Batgirl Begins

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

It's going to take a lot of work to get to Rupert Thorne behind bars, and it's certainly not going to be easy. I lean against the window in Sarah's room in ICU with my laptop, tapping my fingers on the case as I think. If they came after Sarah, that means they know where I live too, and probably what I look like, so a stakeout of Thorne's penthouse is out of the question. I sigh and am about to open my laptop to find a place to start when I remember how Dick knew about Sarah.

I quickly pick up my phone and thank myself for not deleting his number.

"You know what to do," His voicemail says followed by a long beep.

"Hey, it's Barbara. I just wanted to call you to say thank you for coming to get me last night and uhhh... we should meet up... maybe you can tell me how you knew about Sarah and how you knew where I was. Call me back."

I hear shuffling coming from the other side of the room and look up to see Sarah slowly opening her eyes. My heart races as I hide my phone. If she knew I was calling Dick Grayson I'd never hear the end of it. I call the nurse, who promptly comes in and checks her condition. When she leaves to get the doctor, there is a long pause as she looks at the bruises on her arms.

"Do I look as bad as I feel?"

"I dunno, how do you feel?"

"Like crap," She laughs, but it turns to a cough as she gently touches her throat, wincing as she touches the bruise, "but I'm glad to be alive. Where's your father?"

"He's putting in the overtime hours trying to hunt down who hurt you."

"Figures."

"You know you'd be doing the same thing if it were dad."

She smiles, then quickly frowns and narrows her eyes, "Why aren't you at school?"

"It's Saturday, and before you lecture me on doing my homework, I already finished it."

"Just doing my job."

Just then my phone buzzes. I pull it out and see it's from Dick, "Just woke up read it online. Would love to meet up to talk about other things ;) " I feel my face heat up as I toss my phone in my bag. I shouldn't have talked about meeting up... wait a second, something's not right.

"Who was that?"

I need to research, but I can't do it with Sarah breathing down my neck. "Uhhh, no one. Just a reminder for myself that I have to... practice. Big gymnastics competition coming up, so yeah. Gotta run! Glad you're okay!"

I grab my things and head out the door before she can respond. I walk a few blocks until I come to a coffee shop by the old Clocktower. I always liked that tower... after I get my tea, I find a spot in the corner and open up my laptop. I go to the Gotham Gazette's website and start looking at articles about Sarah's attack.

All of the ones I found described the attack happening sometime around 5:30, which is about a half hour after my class starts. GCPD was called around 5:50, which is about ten minutes before my class ended. I look at the publishing date of the article: updated today. Crap... well, it makes my job a little harder, but not impossible. I type the author's name into Google to find her office number. I smile as I type the number into my phone.

"Hi, I'm a student at Gotham County, and I'm doing a project about journalism on the internet. I was curious how often the Gazette updates their stories."

"Well, we usually update it as soon as we get more information, especially if it's a breaking story."

"So in the case of your story on Sarah Gordon's attack, how big of a difference was there with the update that is posted now?"