Sell you a Bridge chapter 119

Blackgate Penitentiary November 10th 2010 8:00 PM EDT

"Alright,  off the boat you fucking animals!" The guard's thick New York accent  made his disdain even more noticable as he banged his flashlight on the  roof of the cramped boat cabin, gesturing at us to get out. The trip to  Blackgate has been slow and annoying. According to Robin, who sat across  from me not wearing what I knew was a later mask, they were only  bringing the worst of the worst here, but he and Batman had been able to  pull some strings. Alongside him were Red Arrow, Aqualad, Kid Flash,  and Superboy.

Miss Martian had  stayed come in on another boat. Robin had arranged for a tracker to be  hidden on her and pulled some strings with the guards so she would end  up cellmates with Poison Ivy. Our plan was to stage the breakout in the  dead of night, using Miss Martian as a locator so we would be able to  hit the right cell without having to scour the place. She would also  keep us updated on what was happening via telepathy. Well, she would  keep them updated, her telepathy didn't work on Jim or I for some  mysterious reason.

The reason  was of course, that I had arranged for it not to. The five hundred  points for a mind blank serum that gave me mental immunity was pricey  but well worth it. It was the most expensive of my preparations by far  and had to be purchased by email because powers and skills couldn't be  bought through the base interface. Item's however, could and I's also  picked us both up a small spatial ring for a hundred points each, and  grabbed myself a mask that changed my face to look like someone else,  since I wouldn't be able to get on the island in costume.

Jim  was fine using his own visage since he'd been dead for over a century,  but he kept all his things in the ring, which only the wearer could  remove. I'd also put plenty of odds and ends into the ring, including  some pretty serious explosives Reggie had made me, and I was wearing a  set of Tier One soft armor that would stop bullets up to about ninety  caliber. With this in mind everything was in place as the guard  practically shoved all of us off the boat after we arrived. I stumbled  but caught my footing on the wet stone of the shore as we stared up at  the island, and even I had to admit I was impressed.

Jim  stepped up next to me. "Dreadful place, isn't it?" I had to agree. If  Doomhollow Hall was a work of dark beauty, this place was a masterclass  in despair. Everything about it was designed to make you unhappy or  distressed. The angles of construction were jarring and uneven, the  materials were coarse and brutal looking, the ground was uneven, and  even the guards looked somehow unbalanced at a glance, like they were  unwell from just being here and they wanted to take it out on us. I  closed my eyes for a second, ostensibly to steel myself but really to  check my points.

I  was sitting at a measly eight hundred right now. In the four days since  I'd nearly emptied myself out getting the sending stones I'd gotten  sixteen hundred points, but after dumping five hundred into the mental  protection and another three hundred into my various preparation items  through the base, including the space rings, I was back below a  thousand. With my Outer Body training I could do a ton of damage with  that, but it had still been a struggle not to stockpile the points to  use in case of a big fight since I couldn't teleport here.

In  the end though, I decided being prepared would help me AVOID having to  blow a damn hole in the wall and fight my way out instead of hoarding my  power and basically guaranteeing it. A sharp jab hit me in the back,  knowing me to my knees and forcing my eyes open. The guard's gruff voice  came from behind me again. "Get moving scum, this ain't a beach trip. I  don't want to be standing our here in the cold all damn night." I  scowled, but with my enhanced stats I was fine and I stumbled to me  feet, pushed onward before I could even brush off my knees as they  escorted us to our cells.

They  put us all together, having somehow gotten us a block of cells to  share, I assumed through Robin's connections because unfortunately, I  ended up sharing a cell with him. The guards dumped us there and slammed  the door, leaving us to our own devices as they headed off to do  whatever it was they did when they weren't tormenting anyone who was put  in here. The second they were gone I whirled on Robin with a glare.  "This wasn't the fucking plan." I hissed, trying to keep my voice low  enough the guards wouldn't come back. "I was supposed to be in a cell  with Jim."

Robin  glared back, and I noted how good his mask was, because the scowl or  disdain showed perfectly on his completely false features. "Well I  changed the plan. I don't trust you, and I'm not leaving you and your  boss alone in a cell to plot how you can screw us over. You're stuck  with me for this trip, so get used to it." I kept up my glare, but  honestly I didn't really blame him. He wasn't wrong objectively, if we'd  found a way to screw him and leave without making the League our  enemies we would totally have done that, but I didn't think there was a  way to do it in the first place so this was a completely unnecessary  precaution.

I  sneered at him through my even more perfect disguise, but in the end I  flopped down on the cot on my side of the room with a snarl and closed  my eyes again, activating my sending stone. "Hey baby you hearing me?" My  telepathic message was transmitted...somehow, I still really didn't get  how the thing worked, but it was a closed system that was almost  impossible to disrupt in theory, so we were pretty sure the wards on the  island would neither stop nor detect it. Of course it was also possible  I'd just exposed our situation and we were all about to die, but you  know, fingers crossed. Besides we were tough enough to fight our way out  if needed.

Zee's dulcet tones filled my head. "Ten four honey bunny. We're on the open network right now, so Artemis, Reggie, and Jim are all listening in." I somehow got the impression of a wink. "We  can do some more...private messaging later. What's going on by the way,  the map shows you and Jim got split up? Everything ok?" She  sounded concerned by not overly worried considering who she was talking  to. It warmed my heart to know she believed in me like that. Her offer  of private time later would actually be a great stress reliever so I put  a mental pin in it to come back to.

I knew my own sending was tinged with annoyance as I responded. "The  boy blunder was wary of a double cross and arranged for us to share a  cell. It's annoying but nothing that will ruin things. How are things on  your end?" I got a flash of an image as she sent me a live  update of the map. It was Zoomed in on Blackgate and I had to admit  there was a LOT of red dots there. I spotted the two green dots  indicating Jim and I, surrounded by purple where the team was and a blue  dot showing Wally where the map was still tracking him. Way off to one  side I saw Miss Martian.

She  was in a small room next to another red dot so I was pretty sure she  was in position. I turned to Robin. "Miss Martian is in place. We follow  the plan." Robin nodded and then rolled over to sleep. I rolled back to  stare up at the ceiling. We'd decided as a group that since intake had  been changed to once a month based on the danger of dropping people off,  all the guards would be on alert on intake day. We would all sleep  here, then get through tomorrow in the yard and stage the breakout  tomorrow.

Of  course, this benefited me more than the others because it would give me  an extra four hundred points to play with, or even six hundred if we  pushed the actual breakout to after midnight. I was actually hopeful I  wouldn't need to use them. My main priority was upgrading my base. Food  was getting scarce and while springing Ivy would help ameliorate that  situation it wouldn't make the food taste good. In contrast, if I picked  up one of the restaurants I would have access to delicious food every  day, and so would my loved ones.

I  winced thinking of my mom. I wished she could get out of here, sadly  when I'd asked Gojo about it I hadn't gotten the answer I had hoped for.  The super powerful being that my mother was dating had been pretty up  front about not being able to help. His response when I questioned him  had not been inspiring. "It's not that I can't break that force field,  it's more than if I do it'll tear this whole town apart. It's tied  together with the curse energy in this place. I use curse energy myself,  which is why I find it so comfy here, but due to the way my powers work  the curse energy tied to a place is important to the effect."

He'd  shrugged. "My power interacts with the world in a specific way. Long  story short, breaking this barrier would break the curse, which would  break the city. Every single thing in Gotham has been soaking in cursed  energy for decades now, you could say that technically this city is one  big curse at this point. Plus, I'm kind of scared if the cursed energy  here interacts with my power on a large scale it might manifest as a  cursed spirit. I've never seen a place with this much cursed energy  baked into it before and to be honest even I'm slightly worried what  might be born from that. I mean, I could still kill it I'm sure, but it  might do some serious damage while I was finishing it off."

The  concept of the horrifying curse on Gotham becoming a self aware  physical entity was terrifying enough that I fully supported Gojo not  getting involved. It also kind of explained why he avoided and big  displays of power, even more so than his self professed survivalist  philosophy. Still, it meant we needed to find that damn anchor to undo  this thing. With Zatara and Kent in here, there were no real heavyweight  sorcerers in the League, and I wasn't confident they could motivate on  of the big magic villains, especially with Circe being the one behind  this. Pissing off the gods was a good way to get your whole year ruined  and everyone knew it. This was probably going to need to be an inside  job.

Shaking  off that though I closed my eyes, for real this time, ready to go to  bed. I'd gotten weirdly used to the burning red numbers behind my  eyelids, and something about the sight seemed to soothe me, making it  easier to get to bed. As I drifted off. I sent Zee a message about being  tired and promised to test out the sending stones and their erotic  possibilities later. We said I love you, something we did every night  now with the stones, one of the best parts of having them, and then I  drifted off to sleep. After all, I had a big day tomorrow. I had to  rescue a supervillain.