Birds of Prey: Chaos Revolution UNRATED VERSION

CHAPTER ELEVEN

As the elevator door slid upwards, it was an emotional return to a place long forgotten: The clock tower. Alfred led the way followed by Richard, Barbara, Helena, Dinah, and Reese. The place was fixed up, and the gears were turning once more, but other than the gears, there was nothing in the room except dust.

“I don’t understand,” Helena said. “There’s nothing here.”

“Or so it seems, “ Alfred replied. “Miss Gor….Mrs. Grayson, will you do the honors and place you hand on the wall next to the door.

Wondering what Alfred had up his sleeve, she did as instructed. A recording of Alfred’s voice echoed in the room rather loudly. PLEASE SPEAK YOUR NAME

Barbara raised an eyebrow while towards Alfred. He prodded her on with a nod. “Barbara Grayson.”

VOICE PATTERN RECOGNIZED, NAME DOES NOT MATCH PROFILE. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

“Dear me, I had forgotten that your name had changed. I beg your pardon,” Alfred replied. “At least it recognized your voice pattern. If it hadn’t, the alarm would have gone off for sure.”

Barbara rolled her eyes and sighed. “Barbara Gordon.”

GREETINGS MISS GORDON. The recorded voice said.

With those words, the building came to life. The gears underneath their feet began turning, making the clock tower moan. It almost felt like the tower was going to open the floor up underneath them and swallow them whole. Out of the darkness of the dimly lit room, a blue laser light beam shot up to the right wall. It appeared as if it was outlining a design in the wall. When it was done, a circular piece of the wall which had just been outlined slowly spun around. When it was done, an all to familiar 3-D symbol. It was the symbol of the bird with its wing tips touching above its head. A neon blue light illuminated behind the display.

That event seemed to be the key to get things rolling. Dozens of things began happening simultaneously. A huge section of the wooden floor, directly in the middle of the room began to elevate. Everyone watched in fascination as it raised over their heads seemingly a perfect size to fit in the square hole in the ceiling. Another level was rising up from beneath to fill the void and what was on it was the most extraordinary sight. A circular platform rose from the ground.

The only way onto the magnificent platform was by one of the two sets of steps directly across from each other. One of them was facing the clock face while the other faced towards them. Every ounce of the station was made of some type of crystal. There was a crystal clear wall surrounding the entire platform except in front of the two sets of steps. Leaning up against the crystal walls were two long counter strips with connected the computer stations for both sides of the platform. Above each station were crystal clear LCD flat screen monitors connected to the wall. The computer screens were tinted but still clear enough to see through.

While that platform rose from the ground, other movements were taking place. In the far left corner of the room, another section of the floor had been elevated and replaced, this time with a chemical laboratory. Camouflaged panels on the wall to everyone’s left spun around revealing cases and shelves of weapons. There were different types of swords and bird-a-rangs. On the right, panels slid open to reveal small walk-in closets. No one was in any position to see what were in those closets.

When all the movement was done, everyone in the newly transformed room was speechless. Eventually, it was Helena who made the first comment. “Holy crap!”

Alfred stepped out from amongst the group, all too eager to begin the tour. “To Gotham, Master Bruce has donated millions of dollars to restore the clock tower. Unofficially, Master Bruce donated an additional ten million dollars to bring to rebuild our home base.”

“My father did all this?” Helena asked. Hearing about her father, having something done here without coming to see her, made her blood boil.

“I had a hand in it as well,” Alfred smirked. “Anyway, I was told to tell you that he is sincerely sorry for abandoning you the way he did. One day, he does plan to return to New Gotham and try to make amends. He only felt that right now was not the right time to do so.”

“Typical ol’ dad,” Helena said bitterly. Reese placed a hand on her shoulder to show her his support.

“If I may suggest so, I think a tour is in order.”

Everyone agreed. The first thing everyone wanted to see was the clock tower’s main platform and so that was Alfred’s first stop. As they walked towards the platform, Alfred began the tour. “The new clock tower, by far, has the most advance security technology available. To unlock all of this, a person must pass a skin graft, a voice patter recognition test, and give a correct name that only we can program name. If an intruder, like that pesky Raven shows up, tried to press her hand up against the wall beside the door like you did, Mrs. Grayson, then nothing would happen. It is absolutely impossible to get to any part of the clock tower that deals with what we do without getting to this point first.”

Alfred placed a foot on the first crystal step and the platform began to come to life and neon lights began to turn on underneath each step as they were stepped on.

Barbara was highly impressed; Bruce had really outdone himself this time. The moment she stepped up onto the crystal platform, she looked down the see through ground where red, green, and blue neon lights illuminated the glass. On the platform were two chairs upon some sort of track that made a complete circle. “Please, Mrs. Grayson, take a seat.”

Barbara did not mind at all. Her ankles were killing her and sitting down sounded great to her right now. With Richard by her side and with his help, she slowly sat back into the chair. “I do believe that you and Mr. Grayson will like this feature. Those red buttons on the arm of your chair will take you to the appropriate station. That first button right there will take you to Delphi2.”

“Really?” Barbara asked looking down at the buttons on her chair. Trying it out, she pressed the button Alfred pointed out. Swiftly, yet very gently, the chair moved on the track to the third computer station. It stop was just as gently and as soon as she arrived, the computer station came alive. “Nice!” Barbara admitted. Displayed on the crystal LCD monitor on the wall was a big three dimensional image map of New Gotham. It was surprisingly detailed down to each and every small alleyway.

“Next, I would like to show you the new costumes, that during my time off, I took the liberty of designing them myself.”

Richard helped Barbara to her feet as she sighed. That was a short rest period. Everyone followed Alfred off the ramp and towards the walk in closets that had appeared. Each walk-in closet served as a display as well and was lit up by an average light bulb. In the first room, the one furthest from the elevator the arrived in, was Richard’s Nightwing costume, modeled by a solid black mannigan. Richard smiled, happy to see his old costume. Two years ago, after they defeated Bane and Harley Quinn, he had thrown it away.

“Master Bruce thought you would want to display your old costume for keepsake purposes. The same for your batgirl costume, Mrs. Grayson.” Alfred commented. Barbara walked up to the second closet to see her bat suit in a display case. There it was, the suit that she wore proudly when fighting side by side with Batman.

“Was I ever this thin?” Barbara laughed, placing a hand on the display case.

Helena walked into the third closet and got a good look at her new costume on display. The shirt was a sleeveless tank top shirt with a low cut, rounded collar. The ribbed areas and both sleeves were pure black. A wide dark purple strip went from the collar to the stomach. In the purple strip were both left and right diagonal white lines forming diamond patterns throughout the purple. The pants were black and purple latex. Around the shoulders of the mannigan was her new black trench coat.

Dinah found hers in the next room, and she was flabbergasted. Her main attire looked moor like a black one-piece bathing suit with the lack of leg covering. The only difference was that it did have long sleeves and it covered her neck like a priest-collard shirt. There was a teal stripe that went from the neck all the way down to the crotch. On the left shoulder was the bird symbol printed in gold. There was a golden button at the throat. Around the shoulders were a black leather jacket and laying beneath the mannigan was black line stockings and knee-high boots with a pointed end at the knees.

Helena peeked in and her eyes showed the shock that she was in. “Wow, Dinah. Talking about sexy!”

Dinah liked the costume, but she did not feel comfortable with it since her mother gave her the costume she now was wearing. What would she think if she changed costumes? This costume she was wearing had a history and was given to her. Alfred, sensing the internal struggle approached Dinah and handed her a small hand held device with a single button. It looked more like an average flash drive. “You’re mother sent me this costume to give to you along with this message.”

Her eyes lit up slightly as she pressed the button. Hearing a noise to her left, she looked up and saw the logo high up on the wall slide upwards, to display a flat screen. It turned on and there was a video of her mother. “Hello Dinah. I hope you are finding your way alright. If you are watching this, then chances are that you have met up with everyone. Due to the abruptness of your departure, there was no time to give you what you are now looking at. I made this costume for you. You are now the Black Canary, but you must be your own Black Canary.”

Dinah smiled, wiping a tear from her eyes. “Barbara, I took the liberty to finish the training you started during our time together for this very reason. I know from personal experience that retirement doesn’t settle very well for people like us. You have no idea how much I would love to return to action. Due to health issues, that is no longer a possibility for me. I hope that you, and Helena, and Dinah win the battle against the forces of evil. You will find that Dinah has grown up quite a bit, and is now a young woman. I believe the three of you will work well together to clean the filth of New Gotham. Good luck everyone.”

The screen went black as the logo slid back down in place. Showing support for her friend, Helena wrapped an arm around her and gave her a gentle screen. Alfred commenced the tour to the weapon display. “These weapons were crafted by the finest swordsman in Japan. I think you will agree that they will serve you quite well.”

Helena walked up to one of the displays and pulled down what looked like a samari sword. On the black handle was the logo imprinted in gold. Unsnapping the safety strap, She slowly pulled the sword from it’s sheath and held the sword in hand. Stepping away from everyone, she gently swung the sword as if she was fighting. She gave it a good spinning twirl in front of her and instantly brought it out and down as if delivering the death sentence. “Very nice,” Helena commented putting the sword back into the sheath and back on display.

Alfred led the way to the far left wall where there was a small elevator. There was no need to tour the lab. Barbara knew fully well what she would find there. That would be where she would concoct any antidotes or chemical weapons that might be needed in the fight to clean the streets of New Gotham.

Everyone climbed into the elevated, as Alfred shut the metal screen door. With a push of a button, it slowly made it’s way to the first level beneath the main floor. The first floor was far down since several floors had been cut out to add these advanced security features to hide the platform and vital information from intruders. Once they reached the first level, Alfred stopped the elevator manually. “This floor is where we will eat, drink and sleep. It is well hidden from any possible intruders, and the only way down here is through this elevator. The main elevator does passes these level by.”

Starting the elevator up again, they went down to the next level. As it came in view, there was no need to describe what was down here. It was the exercise level. There were punching bags, wrestling mats, and weight lighting machined. “Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about!” Helena laughed

Alfred brought the elevator to a stop. “Well, this is our last stop of our tour. I hope it meets your needs and expectation.”

Helena shook her head in disbelief with a giant smile on her face. “We owe you and Bruce big time for this.”





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