it fly without hesitation.
It broke far too easily. It gave him an almost eerie feeling.
Anarky let out an agonized cry of pain and fell against the wall, dropping to his side on the floor.
Null licked his index fingertip and held it up showingly, letting visible electricity spark around the digit. He pointed it at Anarky and zapped him several times, his face never changing as Anarky twitched and cried out, "I'm not doing this to make you talk, by the way. You pissed me off," He zapped him, "You looked down on me, "He zapped him again, "You made me your scapegoat," He continued shocking him with everything he said, "You messed with my money! I told you, I get what I want when I really want it, and I really wanted this! So tell me, was it worth it!?"
"Yes!" Anarky shouted/choked out as Null tormented him, defiant to the end.
"Good. To. Know," Null said, kicking at the downed young man before a voice stopped him cold.
"That's enough."
Null didn't bother turning his head to see Batman looming in the doorway, "Shouldn't you be more concerned with, oh, I don't know, fixing what this asshole did instead of worrying about me?"
Yes, he was still a little bitter.
"You'll kill him if you keep going," Batman advised, slowly walking over in case the thief turned on him.
"I won't kill him," Null told him, keeping his foot planted on Anarky's beaten, broken form, "I was actually going to hand him over to the police... after I was done with him."
"I don't need you to save me, Batman!" Anarky sputtered as Null ground his foot into his torso. Despite the pathetic mess he appeared to be on the ground, he still had his pride.
Batman walked over and loomed over Null. The two stared each other down, but after a few moments, Null looked away and got off of Anarky, though not without one more sharp kick to the ribs for good measure.
"Piece of shit," Null said, taking a seat on the floor in the corner by the door. He wiped the blood away from his mouth and nose – battle wounds from the fight.
Batman let the extracurricular shot slide and picked Anarky up, "It's over, Lonnie," He set him against the wall and walked to the front of the train where Anarky kept a souped-up laptop nestled by the controls. The front of train had also been hooked up to serve as its own prime stand-alone wireless hub. The perfect place for him to work while constantly staying on the move around Gotham, drifting onto and off of train cars throughout the city, "Batgirl, I've got my hands on Lonnie's main terminal. Sending his files your way now."
"Got 'em," Batgirl said, her voice coming over the communicator built into Batman's cowl, "The timing on this might be tight. Stand by."
"She doesn't have time to clear it out," Anarky told him, not believing anyone was good enough to stop what he'd done, even with his work to use as a reference.
Batman stopped and fixed Anarky with a look that chilled him enough to shut his mouth for once, "Don't tell me what my partners can or can't do," Without taking his eyes off of the cowed criminal, he reached over and started to slow down the train and bring it to a stop, "You're not the only one with talent or dedication that's exceptional for your age."
Null sat back and watched until he saw Ravager stand in the doorway of the train car. She looked beaten and worn, but had a large, satisfied smile on her face, "You seem chipper," Null said to her.
"It's been a good night," She said, her bloody lipped smile turning into a grin as she mimed around an area on her masked face, "Robin's eye, it's black, from here to here. His domino mask can't cover it."
Whatever the result of the fight had been, and it couldn't have gone too badly on her part to have her in a positive mood, it had been a rough one just based on appearances. It had to have been a 'you-should-see-the-other-guy' moment.
Normally, Null would have really wanted to see Robin with a big, honking bruise on his face, but at the moment he was too spent, both physically and mentally, to care, "…Well, I'm glad you had fun," He grunted, getting up off of the floor and hopping out of the train.
Ravager moved out of the way for him and watched him walk away before thinking of trying to stop him, "Wait, we're leaving?" She asked, "I thought you'd stay to see this through until everything was good."
Null turned and eyed her over his shoulder, "There's no reason for me to stay. Batman won't let me beat on Anarky anymore – I wasn't done either, by the way – and I don't know anything about getting rid of viruses. It's pointless," He said as sirens began to reach his ears, echoing from afar.
Ravager ran back to the open door of the train and looked in, getting a good view of just how badly pummeled Anarky had been by the time Null had been called off of him, "Wait, you weren't done?" She didn't know what she had expected. She knew he was angry enough to take some gratuitous shots, and while it wasn't as bad as someone like her would have done given the chance, somehow it was worse than she'd figured he would do, '…Sparks has a decent mean streak in him when he's motivated.'
Felix Faust and now Anarky could both attest to that.
XxX
(The Next Morning – Max's Apartment)
"...thrilling late night chase across the railways of Gotham, city deputies took the figure known as Anarky into custody. Authorities are not taking credit for the cipher that cyber security experts are saying is responsible for..."
After a few hours of lounging on the couch, Max got up and walked over to the trash can in the kitchen. Hovering over the opening, he snorted and breathed out sharply, shooting two wads of bloody tissue into the garbage. The exploits of the night before managed to make the national morning news. Good work for them getting any kind of footage of the chase, although it hadn't really been subtle.
Giving a test sniff, he was satisfied at the lack of blood flow coming from his nostrils and started heading for his room to get some proper rest. He didn't know how he felt about everything that had happened. Hopefully, this would clear his name, what good there was to clear it for, but other than that... well, he hadn't really gained anything out of all of that. Not as far as he could see.
No net loss, but no net gain either. No positive or negative.
"Well, you saved the world's economy. Congratulations," Rose said, following Max to the back hallway.
Max walked into his room and dropped down onto the bed in his room, his eyes staring up at the slowly rotating fan on the ceiling, "I didn't save anything. I got my ten good licks in on the blowhard who tried to screw me to the wall. That's all."
Rose hung off of the doorframe of the room, leaning forward past the threshold, "Either way, well done," She said, "You know, before this all happened, I didn't think you had it in you. Granted, you're still soft as far as I'm concerned, but consider yourself upgraded."
Max let out a noncommittal hum, beginning to put himself into a trance so that he could nap peacefully until he felt a weight settle down next to him on the mattress. He raised an eyebrow, but didn't look over to the side, "What the fuck are you doing?"
Rose rolled up a corner of the covers and pulled herself underneath to get more comfortable, lying on her side to face him, "Your bed is better," She explained plainly.
"How would you know?" Max asked accusingly, reveling in how comfortable she looked in his bed. That was just jarring to see, especially with him in it as well.
She leered over at him with a lazy smirk, her white locks sprawled messily over her face, "I sleep in it while you're at school, which would normally be now. But since your ass is stuck around here while you're suspended, I've had to go without. I've been stuck with the rinky-dink bed in your kid room.
"That's a queen-size," Max deadpanned, taking offense at the slight against the bed he used to use as his own before it became an extra room, "It's more than big enough for you. What are you on about?"
"And this is a king-sized," Rose said, "Just shut up and enjoy the warm body next to you. Most guys would be mentally channeling late night Cinemax right about now."
Max let out an amused snort at what he considered a dated reference, "Late night Cinemax? What is this, the 90's?" His jab didn't get the intended rise out of Rose to start an argument and make things less awkward for him, "Why are you looking at me like that?" She upped the ante further by snaking her foot out and moving to rub it up and down his leg, "...What are you doing?"
"Just seeing something," Rose told him, never breaking contact, "I've been crabby as hell for a while."
He had noticed. Her moods had swung back and forth quite frequently, and even a good, hearty, dangerous situation wasn't enough to keep her emotional state level.
He wasn't going to say that though. That emotional state was positive at the moment. Very positive from the looks of things.
"No, really?" Max said, trying his best to feign ignorance convincingly.
Whether she believed his intent or just let it slide, Rose continued, "Believe it or not, all of the fighting, ass-kicking, money-making street-sweeping work I've been doing hasn't been making me feel any better."
Sure, there was the momentary rush that came with the blend of adrenaline and the satisfied feeling that the brain was rewarded with when a task was performed successfully, but meh. It wasn't enough. It never lasted.
And then there was Max.
Whenever it was something involving him, it stuck with her. She could take down a whole host of targets one night and be grouchier than she had any right to be by the next sunrise. But she could trade barbs with Max one afternoon and smile thinking about it for the next few days.
She was also starting to take offense to things for him. She held more of a grudge for what had happened with the frame-up than he was. In her perfect world, he would have gone on a campaign of vengeance against not only the person responsible for wronging him, but those that allowed the lie to be permeated for their own advantage.
Some of that happened in the end. It was good to see, but if he changed his spots too much, she guessed he wouldn't be the same person that she thought was so interesting. His limits weren't based on the public view of right and wrong. His own actions were a result of his whims. Nothing more. Whether it was illegal, whether it posed him great personal risk, if it was what he wanted to do badly enough, he would take a swing at it.
For the time that she had been in Gotham City, Rose had been acting as she thought her father would want her to. She wanted his approval. His love. Well, he wasn't there, and she wasn't exactly feeling the love with a nifty bounty sitting on her head until she could amass the funds to rid herself of it.
Maybe taking a page out of the book of the boy who sat under the guise of Null could give her some lasting satisfaction for once?
"Sparks, you asked if I wanted to do something about a week ago," She said, a somewhat thoughtful curve to her lip as she considered her would-be action, "I was wondering if it was a standing offer."
It had slipped his mind what she had been referring to at first. He thought it may have been a reference to that mission she had that he'd offered her help with, but he couldn't have been certain as she was being very vague, "Refresh my memory?" He asked, only for Rose to reach out and stroke his cheek. His eyes went wide with surprise, "Oh! That."
This was very dangerous. This was a very bad idea, for too many reasons to count. There wasn't even a scale to measure it.
The hell he would catch for turning her down would be better than the eventual fallout for when this went pear-shaped, because it would. Even if she was using him and he was willingly letting it happen – because hey, hot girl! – it was not going to stay as just good, clean fun if it went on for long enough. However far it did or didn't wind up going.
And yet, as awful an idea as it was, Max still really wanted to let it happen.
"Say it," Rose whispered, her lips looking incredibly welcoming, "Go ahead and ask me again."
...Goddamn it, Max still really wanted to let it happen.
He moved forward and pressed his forehead to hers, "Wanna make out?"
She did. And so it was how they spent the early part of the morning; legs intertwined, lips locked, hands eagerly exploring the other.
...
...This was such a bad idea.