self_composed | plotting to unnerve her

Bella finds Milliways in the moon palace instead of one of her balconies.

"Huh," she says aloud.

Then, to Alice, Libby, Elena, and Mary, and Lazarus except he autoreplies with a busy message, [Hey folks, Moonstone Palace grew a bar that I don't remember putting in, come check it out.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

self_composed

"I'm sensing there's more to this."

From:

manofmyword

"Bingo. But we'll get there. You haven't told me your angle yet."

From:

self_composed

"Sure I did. I would have tried asking where she was first. You want to know what step two would be if all you did was stare at me with a smug look on your face? I'd ask you what you wanted."

From:

manofmyword

"Funny," he muses, "the Bat never tried that one. But let's say she did, I woulda told her... I wanted to see what she'd do."

He did tell her that, albeit on a slightly different prompt.

From:

self_composed

"Well, that's less useful than some possible answers. Honestly, as long as I'm not cheating, I don't belong in an interrogation room in the first place. I'd be more useful trying to find the lady directly and letting the cops handle you. I'm very good with magic. I have no special skill at getting kidnappers to talk, relative to police officers. Especially if said kidnapper's motive is something that inconvenient, since I imagine Bats is predictable once she knows where her ladyfriend is and unpredictable until she finds out. Skewing the incentives somewhat."

From:

manofmyword

"Want me to give away the twist?" he offers.

From:

self_composed

"Go for it."

From:

manofmyword

"The girl in question was assistant DA," he says. "She was dating the DA. I kidnapped 'em both. And after I let the Bat smack me around for a while, I told her she could find the lady at this address, and the gentleman at that one. Opposite directions, equally far away. Almost like a math problem." He grins. "And I told her she'd better hurry up."

From:

self_composed

"Some combination of," Bella guesses, "they were already dead, they were rigged to get that way or close to it, they were at other addresses, they were at each other's addresses, or you'd managed to convince at least one of them that Bats was somehow at fault."

From:

manofmyword

He cracks up.

"Ohhhh, sweetheart," he wheezes, "you and I could have some fun together. They were at each other's addresses, and both of 'em in the middle of great big home-brewed time bombs. I do love my fireworks. And dear, dear Batsy, well, she rescued the wrong one."

This seems like an appropriate moment for another explosion gesture, sound effect once again included.

From:

self_composed

"...Did she not even send cops to the other address? Did the watching cops not go on their own initiative, even if she didn't try to send them?"

From:

manofmyword

"They went," he says. "But cops only have cop cars. The Bat's better funded. I knew she'd be faster."

From:

self_composed

"Cop cars are pretty fast, if they're trying," frowns Bella. "The bat costume's not expensive and unfestive enough to fly, is it?"

From:

manofmyword

"Well, she can fall with style," he says, flicking his fingers dismissively. "But nah, she has some kinda custom motorbike."

From:

self_composed

"Ooh. I have one of those. I could beat a cop car in it, sure. Although mine is just riddled with cheating. All right. So she tried to rescue the lady, cops failed at doing same, she successfully rescued the guy. Unhappy endings all round. What's next?"

From:

manofmyword

"What makes you think there's a next?" he asks innocently.

There is totally a next.

From:

self_composed

From:

manofmyword

"Well all right, smarty pants," he sniffs. "I blew up a hospital—don't worry, they evacuated it first. Well, they almost evacuated it," he corrects himself. "I did have to shoot a couple of cops on the way out. And of course, the man himself, our glorrrrious new District Attorney, was left in the building juuuust long enough for me to have a quick chat with him. Boy's a looker even with half his face burned off." He winks. "Don't tell anybody, but I woulda gone for it in a hot second. 'Specially when he held a gun to my head. That was definitely a highlight of the evening."

From:

self_composed

"I don't think you'd previously mentioned the face burning," Bella says.

From:

manofmyword

"Yeah, that time bomb I mentioned blew up on their way out," he says. "Guess it musta caught him funny, 'cause he was a steak dinner all down one side and good as new all down the other."

From:

self_composed

"Ah-huh. Well, go on, you're not at the part where they caught you and you found out how to locate Milliways through a barred door."

From:

manofmyword

"I got another good one for ya in between," he says temptingly.

"So now you're a member of the general public. Some awful person," he beams a grin that invites her to guess who that might have been, "has been terrorizing the city for days, blowin' up buildings, dangling corpses from the roof of City Hall, all that reign-of-terror kinda stuff. This villainous character kidnaps a news anchor and makes him read out a message, innn which he says that we are all gonna play a game and anybody who doesn't wanna join in had better get out now. Oh, he adds, and the bridge and tunnel crowd are gonna be in for a surprise."

He flashes a grin.

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you'd be too smart to take the ferry after that, but bear with me anyway."

From:

self_composed

"Oh, you live on an island. That's worse," comments Bella.

From:

manofmyword

"Mm-hmm. So. Let's suppose you ended up on that ferry anyhow - there's only one available, because they're using the other one to evacuate about five hundred prisoners. Smart move, really. Who knows what I could get up to if I got my hands on those guys."

Here he pauses, to see how she's taking all this.