Blue Jay's Flight

Hacking and Trapping

"You WHAT?!" Nightwing asked with shock.

"Hey!" I replied defensively, "if YOU had told me what we were looking for, then we wouldn't be down here in the first place!"

Nightwing groaned with frustration. "Damn! Do you have ANY idea where it could be?"

"I told you already, I don't," I pursed my lips and folded my arms. "I do have a way of tracking it down, however. I just need you to bare with me, okay Boy Wonder?"

He sighed. "Fine. Where do we start."

I pressed my lips together. "You aren't gonna like it..."

After we got out of the Catacombs, we got to the surface and I carefully crawled the streets of Gotham. I then walked up to a computer store, jammed my elbow into the window and shattered it. Nightwing narrowed his eyes in disapproval, but I floated in over the glass shards. I had disabled to security system a LONG time ago.

I turned one of the computers on and logged in with a secret account I had created if anything ever happened that didn't go my way. I typed in a URL and a log in screen for Cadmus popped up.

Nightwing's jaw dropped when I hacked my way in and I smirked. I then typed in a code that would lead me to all secret buyers and undercover bidders. If anyone wanted anything to do with alien artifacts, it'd be those bastards. How did I know this? I had seen it happen when I was trailing Boy Wonder one time when they broke into Cadmus and found Superboy. Yeah, I was there. Probably the reason why I liked Superboy, the poor guy was a clone intended to be a weapon.

I went down a list and couldn't seem to find anything. I clenched my fists in frustration and Nightwing suddenly took over the keyboard and typed another code in. It seemed to point us in the right direction and when he didn't type anything else in, I cut in and tried another code. It continued that way with us trading off back and forth until we got to a list of three bidders.

"Alright," I whispered. "We got Lex Luther, a guy named Bane, and an Unknown."

We were pressed up against each other and we suddenly looked at each other, our faces inches away. I swallowed hard and focused back on the computer. "It's not Luther, I know that much, and Bane is locked up tight. So, who could the unknown be?"

I narrowed my eyes and thought for a moment. Who would have the money, the time, and the effort? I scratched my chin and closed my eyes. I ran through a mental list of bad-guys that I knew and came up with five solutions.

"Joker, P-"

"Stop right there," he suddenly muttered next to me. "Joker. It has to be. He'd be the one crazy enough to do something dangerous with it"

I nodded. "Good point. Want to go after him?"

He smirked. "Hell yeah I do."

"Then have fun!" I said and started to walked back over to the window.

He gripped my arm tightly and whispered, "I can't find him without you. This is a top secret mission now. Someone worked really REALLY hard to try and hide this information, so that means this could be a lot more dangerous then Batman and I thought."

"How did you find out about the artifact?" I suddenly asked spontaneously. "Huh? You seem pretty damn desperate to find it, what does it do, Nightwing? I will destroy all means of you finding him if you don't tell me why you want it."

I closed his eyes. "It has the potential to destroy a whole planet, and you know what that means...and the Joker would be the only one insane enough to actually do it to Earth."

I bit my lip. If this hadn't been the whole world at stake, I wouldn't have cared. But it was my life at risk as well, and everyone else's. So, I knew that I had to stop him, despite what I'd been through with him and Harley. "Alright, fine. I'll help. But we gotta destroy the evidence that we were here."

"You destroyed the window," he said. "Not much we can do."

I rolled my eyes. "Then we better haul ass."

I had a good idea of where The Joker might be, and I was probably right. If wanted to destroy the world, he'd want to go out with a bang in front of everyone. We went to the center of town and I opened up an entrance to a sewer. I hopped down into to it, and as soon as I hit the ground, an alarm went off. Out of the darkness, two long chains with cuffs at the ends of them launched out and gripped my wrists. Another pain from behind gripped my ankles. The chains lifted me into the air and I tried to fly away.

Nightwing got caught too and he was forced the to the ground on his knees. Neither of us had any means of escape. A hunk of metal suddenly pinned my arms to my side and I was suddenly yanked to the ground.

A cruel familiar insane laugh echoed throughout the sewer. "Blue Jay! I never expected you to betray us like this! You were always so loyal! Why change now? And with Boy Wonder?! What has gotten into you? No matter, I will destroy this world, it deserves to die." The Joker stepped out of the shadows with a knife in hand and his goons did as well.

One of them grabbed me by the hair and made me look up. The Joker placed the knife against my throat and he said, "What would dear Selena think of you now? Face it, Jay, you've failed her, and she will never forgive you."

I squeezed my eyes shut and let his words sink in.

"As for you!" he said and turned to Nightwing. "How did YOU manage to grab her? She's very slick and it's difficult to catch her, and she's avoided you for so many years."

He smirked. "Little does she know I spiked the drink of water she had and it limited her usual reflexes temporarily and I was able to capture her. The effects have worn off by now."

I suddenly turned and glared at him.

The Joker started laughing insanely once more. "Of course! Well, no matter. We'll all be dead soon enough!!"