Simple Unicycle
ThisIsFineJanuary 29th, 12:35 AM
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Thomas Walker, fifty seven years old. Self-made man, starting off with a small cargo boat as a young man and quickly expanding into owning his own import/export business. Donates to women’s shelters, has a wife and children, just recently expanded into Gotham City after a previous businessman’s decision to cross Grim had prices dropping tantalizingly low for his equipment and space.
To be fair, Walker ran a very legal business in Gotham. Adding an import of silks and furs for the rich elite of Gotham, exporting the usual goods from their shores, it was all above board. Really, his only mistake was keeping the same man overseeing his operations from other parts of the country.
Ryan Dirk, forty five years old. Chain smoker, has a rap sheet of moderate size but seems to have stepped away from crime ever since gaining legal employ under Walker. Now he was one of the top employees, taking over the day-to-day in Gotham until things became more stabilized. A true turn around story.
Except Dirk had a big mouth.
“Can’t wait to get away from this boring shit. Too bad the boss is scared shitless over dogman, this would be a great place to pick up some more merchandise.”
Now wasn’t that interesting. Why would the esteemed Mr. Walker be afraid of Grim?
Well, that’s exactly what the Gotham Hero had been chasing for the past three weeks. Getting rid of Dirk would’ve been easy of course, but that would’ve been cutting off one trail before it even began. The bugs placed around the docks would catch anything extra, while Grim sought out what secrets Mr. Walker was hiding.
As it turned out, it was a lot. Suspicious money trails, employees with certain pasts, predatory recruitment in those same shelters Walker donated to. The most telling, however, was just three days before.
Zoey had said goodbye to Malcolm in the morning, told him to enjoy Atlantis and packed him a lunch (she didn’t make it, she’s sure he was thankful for that). It was strange for the silence of the Castle to be deafening, considering how long she was alone there, with no one but the servants. Yet now with her youngest son gone and her eldest son... also gone... it was a different kind of quiet. The logical part of her knew it was just empty nest syndrome, as much as she hated to admit it. It wasn’t even as though Malcolm was particularly loud when he was around.
Yet it had led up to her telling Nicole she was going on vacation and loading up the Grim Jet to head to Los Angelas. That night she had pried open a cargo box at the main harbour Walker operated out of, finding a good dozen pair of eyes staring back at Grim’s stony visage in despair.
Walker though, Walker was good. Nothing led back to him except in the loosest of connections. In a court he could wave it all away as not knowing what his employees were doing, and would get off light. He knew this, and Grim knew this. The bugs in his home, his office, his work would only get so far considering how the information was obtained. So had started the sleepless nights of stalking this man, this ... cockroach in a suit. From what the hero knew and suspected, Walker preferred doing his business in person.
Less of a trail, that way.
On the third night the waiting finally paid off. Walker had told his wife he got called in for an emergency, kissed her goodbye, and left his home to head to the harbour of Los Angeles.
“A dozen people don’t just disappear into thin air, Jack!” Walker’s face was red, spit flying from his mouth. The argument had been going for ten minutes so far as the man tore into his subordinate. A pair of large hands ran against a bald head as Walker began to pace, muttering under his breath. Jack sullenly shifted, letting his boss’ anger bleed into the room of the warehouse office.
Opposite the elevated office, hidden in the shadows by a light that had mysteriously burnt out three nights ago – the least of their problems – a pair of steel-blue eyes watched in silence behind a dark mask.
“So which one of your dickless friends did this, Jack?” Walker finally stopped, leveraging a furious glare.
“My men would never-”
“Really? Because right now it looks like an entire shipment has vanished, and since the police aren’t around asking me some uncomfortable questions I can only assume that someone other than the police took my merchandise!”
Heh.
“I’ll... I’ll find a way to replace them-”
“Replacing doesn’t fix the problem, Jack! Find those girls. Those girls and what happened! And if they aren’t back in the next two days with an explanation, you’ll be losing a lot more than a job!” The door of the office slammed open as Walker manoeuvred his bulk down the stairs, thundering passed the fifteen guards – counted and double counted. Grim’s gaze followed every step, the lens of her mask zooming in to catch his face one last time as he approached the exit.
Oh, well that wouldn’t do, now would it?
With the voice and video recordings uploaded to the Grim Grotto, it was time to wrap this up. The launcher on the inside of Grim’s left arm primed, and with careful aim the canister within launched. Striking the floor of the warehouse it split open, flooding the area quickly.
Eight men dropped under the powerful gas, Walker falling to the almost simultaneous motion of a small dart being thrown and hitting his neck. In an instant he was on the floor screaming bloody murder as the Tarantula Hawk venom flooded his system, drawing the remaining conscious, panicked eyes to him in a useful distraction.
Plus, Grim may have been a little petty when it came to human trafficking.
Three sets of electrified prongs took out three men in quick succession as Grim dropped to the ground, a fourth falling to defibrillator built into the suit’s palm. The first shot rang out from one of the guard’s guns, grazing the shoulder of the suit. His weapon was dropped as a glinting knife pierced precisely into his hand, another man receiving a harsh elbow to the gut and a palm full of anaesthesia to his gasping mouth. When the bloodied guard went down to another palm of electricity, the last of the group dropped his weapon and raised his hands, panic clear on his young face.
Grim cocked her head to the side, but obliged in accepting his surrender – he almost welcomed the anaesthesia dropping him out of this mess.
The sudden punch of a hail of bullets against her back had Grim stumbling, only the reinforced suit keeping her standing. In a swift motion she turned, three of her knives thrown from her hand. Above her, on the stairs leading down from the office, Jack yelped as one of the thrown projectiles sunk into his torso.
“Oh – oh fuck no I’m not dealing with this!” Abruptly Jack turned, and with no hesitation jumped at the wall – phasing right through it and to the outside.
For fuck’s sake.
Turning on her heel Grim stalked to the exit, stepping over the still screaming Walker as one of the lenses of her mask swapped to infrared. There went the red shape of a human, dashing along down the line of cargo boxes. Through them, actually, as he apparently phased through them. No matter. A few commands to the Grim Computer soon had a shadow passing overhead, and Grim returned inside.
Walker’s screaming was quieting as the Tarantula Hawk venom reached the end of its very painful run. Three minutes of excruciating agony. Very useful to keep someone incapacitated for a short period.
Grim crouched down, allowing Walker to regain his breath in deep, panting inhales. Outside there was a sudden flurry of noise, of bullets firing from above. Almost leisurely the Gotham hero shifted her masks’ lens to show the view from the Grim Jet – hovering above the harbour, beneath it the metahuman Jack laying in a mirror of his boss, groaning from the rubber bullets that had suddenly peppered him from above.
“You son of a bitch...” Walker had sucked in enough air to speak finally. Grim tilted her mask to look down at him, silent. “They’ll never get a conviction, and I swear to god once I’m free, I’ll come after everything you love-”
Steel-blue eyes flashed beneath the mask, and Walker was once more choking for air as a black glove slammed into his throat, pinning him down. The hero leaned in close, deeply modulated voice rumbling quietly into the warehouse air.
”Even if you escape justice, Thomas Walker, you will never escape me.”
A dark hand covered his face, and in a moment the man was out like a light.
A great sigh heaved through Grim’s mask as she stood, rolling her shoulders slowly. Clean up time. First these, then Jack, then she’d have to return to Gotham to no doubt track down Dirk – he’d be in the wind as soon as the news hits. To be quite frank, Zoey was getting annoyed that people kept thinking they could operate right under her nose. Even with Walker gone, the cycle would repeat as his assets were sold off...
... Actually, that gave her an idea on breaking this.
The Next Morning...
”Good morning, Nicole. Excuse me for diving right into business, but have you seen the news?”
“Of course, Miss Kasimir! It’s all over, big scandal – good thing we never got into business with Walker, huh?”
”Indeed. Speaking of which, I need you to contact Wilson over in legal about purchasing a new company...”
