Chapter 15

"Yes, yes, thank you!" Harvey Bullock put down the phone and turned to Jim Gordon with a big grin on his face. Good news wasn't easy to come by these days, and he just loved to be the bearer of it. "That was O'Toole. Strike Force beat you to it. They're bringing in Kathryn now. Finally some freaking good news, right?"

Jim heaved a sigh of relief and nodded. The damned woman had sicced a mentally unstable former Captain Barnes on him just a few hours ago because he'd come too close to sniffing out the plans that the Court had kept so well hidden. Unfortunately, in the struggle, Barnes had also destroyed the blueprint that would've been used for said purpose.

"Gordon!" That voice sounded familiar. Jim noticed Alfred hurrying up the stairs to where he stood. The man looked to be a little battered. "Where the bloody hell have you been? I've been trying to call you all day."

The truth was that he'd been temporarily incapacitated, and held hostage by Barnes till Harvey came to his rescue. But he figured Alfred wouldn't be interested to hear any of his own tales of adventure, at least not right then. "Alfred. What's happened?"

"It's Bruce, he... he's been abducted," he stammered, clearly distraught. The poor butler had had his share of worrisome moments with that kid. Initially they were mostly self-inflicted, but as of late, they seemed to be getting a slew of attacks from people connected to the Wayne Foundation, both from within the firm and from the enemy camp. He always thought that it was an unfair burden to be put upon a young orphan and his guardian, and now he wondered if they'd finally succeeded.

"Oh why?" grumbled Harvey, clearly exhausted. "Why can't anything be easy?"

"I don't know how, but he's definitely gone. And you're not going to believe this, but the people responsible are this shadowy organization that run the whole of Gotham. They're called... uh..."

"The Court of Owls," Jim completed Alfred's sentence, and exchanged looks with Bullock. It became evident that they were all after the same people.

Caught out of the loop, Alfred gave Jim a bewildered look, and Jim decided to shut the doors to his office to speak in private with both Bullock and the butler.

"We've been investigating the Court and a woman named Kathryn Monroe for months now," Jim went on to get Alfred up to speed. "Until this morning, I was working undercover inside the organization."

"Did they ever mention Bruce?" Alfred asked.

"No. Why would they want to kidnap him?"

"Well..." The butler hesitated. "We might've had a bit of.. a run-in early on in the year."

"How long has he been gone?" asked Harvey.

Alfred spoke dismally. "I don't know. Could be several days, several weeks."

"Weeks?!" exclaimed Harvey. "How can the kid be missing for weeks? That's your one freaking job!"

"Don't you think I know that?" Alfred snapped. "They replaced him, alright? With an exact.... clone, created in Indian Hill."

"H-hold on a second. Wait, back up, I thought I heard you say 'clone'."

Alfred didn't back down. "That's 'cos I did."

Harvey had witnessed some strange things in this city, but he'd to admit 'clone' might top them all. "I got to sit down."

"All right," Gordon cut in. As nuts as Alfred sounded, the man had for years been relatively reliable with his reports, and Jim had to think he might be telling the truth. Nevertheless, one thing at a time. They'd have to figure out the Court's next move, and of Bruce's whereabouts. "Let's think this through. Alfred. Is there anything you and Bruce could've done that would've drawn the attention of the Court?"

"Well, we did break into one of their houses to try to find something that would give us leverage against the Court. And all we found was this ridiculous owl thingamajig, which I managed to break."

"Crystal owl?"Jim perked up. He wondered how broken that second owl was, because the first was pretty much a lost cause. "Is there any way it could be reassembled?"

"Why?"

"We found another owl this morning. When you shine a light through it, a map of Gotham appears. We think this indicates the secret 'dwellings' of the Court."

Harvey raised a brow to Jim.

"So Bruce could be in one of these dwellings, right?" surmised Alfred, finally seeing a sliver of hope. "So where's your bloody owl?"

"Uh well, due to circumstances totally beyond our control," replied Harvey, taking a swig out of his brandy. "The owl went kaboom."

"But, if we could reassemble the owl that you stole, maybe we could find Bruce and whatever other plans the Court is dead set on keeping hidden." Jim had carefully used the term 'dwellings' instead of bunkers - mostly because he didn't want get Alfred involved when he hadn't sufficient evidence to back up his suspicions yet. But the truth was that the 10-inch walled bunker that Harvey and him had stumbled upon earlier in the day, had been recently spruced up and restocked, likely to survive some ominous event that was to come.

"Right," said Alfred, already on board with the plan. "Give me a minute, I'll be back with what we have." He hurried away, as Bullock leaned back in his chair for another swig of brandy.

During Jim's time undercover, the Court had repeatedly referred to a prophecy that would cleanse Gotham. But being the newcomer to these meetings, they'd never disclosed the details. On hindsight, he may have become slightly too impetuous, having accidentally blown his cover in his search for the location of the first bunker. But they'd Kathryn now under police custody, and perhaps she'd be persuaded to provide insight. Or as Plan B, fix Alfred's owl and search them out, one by one.