Key to My Hard Drive

[Admin]

After Susie had left his apartment, Bruce Wayne had waited only long enough to order 10 laptop computers to be delivered to his door before he powered up the spare laptop he kept in the utility cupboard. Devoid of anything personal whatsoever and usually reserved for guests who absolutely had to check their emails or whatever during a million dollar party, the laptop was the perfect victim for whatever virus was on the curious thumb drive the pair had snagged from the even curiouser crime scene a few nights prior. Not long after logging in and slotting the thumb drive home, the text described to him by Susie began to type across his black screen.

A detective is at the bottom of a well 30 feet deep. He crawls up 3 feet each day, but at night, he slips down 2 feet. How long does it take for the detective to crawl out the well?

Pausing to think about it, Bruce shrugged and typed in the most obvious answer, just as the clever Detective had before him. After hitting submit, he waited until he was told his answer was incorrect. The screen went black again before the answer appeared on the screen. Feeling ridiculous for not having thought of that before typing in his answer, Bruce sighed. Then saw the threat to the supposedly fictitious detective. Frowning and deciding he was going to need something to smoothen this process, Bruce poured himself a large scotch and dialled Susanna’s cell.

After a quick explanation and an hour spent waiting for the delivery of his extra laptops, Bruce was starting to feel restless. A knock on the door made him leap from his lounging position on the leather couch he usually had no time for and he flung open the door to the apartment to greet the delivery guy and instead greeting an empty hallway. Well perhaps not entirely empty. Sitting unassuming and almost meekly on his doorstep was a small square box covered in brown paper and tied with plain white string. There was no label. No return address.

Feeling more than a little suspicious, Bruce lifted the box carefully and took it inside his apartment, placing it gingerly on his kitchen table. From a quick and thorough inspection there didn’t seem to be any explosives involved in the package, and he decided to investigate further. Slitting the box open with an obliging knife he obtained from the kitchen and pulling out wads of plain shredded paper before he got to a parcel wrapped in cotton wool, Bruce exhaled and was embarrassed to realise he had been holding his breath.

Inside the cotton wool was an impossible puzzle. Parts of a portable computer hard-drive were jumbled amongst each other, each tiny delicate fragment labelled. Realising that he would need to put the device together to make any sense of the information contained on the drive, Bruce closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Every second he spent wasting on this ridiculous wild goose chase meant that someone, somewhere in the city was probably getting closer to death.

Reluctantly, Bruce re-dialled Susanna’s cell.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Ouch. Susie turned out of her boss's office reluctantly, moving to her office with the kind of low-shouldered slump that had only rarely been seen on the smart young detective. As she passed by the cubicles of other officers she felt eyes turn towards her and she seemed to shrink even more into her clothes the further along she walked. She highly doubted that anyone in the department had failed to hear the tongue-lashing she had just received, and she supposed she should only be glad it hadn't been worse. After all, her father was a tough man.

She turned into her office, making sure that a few files that no longer belonged to her would now be available and easily found, and then quickly getting out of the way of the determinedly angry looking computer technician who was puzzling over her unresponsive computer. Jeez, was everyone going to hate her now?? Well, that wasn't exactly new – loads of people were jealous of her – but for once she actually deserved the angry stares. That was an odd feeling for a workaholic like herself!

She was just about to get really and truly mopey as she made her way from her office and made the long walk of shame to the front doors of the department, when her phone rang. She was relieved to see it was Bruce's number, and not someone else wanting to yell at her. She picked it up without hesitating, and responded without pretense.

"Please tell me you figured it all out, caught the guy, and plan to let me hand him over to the department on a silver platter? Because I think I've ostracized myself down here for life and I'm already going through work withdrawls."

[Bruce Wayne]

“I wish,” sighed the usually articulate man on the opposite end of the phone. “In fact, it has gotten even weirder. I just received a technological jigsaw – wrapped in brown paper and left on my doorstep.” He looked at the pieces, pulling out a chair and sitting down to get a better look. Refraining from touching the pieces at the moment (he wasn’t that stupid!) Bruce wondered what the hell this person, whoever he was, was playing at. Just because the Joker was behind bars didn’t mean that there was a lunatic vacancy, right? ... Right?

“I have about a million pieces of a computer hard drive on my kitchen table, looking more and more puzzling by the second. Do you have any idea what this means?”

[Susanna Gossamer]

Susie had finally made it out of the department by the time Bruce finished his explanation, and her auburn eyebrows drew together as she considered what he'd told her. She shrugged one shoulder uselessly as she started to cross a busy city street, dodging cabs. "I dunno, Bruce," she admitted honestly, her words jarred by the sound of her jogging and the honk of an annoyed horn that she ignored without a thought. Shaking her head softly, she cracked the first quip that came to her mind. "Did your latest macbook order get a little shaken up on the delivery helicopter?"

With a soft smirk that quickly died down, she then responded seriously. "Do you think it's any connection to the thumb drive and the riddle and everything?" She didn't mention Brewsky. Really, she was doing a pretty good job of tucking that particular emotional trauma away so that she could deal with the new one of being temporarily fired. One thing at a time for one overstressed detective, thanks!

[Bruce Wayne]

Unable to help himself smiling at her typically Susie-ish first response and leaning his head on one hand as his eyes took in the sights of Gotham through the floor to ceiling windows beside him, Bruce was starting to feel a little silly. Maybe this wasn’t connected with the nut-job. Maybe it was just a coincidence. Or maybe the package was for Alfred. Bruce continued to smile into the receiver, glad that she had picked up so quickly after having only just spent the morning with him. He had been sure that once she found out his secret that she’d run a mile or dob him in or turn him over or something – after all Batman wasn’t exactly considered a model citizen these days.

“I really don’t know,” he sighed, sounding more wistful than frustrated. He could tell by the background noises that she was en route somewhere, and he felt stupid for having disturbed her. No doubt she was busy. Unlike him, she actually got paid to fight crime. He was going to have to check the pieces out a little more thoroughly before he involved Susie. She sounded a little harried (which could have been purely her exertion as she walked but which more likely had something to do with the phone call she had received in his gym earlier.

“Are you okay?” he asked with concern.

[Susanna Gossamer]

She sighed to match his, considering his question carefully a moment before answering. "Yes," she finally decided. She was okay. Was she her usual untouchable self, barreling through life like a bull in a china shop? Well, no. But then, maybe she had altogether too much confidence the rest of the time and needed to be set back on her heels to prove she wasn't invincible.

…Naaah.

"I've been suspended at work. Well," she corrected herself quickly. "Not exactly suspended. More like my boss recommended that I take a little time off after my traumatic experience, and wouldn't take no for an answer. And then my dad yelled at me. Did I mention he's a detective, too? Yeah. So. I've been better, but I'm okay."

She crossed another street with the pedestrian traffic, checking both ways but otherwise trusting that someone would pull her out of the way if she walked in front of a bus. "If you're worried about the package, I could take a look at it if you want?" An idea came to her just then, though, and she tacked it onto her previous suggestion without pause. "Or hey, don't you have some kind of computer specialist at Wayne Enterprises? I thought I remembered some news story about his being made senior partner and how he designed a bunch of things for the military while at Wayne. Couldn't he take a look for us? I mean," she quickly backed up, "for you?"

[Bruce Wayne]

He was glad that she was okay, and he knew that a lesser woman would have been feeling the situation – or at least showing that she felt it – much more than Susie was. He respected her for being able to pull through, to climb above her personal struggles. He wanted to see her and to comfort her, to let her tell him about exactly what had happened but he knew that she wasn’t one much for pouring out a sob story and he didn’t want to insult her with one of his usual ‘Bruce Wayne Grand Gestures (TM)’. “You didn’t tell me your dad was a detective,” he said, attempting to cheer her up. “Should I be worried?”

Now that she mentioned it, Bruce seemed to recall something about the computer specialist himself. His memory seemed much vaguer though, but he instantly resolved to track the guy down and see if he could make any sense of his unusual package. He nodded at her suggestion, pleased by the fact that she was a thinker and a doer instead of, well, one of the bimbos he was usually forced to spend copious amounts of time with. Just as suddenly as her idea had come to her, one flew to him. “Maybe we could go and see him together,” he suggested, “If you’re feeling up to it? It doesn’t have to be today.” He paused, wanting to say more but not really knowing how to say what he wanted to get across without seeming pushy or – worse – cocky. “Unless you want to hang out. I can clear my schedule pretty easily,” he added lamely.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Her spirits brightened considerably at his seemingly simple suggestion. She didn't notice how he eventually broke down into awkward uncertainty at all, so glad was she to hear that she might actually have a way to be useful that day. "That sounds great!" She agreed. "Meet there?"

Ten minutes later her cab dropped her off in front of the commercial store front for Wayne Corporation and she looked up at the stories upon stories of manpower and wondered for a brief moment what Gotham would be like if all of that money and manpower were instead geared towards making the city a better place. After all, look at what had happened in Gotham with just one of the skyscraper's denizens working for the greater good. As she pushed through the shiny glass doorways she smiled softly at the thought.

She looked up from the expensive marble floors, through the sea of humanity, for the man who had inspired that smile. 

[Bruce Wayne]

As soon as he heard the distinctly uplifted tone in her voice, Bruce knew he had done the right thing. Glad that he was still capable of such a feat, he agreed to meet her there and set out on his way, carefully packaging the bits and pieces of their technological puzzle into a nondescript box and leaving the original packaging behind so that it wouldn’t be contaminated with fresh fingerprints. Tucking the package into his jacket he zoomed through town on his motorcycle, leaving it parked neatly in specially made bay out front. The store was impressive but he hardly noticed, ignoring the looks from people who worked for him as they stared. He was looking for one face, and he found it in record time.

He was at Susie’s side a few seconds later, starting to lean in to press a kiss to her cheek and catching himself just in time. She might not want people to think they were an item. Were they an item? He opted inside for smiling at her with the ingenuity realised only by those in his closer circle, his arm curling around her back almost protectively as he guided them forward towards the elevators. “Hey,” he greeted her in a low tone, his green eyes taking in the people taking them in, his smile simmering into something more suitable for the Bruce Wayne everyone around them thought him to be. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I had to pack it all up.”

The elevator doors opened and they moved inside. Bruce leaned across to press the ‘close doors’ button. He wanted to be alone with her for five minutes. He knew she’d have a valuable opinion on all of this, and that was more than he had at the moment. “It’s ridiculous. All tiny green circuit-board bits and little screws.” He shook his head, clearly frustrated. “There has to be more to all this than meets the eye, don’t you think?”

[Susanna Gossamer]

There was something completely undeniable about Bruce's sex appeal that rocked her every time he got close to her. Though she had been able to deny it from afar or in magazine articles where he was surrounded by stick thin models - ugh, gross - it was entirely impossible to actually spend a few minutes in his unnerving but nervy company and not feel it. She was loathe to admit that Mary-Lou had been right all along, or rather that she had been wrong, but she had to agree with millions of female Gothamites when he leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek that there was a definite attractiveness to a man with money and power and abs you could crack an egg on. Mmm.

"It's okay," she told him about the wait, while her cheeks totally did not turn a light shade of pink thankyouverymuch as people seemed to stare in their direction. She tried to tell herself they were only looking at him, but, she wished she had dressed better all the same. If she was going to end up in the press she would prefer not to look like she was a career woman on a small budget, even though she was. As for him, he could only be benefited by being seen with someone as down to Earth and real as her, as opposed to all those stupid models, so she felt nothing on account for his possible embarrassment. Please.

It was a relief to be sequestered away in the elevator with him, for various reasons, and as she turned to him now she got the feeling that he was used to being able to figure things out pretty rapidly. So this puzzle, whatever it was, seemed to be getting on his nerves. A soft touch of amusement lit her features at him. It was a little daunting to be in the company of someone so intelligent and heroic, even though most people had no idea about it, because in comparison she was not at all surprised that she had no idea what the thing was. She was used to having to ask others for help, even if it wasn't her favorite pasttime.

"There's always more than meets the eye," she told him. "The fact that we just had a virus unleashed on computer systems at GPD which we found at your penthouse, and now you received a puzzle of computer parts... probably not a coincidence." She shrugged her shoulders and, eyes still trained on him, added as an afterthought. "You have no idea how much trouble I would be in if Gordon found out that I let your people look at this before ours. But... seeing as he suspended me, and of course, because you're so cute, I don't really care." She smiled innocently... for her.

[Bruce Wayne]

If Susie was feeling uncomfortable about her appearance in any way, it would have been news to Bruce. She carried herself with the same unmistakeable air that she always did in his opinion, whether or not she knew it. It was the kind of confidence that a person can’t fake; an intrinsic sense of self that is neither arrogant nor depreciated simply because you were having a bad hair day or because someone might have looked at you sideways. He was always struck by just how well she managed to pull off that confidence – something he had struggled with as a child in spite of his privileged upbringing (and perhaps because of it) – and at how sadly lacking a quality it was from most of the other women in Gotham and indeed everywhere. They were too apt to think they had gained weight or their clothes weren’t right and spent far too much time in Bruce’s estimation worrying about whether their shoes matched their handbags to give a damn about the things that really mattered.

But Susanna Gossamer was a woman who did know what mattered, damn it, and she fought for what mattered too. His eyes had only been for her since she had come into their range and now as they were riding slowly in the elevator he was able to appreciate her understated elegance fully. Having dressed himself in the first suit from his closet and only brushing his hair because it was expected of the Bruce Wayne who would visit one of his empire’s outlets, he felt awkward and affected. He would much rather dress how he wanted. He would much rather be who he wanted. But Gotham needed him far too much for any of that. At least for the time being.

A soft smile hovered on his lips as he contemplated her, hearing and listening to what she said whilst mainly focusing on the way she spoke. She was matter of fact and passionate about her causes, and it was lucky that she chose to break the spell he had fallen under with her cheekiness because Heaven only knew what he would do to her if she continued being so effortlessly desirable.

“Mmm,” he responded at first, having long ago leant up against the wall of the lift and letting his head fall back as he considered the possibilities of propositioning her in the elevator of the meaning of it all. Was someone trying to frame him? If so, they seemed well on their way to doing a good job of it, save for the alibis he had. “I know how much trouble you’d be in,” he told her with a smirk, knowing full well that she wanted the jump on this case just as badly as he did. “But that’s one of the things I like about you, Susie – your disregard for danger.” And then, he grinned. “And you think I’m cute?”

[Susanna Gossamer]

She grinned at him, crossing her arms lazily over her middle. "Occasionally," she admitted, eyes twinkling mischievously, "when you aren't trying." She didn't believe for an instant that he didn't realize the effect he had on her; it was too well honed not to be deliberate. But his playing innocent was kinda cute anyway.

"You think I disregard danger?" she asked back in the same tone, her smirk continuing. She didn't think of herself as disregarding danger. She was well aware of its relative position. She simply liked the adrenaline rush one had when it was just a hair too close for comfort. Oh sure, she loved being a cop because she was passionate about cleaning up Gotham and because she really loved kicking people's asses - not to mention, she got to carry a gun - but partly, if she was perfectly honest, she just loved the thrill of the stand off. As she stared Bruce down now, it felt a little bit like a stand off now.

But with a resonating ding! the elevator opened and when the two bodies inside didn't immediately emerge the cabin began to fill up with quicker paced people. Finally unfolding her limbs from their comfy position, Susie glanced up and stepped off the elevator, glancing around the floor around her as Bruce followed suit. So this was the top floor of Wayne Enterprises, with all its fancy high powered people.

Intimidating.

"Mr. Wayne," said a well dressed older gentleman as he approached the pair, slipping on a pair of glasses as he walked. "What have you brought me?" he asked, gesturing with long brown hands as if he couldn't tell whether the box under Bruce's arm or the lady at his side was his gift.

[Bruce Wayne]

He was still grinning as she fired her question in kind right back at him, enjoying the way she bantered with him instead of just gushing the way he was used to from the women he generally was forced into company with. A soft but amused snort escaped him at the implications of said question, and his eyes reflected just what he was thinking. Well, yeah! You’re hanging out with me, aren’t you? And at least half of me is a masked vigilante. An expressive raising of his eyebrows accompanied his amused expression and he continued to watch her until people flooded the elevator.

Stepping out of the lift in her wake and neglecting to adjust himself other than to slip his free hand casually into his pocket, Bruce immediately saw Lucius Fox approaching. He nodded to his old friend and business confidante, moving the box in his fingers and stepping up to the man whose help and expertise they so desperately needed. “ Lucius, this is Detective Susanna Gossamer. Susie,” he then said, making the introduction complete. “This is Lucius Fox. If anyone will be able to help us figure out our little puzzle, it’ll be him.” Pressing his lips together and lifting his brows once more, Bruce handed over the nondescript box whose contents were entirely mystifying – at least for the moment.

[Susanna Gossamer]

Lucius smiled his handsome if elderly smile and nodded. "I'll do my best," he told them both and then, as he looked down at the mess in the box he added, "It might take me a little while." As he closed the box back he gave Susie another smile. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Susie."

"And you, Lucius," the redhead responded with an equally friendly grin. Awww! Bruce had good friends. Meeting Lucius and Alfred made her all the more certain that the persona the magazines slapped him was nothing like the real Bruce. Playboys with bad attitudes never had such cool mentors.

He held up the box and gestured to Bruce with it. "I'll let you know when I've found something, Mr. Wayne," he said as he began to turn away. She couldn't decide if he really was that busy, or if he just seemed anxious to leave Bruce alone in the company of the first decent woman he had seen him in company with since Rachel Dawes, and they hadn't even been dating then. Whatever the reasons, he was on his way again, donning a pair of slim glasses as he looked down at the piecemeal computer and made his way through a tall glass doorway.

Turning to Bruce, Susie looked up at him with questioning brown eyes. "Do you want to go with him?" she asked. "You don't have to keep me entertained while we wait."

((If you think this thread is over, you can just have Bruce say he needs to go or whatever (but Susie'll wanna kiss him goodbye ), or if you'd rather keep going he could offer her a tour of the building or something? Whatever you'd like to do is fine. ))

[Bruce Wayne]

Bruce, completely used to the autonomous way Lucius worked (and equally thankful for it) knew that it would only be a matter of time before his clever colleague figured out some kind of solution to their current problem. After all, when hadn’t Fox been able to find ways around things for him. With a grateful smile Bruce watched the man go on his way, turning to Susie with the smile becoming a little cheekier at her question. The burn for knowledge was something that Bruce had always kept deep within himself; an unsatiable desire to learn more about almost everything had seen him in many scrapes and situations both as a boy and now as a man.

His need to know more about Susanna Gossamer was bigger than his need to learn about dismantled computer parts, though.

Not giving a damn who saw (and there were plenty of people surreptitiously watching) Bruce smirked, stepping closer to Susie and slipping his arms intimately around her waist in a move that made an older lady peering at them over her newspaper nearby look away in shame. He bent his head to her, the soft but not altogether girly smell of her perfume filling his nostrils as he placed a lingering kiss just below her ear. “You make entertaining you sound like a chore,” he chided her softly, casting a coy glance at their onlookers before he smiled into the curtain of red hair she so obligingly provided. “It’s not,” he added for the record.